Gabriel Moreno Grows Leadership Skills, Versatility

As Gabriel Moreno dominated Double-A Northeast through the first two months of the season, Blue Jays farm director Gil Kim kept wondering if league pitchers would find a way to slow the 21-year-old catcher. 

A fractured left thumb on June 25 deprived Toronto of an answer. Moreno missed the rest of the season but returned to terrorize pitchers in the Arizona Fall League. 

“There’s tremendous benefit and advantage in increasing his reps behind the plate and in him continuing to hone his swing decisions,” Kim said. “We definitely see a development benefit (in the AFL) as well as generally making up for lost time.” 

Moreno was batting .373/.441/.651 through 32 games with New Hampshire before the injury, and the organization was already discussing a promotion. The downtime ended that conversation, and by the time he was ready to return in September, Triple-A Buffalo was the only place for him to go. 

He appeared in three games for the Bisons, then headed to Arizona.

Intriguingly, Moreno will take regular infield while primarily catching with Mesa, extending the work he did at the Blue Jays’ complex in Dunedin, Fla. He played one game at third base for New Hampshire and could potentially see some action there in the AFL. 

The Blue Jays are relatively deep behind the plate with Danny Jansen, Alejandro Kirk and Reese McGuire finishing the year in the majors, but they have holes at third base and potentially at second base if Marcus Semien departs as a free agent. 

While the hot corner “is not (Moreno’s) primary position, it is an option that maybe down the road will be in play,” Kim said. “Right now we’re focused on catching, but as we’ve seen, maximizing versatility is huge.” 

Kim said the Blue Jays were most pleased by Moreno’s “step up in leadership and routines” this season, despite his youth, particularly in “being able to get on the same page with the pitching staff and the coaching staff, review how we’re going to attack the group of hitters that night, and review the next day how that went and being accountable to that.”