Chad Dallas keeps impressing in Triple-A, pushes case for Blue Jays rotation spot

Chad Dallas is making the Blue Jays explain why he is still in Buffalo. After another sharp Triple-A outing, the 25-year-old right-hander has put himself squarely into Toronto’s fifth-starter conversation at a time when the big-league rotation has little margin for error.

Dallas has been one of the organization’s most productive upper-level arms early in 2026. In four Triple-A starts, he has posted a 1.35 ERA over 13.1 innings with 15 strikeouts and four walks. MiLB lists him at 3.41 over 29.0 innings in eight appearances, seven of them starts, with 32 strikeouts and a 1.24 WHIP. However the club slices the numbers, the message is the same: Dallas has been missing bats and giving the Blue Jays a reason to keep watching.

The timing matters because Toronto has recently been down to four healthy starters after Eric Lauer’s departure. The only healthy options in the major-league rotation right now are Dylan Cease, Kevin Gausman, Trey Yesavage and Patrick Corbin, which has left manager John Schneider weighing internal help. Schneider has already mentioned Dallas and CJ Van Eyk as potential call-up candidates, and the next fifth-starter turn is coming Thursday in the Bronx.

Dallas’ path back has also made every outing count. He missed the entire 2025 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery, then returned to a starter’s workload in Buffalo. That reset has been part of the evaluation all along. Toronto drafted him in the fourth round in 2021 out of Tennessee, and the club has spent the last several months trying to figure out whether his arm is ready to help at the highest level again.

His recent work has shown both versatility and progress. On May 8, Dallas worked four innings out of the bullpen for Buffalo for the first time this season, allowing one unearned run and striking out six. In a later Triple-A start against Worcester, he gave up one run on two hits and two walks over four innings with five strikeouts. Those are the kinds of lines that keep him in the conversation, but they also show the unfinished part of the case.

Dallas still has to prove he can handle a full starter’s workload consistently and carry that command deeper into games. He is not on the 40-man roster, so any promotion would require an active-roster move. For Toronto, the decision is no longer about whether Dallas has upside. It is about whether Buffalo can keep him long enough to keep using it.