Spring Training C's: 7 Former Arms Get Non-Roster Invites

With the first month of 2026 already come and gone, Spring Training is less than two weeks away. Last week, the Blue Jays released a list of players who received a non-roster invite to big league camp. What’s a non-roster invite? It gives players who aren’t on the team’s 40-man roster – the list of players in an organization that can be called up to the big leagues to fill the 26 spots on the active roster plus injured players and select prospects – a chance to test their mettle against top competition. Think of it like an audition for actors both known and unknown; some players have already participated in previous big league camps while others will be thrown into the fire for the first time.

This year’s list of non-roster invitees features a whopping 16 former Canadians; seven pitchers and nine position players. All of them have played for the C’s in the last five seasons, and many made an outsized impact on Ontario Street during their tenure with the team. Let’s meet the arms who will suit up for the Jays in Dunedin this month.

LHP Javen Coleman

Few relievers in recent memory have made as dominant an impression to start their C’s career than Coleman, 24. The southpaw had an up-and-down start to his pro career last season with Single-A Dunedin, but after he was promoted to Vancouver on June 25 something clicked. Coleman dominated NWL opponents from his very first outing; he didn’t allow a hit for the first 5.2 innings of his High-A tenure and went on to post 40 strikeouts in 25.2 frames over 18 outings in a Canadians uniform. As a high-octane lefty built for pressure-packed moments, he very well could be the next Mason Fluharty (C’s alum, ’22-’23) to roost in the Jays bullpen.

Fun fact: Facial hair often helps a pitcher add to his aura. Already fearsome with a clean-shaven look, you will not find a better pair of mutton chops in all of baseball than the follicles that adorned Javen’s face during his Canadians tenure.

RHP Chad Dallas

Dallas, 25, left a lasting legacy over his two seasons in Vancouver. He kick-started his career with an epic performance in his first-ever start as a pro on April 13, 2022; that night, the righty was unfazed by the blustery conditions in Pasco, WA and twirled five hitless and scoreless innings with eight strikeouts against Tri-City – establishing a career high that would last until his first start of 2023 (when he struck out 11 Dust Devils) – to earn Northwest League Pitcher of the Week honours. He would make 21 starts that season then returned to the C’s in ’23 and posted a 2.03 ERA in 26.2 frames before his call-up to Double-A. The Orange, TX native made it to Triple-A in 2024 before an elbow injury shut him down and eventually led to Tommy John surgery. After missing all of 2025, he has worked back to full strength and has a chance to reestablish himself as one of the top MiLB arms in the system this year.

Fun fact: Dallas has one of the best nicknames in the sport. He’s been known as “Cheese” since his youth baseball days, thanks to the Disney classic The Goofy Movie. He would watch it all the time as a kid and started mimicking this line so much that his friends and family started calling him “Cheddar.” That became Cheese, and the rest is history.

RHP Ryan Jennings

Jennings, 26, is one of those guys who looks like a force to be reckoned before he even throws a pitch. When he first took the mound for the C’s on June 11, 2023 in Everett, the right-hander’s powerfully built lower half propelled him to four innings of one-run ball in the notorious hitter’s haven of Funko Field. An injury limited him to three regular season starts in High-A, but he got healthy in time to take the ball in the fourth game – and eventual clincher – of the Northwest League Championship Series (also against Everett), when he turned in three scoreless and hitless innings with five Ks before the Canadians put the game and season away with five runs in the fourth en route to a 10-2 win. He returned to start 2024 and logged a 2.13 ERA in 11 starts over 50.2 frames before he was promoted to Double-A, where he was converted to a reliever. Last season, he amassed a 3.72 ERA between New Hampshire and Triple-A Buffalo.

Fun fact: Jennings is from New Braunfels, TX, just outside of San Antonio. Not only is it the home of Seattle Mariners pitcher Bryce Miller, but it’s also the location of a Buc-ee’s gas station that was the largest in the world until 2023 and the home base for the principal characters in the move Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over.

RHP Fernando Perez

Don’t mistake Perez’s, 21, soft-spoken demeaner and boyish face for softness on the mound. The right-hander was a stone-cold ace down the stretch for the C’s in 2025, earning Northwest League Pitcher of the Week accolades in early August with a combined 13 strikeouts in 11 scoreless across two starts and turned in a career-high seven strong innings in his final High-A start on August 10 before he was promoted to Double-A two days later. He finished his tenure in Vancouver with a franchise-best 27 consecutive frames without allowing a walk. MLB Pipeline’s #17 Blue Jays prospect was a workhorse that was among NWL leaders in games started, part of why he was named to the league’s postseason All-Star Team. He will be an intriguing arm for the Blue Jays to consider in their not-so-distant future plans.

Fun fact: Perez hails from Rivas, Nicaragua, a country that has produced just 18 Major Leaguers. Rivas is also the hometown of Nicaragua’s first female president Violeta Chamorro.

RHP Gage Stanifer

If 2025 was the Year of Yesavage, 2026 may very well be the Season of Stanifer. The sometimes bespectacled, always nasty righty managed to carve out his own reputation as a rising star despite pitching in Yesavage’s shadow for most of last year. He started the season in Single-A Dunedin, where he served as the “piggybacker” for Toronto’s top prospect; he would come into the game out of the bullpen after Yesavage’s work was done and quickly turned heads as the second half of a potent 1-2 prospect punch. Stanifer kept that role when he was promoted to Vancouver along with Yesavage on May 20 then joined the starting rotation with the Canadians after Trey went to New Hampshire. The Westfield, IN native racked up an eye-popping 115 strikeouts over 76.0 Northwest League innings (an almost illegal 13.6 K/9 rate) then finished the season in Double-A. His numbers with the C’s were good enough to make him an NWL All-Star. If you didn’t know his name before, consider this a guarantee that you’ll be hearing a lot about Stanifer this season.

Fun fact: Gage would eat up to 8,000 calories a day in high school to bulk up, but he’s not all beef and bravado; he has a pet chinchilla named Sammy.

RHP CJ Van Eyk

2021 was a strange time for everyone. With COVID still affecting the globe and the border closed, the C’s resumed play after the cancelled 2020 season with Hillsboro’s Ron Tonkin Field as their home-away-from-home. This is where we first met Van Eyk, who is among a unique group of Canadians alums who never set foot at The Nat. That season, the former Florida State Seminole was heralded as one of Toronto’s top pitching prospects before throwing his first pro pitch. He spent the season with Vancouver and had middling results – he went 4-6 with a 5.83 ERA in 80.1 innings spread over 19 starts. He spent some time on the Injured List, finished the season seemingly healthy then missed all of 2022 due to Tommy John. He returned to the field in 2023 for Double-A New Hampshire then went back to the Fisher Cats in 2024. He would work a career-high 126 innings last year between Double-A and Triple-A, which sets him up for a pivotal 2026 where – while not make or break – his efforts will determine how the rest of his career is going to play out.

Fun fact: CJ stands for Cornelius Johannes, a nod to his Dutch heritage. Van Eyk is loosely translated to “from oak,” which suits the resilient right-hander just fine after battling through multiple bouts of injury.

RHP Chay Yeager

A shut down reliever when he’s at his best, Yeager, 23, initially struggled with command in his first tenure with the C’s two years ago (he walked 33 with 41 Ks in 54 innings). That brought him back to The Nat in 2025, where another year of seasoning quickly established him as an intriguing potential late-inning arm for Toronto’s bullpen. His sparkling 1.77 ERA in 35.2 frames – one of the best ERAs among all Northwest League relievers – paired with 43 punchouts to only 13 walks and a .179 opponent’s batting average were plenty of proof that he was ready for the challenge of the upper Minors. He wrapped up 2025 with 17 outings for the Fisher Cats and will likely return to New Hampshire to start 2026. Another campaign with similarly dominant numbers could rocket him to Triple-A and even the big leagues before the year is out.

Fun fact: Yeager shares a hometown – Fort Wayne, IN – with Blue Jays fan-favorite Kevin Kiermaier, who was coached by Yeager’s dad in peewee football and went to school with his sister. He was a two-way player at Pasco-Hernando State Junior College, where he hit .258 in his final collegiate season.