Galley: Yarmouth's Jeffery pitched in Blue Jays' system
Yarmouth, N.S. native Scott Jeffery pitched three seasons in the Toronto Blue Jays’ organization.
December 13, 2020
By Allen Galley
*Information is taken from various articles from the Daily News and Yarmouth Vanguard as well as Baseball Reference.
Prior to 1991, amateur baseball players playing in Canada were not subject to the draft. These players were free agents, just like any player not from Canada or the United States is today.
A teenaged Scott Jeffery of Yarmouth, N.S. became one of the top amateur pitchers in the country in 1990 when he threw a no-hitter for the first six innings of a game against Ontario at a national tournament. That year he was also the final cut of the national junior team.
He would be invited to Toronto to throw a bullpen session with the Jays and practice with the team prior to a game. The next day (August 10), he was offered a contract which he accepted in an instant. That same fall, the team signed future major leaguers Rob and Rich Butler.
Jeffery would spend the 1991 and 1992 baseball seasons playing for the team’s Gulf Coast League in Dunedin, Fla. The lefthander would put up decent numbers in that league. He would go 4-5 with a 4.02 ERA and 31 strikeouts in 53 2/3 innings in his rookie year.
Jeffery would follow that up with a 2-1 record with 5.06 ERA and 31 strikeouts in 32 innings in 1992. That season he actually got one base hit (in one at bat), scoring a run in the process.
In 1993, as a 19-year-old, he would play for the Medicine Hat Blue Jays of the Pioneer League. He would go 1-4, with a 4.18 ERA with 21 strikeouts in 28 innings.
Jeffery would go 1-for-1 at the plate again this season. This season he tried to keep the ball lower in the strike zone as the coaches’ the previous year said he kept the ball too high. As a middle reliever, Jeffery got to pitch two or three innings every three or so games in Medicine Hat. The 1993 season was the team’s first winning season in 10 years and Jeffery would help them set a team record for fewest runs allowed.
After leaving the Blue Jays organization, he would play a couple of seasons with the Yarmouth Gateways then of the Nova Scotia Senior League. He was the NSSBL MVP for both seasons. He would stop playing baseball after that, finding all the travel difficult when he was working full time and starting a family.