Poll: The Most Untouchable Jays Prospect?

[Wally West]

To me, it came down to either Anthony Gose or Noah Syndergaard. I tipped my hat off to Syndergaard because of how much our management love pitching and out of all the pitching prospects we have, Syndergaard possesses the most upside which is basically unlimited potential. A 19 year old touching 100mph with his fastball, has all the tools to throw 4+ pitches for strikes and potentially lead our staff for the next decade. Who'd you guys pick and why?

[flatjacket1]

D'Arnaud.

Hes our best prospect and fits (in my opinion) a position of need. Hes also one of the closest the the Majors, he is near can't miss.

[Moxie]

None of them are in the Strasburg/Harper tier, so I'd say nobody.

[Weems]

D'Arnaud.

Hes our best prospect and fits (in my opinion) a position of need. Hes also one of the closest the the Majors, he is near can't miss.

Seconded.

Also, what the Hech?

[Randle McMurphy]

None of them are untouchable. The best prospect (by far) is Travis D'Arnaud.

[Nolan]

None of them are untouchable. The best prospect (by far) is Travis D'Arnaud.

^
This.

[UN-Owen]

If Drabek isn't a prospect, what is he?

[Randle McMurphy]

If Drabek isn't a prospect, what is he?

A guy who had an awful rookie season.

[satyr9]

Well I'd say none too. D'Arnaud is top of the heap, but he'd be moved for the right piece. A guy like Syndergaard might be more "untouchable," but only because of what he'd be worth now and what the team thinks he'll be worth in another year or two. That's not really untouchable since if they got the value they wanted they'd move him too, but their favourite young arms in the lower minors might be closer to untradeable than D'Arnaud is.

And I'm not overly confident I'm right about that either.

Lawrie's the one prospect (or just not a prospect now) who'd be the only guy that's come through you might call actually untouchable. I mean they'd move him for Longoria and a hand full of others, but he'd be an awfully tough get for another team.

[FreeAgent]

Synderlander for me. (no, not a typo)

D'Arnaud and Hutchinson 2nd and 3rd.

[kwamebargnani]

Syndergaard. His potential is too huge to trade right now when his value isn't really high.

[Lateral Quicks]

d'Arnaud is of course the best prospect, but I wouldn't call him untouchable because we already have a young, controllable and pretty good catcher in JPA.

I'd go with Marisnick. Legitimate 5-tool 20-year-old who put up beastly season. Sure it was only in low-A ball, but his combination of age/performance/tools is extremely rare. Jays are more likely to move a pitcher like Syndegaard due to SP depth in the minors... Marisnick is a much rarer commodity.

[flatjacket1]

d'Arnaud is of course the best prospect, but I wouldn't call him untouchable because we already have a young, controllable and pretty good catcher in JPA.

I'd go with Marisnick. Legitimate 5-tool 20-year-old who put up beastly season. Sure it was only in low-A ball, but his combination of age/performance/tools is extremely rare. Jays are more likely to move a pitcher like Syndegaard due to SP depth in the minors... Marisnick is a much rarer commodity.

Its arguable whether or not JPA is "pretty good". Both him and Lind finished with a sub-300 OBP and D'arnaud could potentially be a hitter who can hit for close to .300 in the Majors. I wouldn't be surprised if D'arnaud finishes the season with a better AVG than JP's OBP.

The way I look at it is if Lind is bad, so is JPA. He is also 25 years old right? I think hes 25, if he actually is, hes near the top of the aging curve.

[Lateral Quicks]

d'Arnaud is of course the best prospect, but I wouldn't call him untouchable because we already have a young, controllable and pretty good catcher in JPA.

I'd go with Marisnick. Legitimate 5-tool 20-year-old who put up beastly season. Sure it was only in low-A ball, but his combination of age/performance/tools is extremely rare. Jays are more likely to move a pitcher like Syndegaard due to SP depth in the minors... Marisnick is a much rarer commodity.

Its arguable whether or not JPA is "pretty good". Both him and Lind finished with a sub-300 OBP and D'arnaud could potentially be a hitter who can hit for close to .300 in the Majors. I wouldn't be surprised if D'arnaud finishes the season with a better AVG than JP's OBP.

The way I look at it is if Lind is bad, so is JPA. He is also 25 years old right? I think hes 25, if he actually is, hes near the top of the aging curve.

I agree to an extent, but you're comparing apples and oranges. JPA's production at catcher in his first major league season was pretty good for that position. Lind's production was horrible for a first baseman.

I think most teams in the league would take 20-25 HR's year in, year out from the catcher position, even at the expense of average. I also think JPA was dealing with an injury for most of the second half... if he could bump that average up to .250 while maintaining his power, he'd be one of the best offensive catchers in the league.

[James_Raptors]

I swear I meant to click on Travis D'arnaud but it came up as Hutchison.

[Wally West]

I didn't realize that I wasn't the only Noah Syndergaard enthusiast on this board. Great stuff! I like D'arnaud just as much as any prospect we have but with the amount of catching depth we have in our system, if the right deal came up I wouldn't be surprised if D'arnaud was moved. In terms of upside, I don't think anyone in our system has a higher ceiling than what Syndergaard or even Anthony Gose has. I think that's why I see AA being more reluntant to move them more then he would D'arnaud simply because of the fact that he loves those high ceiling projectable guys. D'arnaud has a high ceiling in his own right though don't get me wrong but not on the level of a Syndergaard or even Gose.

[chhoon]

what exactly is going to happen to JP when d'arnaud comes up?

[Wally West]

what exactly is going to happen to JP when d'arnaud comes up?

That too. It'll really be interesting what happens next offseason. That's why I don't see D'arnaud as untouchable at all.

[LBJSeizedMyID]

what exactly is going to happen to JP when d'arnaud comes up?

He will become expendable. Travis D'Arnaud a much better defender and all around hitter than JPA.

[flatjacket1]

I agree to an extent, but you're comparing apples and oranges. JPA's production at catcher in his first major league season was pretty good for that position. Lind's production was horrible for a first baseman.

I think most teams in the league would take 20-25 HR's year in, year out from the catcher position, even at the expense of average. I also think JPA was dealing with an injury for most of the second half... if he could bump that average up to .250 while maintaining his power, he'd be one of the best offensive catchers in the league.

Sure but as you know with baseball, 25 is around the age where they don't see much gains. The Blue Jays draft strategy involves selecting players who are born in certain months (youngest) that mean that they are almost a full year younger than their peers at all levels of their life. (Even wonder why we gave up a #1 for Lawrie? He fits the profile, just like most of the kids from out West. There high school system must be different?)

Anyways, the point is neither Thames or JP will improve much. Of course it is possible that JP had a bad year and played under his talent level and will eventually be compensated (variance) but he doesn't seem like he will have many seasons north of .300 OBP unless his power numbers come down.

Lind's production was terrible and he comes at a position where you need a bat to anchor the offense and expect more production, but the fact is both players stank at getting on base. I think its time to turn it over to cost effective Cooper personally, until the hole can be plugged via FA or internally (Which could be sooner rather than later considering the abundance of position talented players, some of which can't defend (Thames)).

See, this is very debatable. Sure JP plays what traditionally is a powerless, averageless position, but does that mean that a one dimensional stat like home runs can properly gauge effectiveness? The truth of the matter is that all encompassing stats such as WAR, he only rings in a 0.9 WAR. He struck out a lot, passed the ball a lot and didn't save us on any wild pitches (WP is another great stat to judge catchers.). His pitch framing is also apparently terrible according to that recent report. He cost us -12.9 runs compared to Jeff Mathis +19.2. That's a difference of 32.1 runs just on framing pitches. I'm not sure how to weigh wild pitches, passed balls, but I expect that it would be 50+ runs different using JP over Jeff Mathis. Don't even mention game calling (Which is another stat which used out of context is useless but the idea itself is true. Some call the game better than others).

Catcher is the one position where defense actually matters a lot. JP's 23 home runs were great and all, but not only is that terrible when combined with a .282 OBP, but even worse when you consider that JP is one of the worst catchers in the game. They are used every pitch of the game, so this is why I think having a good one is a key to success.

I don't think we trade JP yet, but I think D'Arnaud should be kept around just because we can't look at JP and think "Yeh, this position's set". If he doesn't improve (which is likely considering his age) considerably offensively or defensively**** we need a real alternative. We happen to have one of the best catching prospects in the game in our farm system, and on top of that he is probably better than JP right now (if inserted to the MLB right away). I wouldn't skip AAA with him but I don't expect him to stay there the whole season.