2024 Minor League/Prospects Discussion Thread

McGrath: Now that Manoah and, for the purpose of this question, Pearson, have graduated to the majors, which pitching prospect in the Blue Jays system are you the highest on?

Law: Their system is incredibly skewed toward bats right now. Gunnar Hoglund might be their top pitching prospect now, although there are guys in the lower levels like Eric Pardinho or Sem Robberse who could take that title this year.

The Blue Jays drafted Hoglund, a right-hander, out of Ole Miss in the first round in 2021. He missed most of his season because of Tommy John surgery but evaluators suggest Hoglund has a high probability to remain a starter because of his repeatable delivery and track record of strike-throwing. After Hoglund was drafted, Law wrote, “Once recovered he should be able to move quickly and settle in as a fourth starter, maybe a tick better.”

Pardinho missed most of the 2020 and 2021 seasons, while still working his way back from Tommy John surgery. Interestingly, the Blue Jays chose not to add him to their 40-man roster at the November deadline, leaving him exposed for the Rule 5 draft. However, the lockout forced the draft to be postponed indefinitely. The Blue Jays don’t likely have to worry about losing him since teams wouldn’t be able to keep a 21-year-old who’s missed two seasons and hasn’t pitched above Low A on their 26-man roster all year.

Robberse, 20, a prospect out of the Netherlands, spent his 2021 season split between Low-A Dunedin and High-A Vancouver. He had a 4.36 ERA over 88 2/3 innings between the two levels with 90 strikeouts and 38 walks. Baseball America selected Robberse’s curveball as the best in the entire system.

A clear strength of Toronto’s system is infield prospects. After Moreno, Orelvis Martinez is considered the top position player. In 2021, he hit .261/.345/.549 in 98 games between Low-A Dunedin and High-A Vancouver. In July, he went on a spree and hit 10 home runs in 10 games.

During his midseason rankings, Law wrote of Martinez: “He has tremendous bat speed and the ball comes off his bat extremely well, while he’s played mostly shortstop this year and has the plus arm and soft hands for it … he might move over to third, but this hit/power tool combination is going to play anywhere, and it’s going to come down mostly to how good his plate discipline — which still lags his other tools — becomes.”

McGrath: On the position player side, is there a prospect — perhaps other than Moreno and Orelvis Martinez — who you expect could make significant strides in 2022 who we should all be paying attention to?

Law: Estiven Machado. He played in just one game last summer due to a hamstring injury, but after the Moreno and Orelvis tier, he’s the best bet to take a leap.

In his previous organization ranking Law said of Machado, who was signed as an international free agent in 2019: “He’s quick and athletic, already fairly physical for age 18, with loose hands at the plate and the potential for average power or even a tick more. He’s an average runner but has the hands and arm for shortstop if he can keep his quickness and agility as he gets older.”

In his 2021 organizational rankings, Law had the Blue Jays as the third-best farm system in baseball: “They’ve drafted very well in the last two years, including landing the player I had at No. 1 on my board in 2020 in Austin Martin; they’ve found a slew of high-upside position players in international free agency; and they’ve done well acquiring prospects in trades, enough so that they’ve been able to flip the script and trade away some lower-tier guys in deals.”

McGrath: Your organizational rankings come out in the new year — but can you give us a sneak preview of the Blue Jays system? What are its strengths, its weaknesses and has the loss of Martin and Simeon Woods Richardson hurt?

Law: As I said, it’s almost all position players, which will hurt their overall ranking — they graduated some pitchers and many of the pitchers they already have were hurt or didn’t have good years. The bats, though, are very strong, and deep, from the draft and from international free agency. Losing Martin hurts — I still think there’s upside there, but the truth is he wasn’t as good as advertised this year between the hand injury and a swing change — but I still think Woods Richardson is more likely to end up a reliever.

polo007 · Post #394 » by **polo007** » Tue Jan 4, 2022 6:09 pm

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polo007 · Post #395 » by **polo007** » Sat Jan 15, 2022 3:47 pm

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Kinger95 · Post #396 » by **Kinger95** » Tue Jan 18, 2022 7:40 am

We signed a Johnny bats, gurrera and a guy named eminems . We did good.

polo007 · Post #397 » by **polo007** » Fri Jan 21, 2022 3:30 pm

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polo007 · Post #398 » by **polo007** » Mon Jan 24, 2022 4:45 pm

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rarefind · Post #399 » by **rarefind** » Tue Jan 25, 2022 3:03 pm

Great read on Irv Carter.

Carter joined a select group of prospects to report to the Blue Jays’ fall instructional camp in August. There, at the newly renovated player development complex in Dunedin, Florida—which Carter called "a Ritz-Carlton, but baseball”—he got a taste of his future.

The youngster met his new coaches, teammates, and even some current Blue Jays players, including Teoscar Hernández, whom Carter jokingly called “an animal.”

The encounter with Hernández splashed a bit of reality into his dreams of playing with Jays stars like Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette, or pitching in a rotation alongside Alek Manoah. Even a notable former Blue Jays player took a liking to Carter, too.

One day during rookie camp, as Carter lifted weights at the Jays’ Dunedin complex, he received a text from one of his close friends in New York who was at a separate baseball training camp run by Marcus Stroman.

“Stro’s about to call you,” his friend told him.

https://www.si.com/mlb/bluejays/.amp/analysis/why-prospect-irv-carter-blend-of-ferocity-and-compassion-makes-him-future-toronto-blue-jays-star

polo007 · Post #400 » by **polo007** » Tue Jan 25, 2022 8:54 pm

Scott Mitchell: 12 names that just missed TSN’s 2022 Blue Jays Prospect Rankings - TSN.ca

TORONTO — Weeks of copying and pasting names into different spots results in 50 players making the final cut of our TSN Blue Jays Prospect Rankings every year.

The process usually starts with about 80 prospects to sift through over the winter, and that group eventually gets whittled down to about 55-60 names under legitimate consideration after the research is done and the majority of conversations are wrapped up.

Depending on the state of the system, the difficulty from there has varied from year to year.

Thanks to some trades, graduations, a shortened 2020 draft and the loss of their second-round pick in 2021, there’s less depth in the pipeline than there would have been.

On the heels of prospects Nos. 50 through 31 on Monday, here are 12 prospects who just missed making the top 50 list for 2022.