For the Blue Jays, this prospect's trajectory is out of this world

DUNEDIN, Fla. - Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider was taken aback during an exhibition contest earlier this spring. He couldn't believe who Sportsnet selected for an in-game interview.

"I was giving Hazel (Mae), Buck (Martinez) and Dan (Shulman) a little bit of crap," Schneider said following the game. "No. 83 in a midgame interview? I guess they didn't want to talk to Bo or Vlad."

Players wearing 83 don't generate much media interest in the spring. Players don't usually get their pick of numbers until a team adds them to the 40-man roster.

But Alan Roden is making 83 noticeable in the Blue Jays camp.

The outfield prospect is hitting .412 with two home runs and has struck out just once in 25 plate appearances entering play Thursday.

For a team needing internally developed impact players, Roden appears MLB-ready with a mature approach at the plate, elite contact skills (93% zone contact in Triple-A last year), surprising athleticism, and burgeoning power. The Jays haven't drafted an impact position player since Bo Bichette in 2016.

What more does Schneider want to see next from Roden?

"Well, he's doing interviews in the middle of games," quipped Schneider, who went on to praise his strike-zone awareness and swing decisions.

Roden's standing in the organization recently rocketed from a relatively unknown third-round pick out of Creighton in 2022 to becoming Baseball America's No. 8 prospect in the Jays' system entering the spring.

He opened eyes when he slashed .317/.430/.459 with 10 homers and 24 steals in 2023 while playing at High-A and Double-A.

Roden followed that up with a .293/.391/.475 slash line at Double-A and Triple-A last season.

That Roden is getting the most of his 5-foot-10, short-armed frame shouldn't be surprising. He's one of the brightest players in the system and likely the only professional baseball player who studied astrophysics in college.

At Creighton, his academic research focused on quasars, supermassive black holes found at the center of galaxies.

"I ran simulations and did some data collection, real data, and compared the two," Roden said as I nodded, feigning understanding. "I tried to figure out what the accretion method was."

Was his passion for deep space the subject of discussion during minor-league bus rides?

"You say a couple of sentences, and you get a 'Cool man,'" Roden said.

What did grab the Jays' attention was the mature approach he demonstrated at Creighton. Roden has since added more power to his bat, boosting his profile. Part of that growth was to add a leg kick to his swing in 2023. He responded with double-digit home runs - a level he never reached in college.

Has his physics background helped in this era of tracking everything swing and batted ball?

"It allows me to think about things in a way others might not, or a majority might not," Roden said. "It allows you to think about angles at contact with your swing, what angles are you hitting the ball at."

Roden's father, Eric, teaches biogeochemistry at the University of Wisconsin. His mother, Matilde Urrutia, now retired, studied soil sciences.

While he didn't follow his parents into agricultural science, they taught him to be process-oriented and data based.

For instance, Roden doubled his home-run-to-fly-ball ratio last year as he learned to optimize his batted-ball outcomes better in the second year of a swing overhaul.

"I think just ball-striking, shaping the ball off bat," Roden said of his most important skill improvement last year. "Even when you're hitting it hard, where is it going? Instead of pulling it hard on the ground, you get some of those in the air."

Roden is also better at zeroing in on pitches he can punish, which helps him add power. He does his most damage against breaking balls down in the zone. And he's trying to become less vulnerable to fastballs above the zone, one of the few holes in his swing.

Roden might be a long shot to break camp, but his rocket-like trajectory suggests a debut is imminent.

Travis Sawchik is theScore's senior baseball writer.