Blue Jays (53-55) @ Tampa Bay (56-52) | AUG 7-9

[JoeyBats]

AA should stop rushing prospects FFS. He practically ruined Alvarez.

I agree, they should follow the Rays approach. Don't bring anyone to the Major until they threw 170ish innings in one season and an offspeed pitch.

[RapsFanInVA]

Rays always own us. At least we have the Yankees up next so we can end this skid.

[Lateral Quicks]

12 hits over 3 games. There's no other way to describe it: that was a terrible performance.

We can only hope that all the losing to come will result in Farrell getting the hook. Unfortunately I don't think it will.

[Raider917]

is there a way to fix this rotation in one winter?

[Randle McMurphy]

Been a great time with Mathis as the starting catcher, hasn't it? This was what everyone was dying to see all year.

You know, I'm kind of glad that Gose and Hechavarria are up and failing as bad as they are, though. Hopefully this will make the team realize that they can't run with those two as starters next season (as they might have been planning). They're just pitiful offensive players right now and still need serious development in that area to play here.

[Schad]

AA should stop rushing prospects FFS. He practically ruined Alvarez.

We need to get the hell out of Las Vegas so that we can normalize the development curve of these kids. Because right now, we're getting to the point where our pitching prospects are (quickly) too good to learn much in AA, at which point they're going straight to the bigs because you can't learn much in an environment where breaking stuff don't break. And hitting prospects are breezing through the desert in a fashion that suggests that they are ready (see Hech's sudden jump in performance after getting promoted from AA) when they're some distance away. AAA is supposed to be finishing school, but Las Vegas is a goddamned ball pit.

With a whole generation of prospects within a couple years of hitting AAA, this absolutely needs to be addressed this off-season...I'd go so far as to say that it might be the move that has the most impact on our future.

[Randle McMurphy]

Supposedly they've been trying to get into Buffalo for a while. Of course, these things have to be mutual...

[Schad]

Supposedly they've been trying to get into Buffalo for a while. Of course, these things have to be mutual...

Yeah, I like the odds of swiping Buffalo from the Mets...Coca-Cola Field is rather massive for a minor league park, and they could do with a more competitive squad. Needs to be a Plan B, though; Las Vegas (hell, the PCL in general) isn't an option.

[Wo1verine]

They need to bring the AAA team Ottawa, haha
I think any team would do better there if the team was affiliated with Toronto.

[JoeyBats]

Why did we leave Syracuse in the first place ? That would be a good fit. Other teams that could fit are Rochester, Buffalo. I guess Lehigh Valley, in Pennsylvania could work.

[Schad]

Why did we leave Syracuse in the first place ? That would be a good fit. Other teams that could fit are Rochester, Buffalo. I guess Lehigh Valley, in Pennsylvania could work also.

We didn't leave Syracuse, Syracuse left us. That was the era where our upper minors were filled with players who could be called AAAA guys only if you're rather charitable (old and bad is probably a better descriptor), so they went with the up-and-coming Natinals instead, who were more likely to bring through kids that would provide an attendance boost. That provoked a game of musical chairs, with Las Vegas as the prize for worst place.

[JoeyBats]

Why did we leave Syracuse in the first place ? That would be a good fit. Other teams that could fit are Rochester, Buffalo. I guess Lehigh Valley, in Pennsylvania could work also.

We didn't leave Syracuse, Syracuse left us. That was the era where our upper minors were filled with players who could be called AAAA guys only if you're rather charitable (old and bad is probably a better descriptor), so they went with the up-and-coming Natinals instead, who were more likely to bring through kids that would provide an attendance boost. That provoked a game of musical chairs, with Las Vegas as the prize for worst place.

Another reason to blame JP Retardy for the backward development of the Jays.

Continuing my Google search for an AAA team, I found out the Jays are interested in Ottawa Fat Cats. They would be an expansion team in AAA international league, which would be the best-case scenario.

[dagger]

AA should stop rushing prospects FFS. He practically ruined Alvarez.

We need to get the hell out of Las Vegas so that we can normalize the development curve of these kids. Because right now, we're getting to the point where our pitching prospects are (quickly) too good to learn much in AA, at which point they're going straight to the bigs because you can't learn much in an environment where breaking stuff don't break. And hitting prospects are breezing through the desert in a fashion that suggests that they are ready (see Hech's sudden jump in performance after getting promoted from AA) when they're some distance away. AAA is supposed to be finishing school, but Las Vegas is a goddamned ball pit.

With a whole generation of prospects within a couple years of hitting AAA, this absolutely needs to be addressed this off-season...I'd go so far as to say that it might be the move that has the most impact on our future.

I couldn''t agree more, the whole Vegas thing has a distorting effect on both offence and defence, and since some parts of the PCL mimic Vegas, players get drummed into them that their numbers are not real. You got a guy like McDade who actually raises his average moving up to the PCL, which is nice, he made progress at the Double A level this year, but these kinds of anomalies make it hard to judge a player's progress and unfortunately, don't help with trade value since every GM understands that it produces AAAA hitters as well as major leaguers.

I hope, however, we don't put all of the emphasis on Vegas and altitude. I'm a bit concerned about the player development aspect of this organization. I think we draft well, but I'm concerned about players stagnating once they are in the system. Player development is a complex thing, but it concerns me organizations like Tampa Bay are turning out Moores and Jennings while our recent first rounders back to the late Riccardi era aren't amounting to much even when they make a major league roster. Watching Jenkins and McGuire flatline at Double A, looking around the organization for solid, projectable bats and seeing few, makes me wonder about the handoff from the draft to the development process.

[BigLeagueChew]

Ottawa doesn't have AAA ball right now, just IBL, which is below A ball and most rookie ball leagues as far as caliber of ball players. They all work jobs outside of ball and play weekend games. I think Ottawa could support a AAA team again, however, earlier this summer Anthopoulos didn't really seem that interested in an Ottawa team.

Edit: Ottawa is trying to get a AA team here for 2014

[JoeyBats]

Ottawa doesn't have AAA ball right now, just IBL, which is below A ball and most rookie ball leagues as far as caliber of ball players. They all work jobs outside of ball and play weekend games. I think Ottawa could support a AAA team again, however, earlier this summer Anthopoulos didn't really seem that interested in an Ottawa team.

Edit: Ottawa is trying to get a AA team here for 2014

Couldn't we just replace their whole roaster with AAA and AAAA players and force them to be a AAA team ?

[Schad]

I disagree about development at the lower levels; we do a pretty good job of turning draftees into prospects. We're definitely not turning prospects into big leaguers at a great rate, and while that's hardly unique (pitchers getting mauled on the high-A to double-A transition, in particular, is a league-wide thing) it's a definite cause for concern with a whole generation of kids who're going to be hitting the level in the next two years.

Long story short, I disagree that we're failing them at the lower levels; part of the reason we don't have many solid, projectable bats working their way through the system is that we haven't been drafting many solid, projectable bats. From 2009-2011, these are the sum total of the position players we've taken in the top ten rounds (round, pick in parenthesis):

2008

David Cooper (1, 17): Though I don't particularly like the guy, it's hard to consider him poorly-developed.
Kenny Wilson (2, 63): Epitome of the "runs fast, not good at baseball" gamble, though he's actually coming around a little, where coming around = probably won't be out of pro ball after August.
Mark Sobolewski (4, 129): Might have a future. Not a particularly bright one, mind, but he could crack a roster at some point.
Markus Brisker (6, 189): Sucks.
Eric Thames (7, 219): Big leaguer, if a prosaic one.
AJ Jimenez (9, 249): Development isn't his problem...staying healthy is.

2009

Jake Marisnick (3, 104): Stumbling in AA, but young, development curve looks pretty good.
Ryan Goins (4, 130): Looked like a future backup when drafted. Looks like a future AAAA player now.
Ryan Schimpf (5, 160): See Goins, Ryan.
KC Hobson (6, 190): Power bat with some ceiling, bit of a longshot. Kinda not very good.
Yan Gomes (10, 310): Merely appearing in the bigs beats what I'd expected from him.

2010

Kellen Sweeney (2s, 69): Huge disappointment, definitely; had high hopes, but he blows.
Chris Hawkins (3, 93): Too early to say. Solid last year, meh this year.
Marcus Knecht (3s, 113): Good last year, very disappointing this year. Still loads of power potential, if he can learn to hit the ball (which is a surprise, as he was thought to have good contact skills out of juco).
Dickie Thon (5, 156): Not looking good.
Brandon Sims (9, 276): Goodbye, sweet swaggy prince.

2011

Jacob Anderson (1s, 35): That he had contact problems out of HS was not a secret, so his contact problems in the pros aren't a surprise. We swung big, as does Anderson.
Dwight Smith (1s, 53): Meh. Hits ball, ball goes nowhere.
Christian Lopes (7, 229): Promising start, much data needed.



Ultimately, is that a poor job of developing talent? Not really, IMO; we've whiffed on a few high-upside kiddies, without question, but that's the nature of the beast. Overall, the promise-to-bust-to-middling ratios look about what you'd expect, and we've refined some pretty ragged talent in recent years (thinking Gose and McDade in particular, and Hech has made strides). I'm tempted to chalk the majority of it up to our rather extreme focus on pitching talent, which has been a success at the lower end of the scale. It's been the jump to the upper minors/majors that has bedeviled us thus far.

[Michael Bradley]

AA should stop rushing prospects FFS. He practically ruined Alvarez.

We need to get the hell out of Las Vegas so that we can normalize the development curve of these kids. Because right now, we're getting to the point where our pitching prospects are (quickly) too good to learn much in AA, at which point they're going straight to the bigs because you can't learn much in an environment where breaking stuff don't break. And hitting prospects are breezing through the desert in a fashion that suggests that they are ready (see Hech's sudden jump in performance after getting promoted from AA) when they're some distance away. AAA is supposed to be finishing school, but Las Vegas is a goddamned ball pit.

With a whole generation of prospects within a couple years of hitting AAA, this absolutely needs to be addressed this off-season...I'd go so far as to say that it might be the move that has the most impact on our future.

Agreed completely. Having pitchers jump from Double-A to the bigs is hurting the Jays badly right now. Alvarez has stunk, Hutchison was decent until he got hurt, and Drabek went from top 30 prospect to a pitcher who couldn't get through 4 innings without throwing 100 pitches (and he also got hurt). Not only are the Jays rushing these pitchers before they get serious professional innings under their belt but it is taking a year away from their development. Alvarez for example could have used at least another year in the minors to develop a strike out pitch. Instead they made him avoid Vegas and had him develop in the big leagues, which has resulted in a 3.0 K/9 and shoddy results.

The Jays will finally have front-end pitching prospects in a year or two when the Lansing Three, Norris, etc, start to get to the higher minors. The team desperately needs to have a neutral AAA park by then.