Baseball Prospectus - Blue Jays Top 20 List
Kevin Goldstein over at BP has his Top 11 (and nine more) Blue Jays prospect list up - and even better, it's one of the few team reports not behind the paywall, so all the reports are accessible. Overall, things look about how I would have expected, no real surprises.
4 months ago
MjwW
46 comments
0 recs |
Email
PrintComments
LOVE his summary of Marisnick’s tools:
Tools Profile: Yes; all of them.
As a Toronto sports fan I proudly follow the lessons of lachrymology.
"Vancouver, BC: A massive inferiority complex with a city." - TheOtherAndrew
William of Nassau am I, of Dutch blood. Loyal to the fatherland I will remain until I die.
My couple thoughts
- I’d have Nicolino above Hutchison, but that’s but no means an established consensus
- Goldstein rightly notes that Norris is likely to start in short season, but could you imagine a rotation of him, Syndergaard, Nicolino and Sanchez at Lansing?
- Not to relitigate old debates around here, but I like Marisnick over Gose rankings
- Cardona at #9 seems a bit agressive to me, but this is consistent with KG’s philsophy (he had Luis heredia as a 5-Star prospect, Norris at #3, and Comer higher than consensus as well)
- In his Top 5 Talents under 25, he notes that Lawrie is “six years from his prime, which will still likely come in an outfield corner”. I would how current that is, considering it was the industry consensus last year, but by the middle of the year there were positive reports of him at 3rd (Sickels who saw him in person) and he looked fine in his big league time. The only thing I can think is if the Jays put him there to cut down on injury risk.
Not sure about Nicolino's ceiling
if his ceiling is more like a #2 than an ace, then I’m fine with Hutchison being above him, just because he’s closer.
I don’t think it’s a stretch to say Lawrie would be a COF in his late 20s, but who knows.
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
yeah, agreed about Lawrie's defense
he looked at least average in the Majors, and metrics went absolutely nuts over him. maybe he’ll have to move when he’s like 28, but who knows.
and the Marisnick/Gose thing… really a matter of preference, IMO. Gose “only” needs to keep up his 2011 production with the level of competition increases to be a monster
Lawrie moving to the OF in the distant future
Probably depends on who they have in the system to play 3rd. If they have a really good prospect and an opening in the outfield, they might do it. If not, Lawrie might stay put. I mean, if the Tigers are thinking that Cabrera can play third, there’s no reason not to expect Lawrie to be able to play it too.
I think he looked good at third, especially considering it was his first year playing the position. I expect more experience this year will help him.
Matt Dean?
As it stands right now, that’s it right? And he’s wayyyy down there, whereas the OF is starting to look crowded as Gose and Marisnick keep climbing. Obviously, if there’s a trade what I just said means nothing, but right now Lawrie should stay at third until he proves he can’t handle it or someone can handle it better.
by T_Mizz on Jan 26, 2012 11:50 AM EST via mobile up reply actions
Worse than who?
And yeah, the kid didn’t even hit, it’s looking bleak for him.
Epic Fail on my part
That should have have – “Probably the only guy in the organization who had a worse year defensively than EE in the infield”. Absolutely brutal. And yeah, the bat didn’t play either
We've drafted/signed a lot of SS prospects who may not stick there
Number of them at the lower levels – guys like Christian Lopes. I wouldn’t worry about the depth chart for now.
That's exactly what I'm saying
Dawel Lugo, Gabriel Cenas, Kellen Sweeney, etc. The list goes on, but my point is all of these guys are way too far away from the conversation of supplanting Lawrie. But, Marisnick and Gose in the OF are much, much more probable.
That was sort of my point
Right now, there’s no replacement at 3rd in sight, and that’s fine because I see Lawrie being at least decent at 3B defense for the foreseeable future. As long as he’s either capable on defense or mashing the ball on offense, there’s really no need to move him either.
Now, if the Jays get lucky and get a monster 3B prospect (via draft or trade), then you might consider moving Lawrie when that prospect is ready for MLB. But I’ll say it again, right now, that player is nowhere in sight.
Really hoping
that other owners in my fantasy leagues aren’t reading these true reports and stick with MLB.com. There’s a few players on this list that I’m targeting.
I’m going to be sad to see JPA go. Wondering how soon that will happen.
I wouldn't count the chickens
TDA is a great prospect, but has an injury history and goodness knows this organization has had countless can’t miss catching prospects fail to develop as expected or at all in the past 10 or 15 years. So let’s hope things go well, but it’s very pleasant having JPA as the “fallback”
if TDA flames out
we’ll just trade him for a light hitting utility player
by benk on Jan 26, 2012 9:39 AM EST up reply actions 3 recs
I say it all the time
but the best part of the whole Jose deal is how he was on track to be non-tendered after 2009
What does this mean?
but some believe pitching backward occasionally could keep hitters on their toes.
Goldstein on McGuire. Say what?
exactly what it sounds like
occasionally throwing the ball towards home plate, while facing centre field, would surprise hitters
by benk on Jan 26, 2012 1:35 PM EST up reply actions 3 recs
Usually, pitchers are encouraged to establish the fastball, and use that to get ahead in the count, and then use the secondary pitches (curve, slider, change) to keep batters honest and finish them off.
Pitching backwards refers to using the secondary pitches early in counts, and then using the fastball as more of a finishing pitch (once you’re ahead in the count) – ie, have the batter thinking secondary and blow a fastball by them. This can work, but you have to be able to consistently locate the secondaries, and the batters can’t be sitting on the secondaries or they’ll hammer mistakes and pitches that aren’t very well located
by MjwW on Jan 26, 2012 1:55 PM EST up reply actions 3 recs
My couple thoughts
they aren’t up to the MjwW standard, but here they are:
- Goldstein really likes the 2011 draftees, with 6 in the top 20. For a system that’s as deep as ours, that’s a lot of draftees.
- Hechavarria is surprisingly low to me- we all know about his offensive limitations, but given his position and defence, he still seems likely to be an average ML starter. I’m surprised to see him ranked behind players like Dean, Dwight Smith Jr., Musgrove and Wojciechowski
- Putting aside the draftees, Goldstein’s aggressive ranking of Marisnick, Cardona and Syndergaard shows confidence in the tools of some of our younger prospects and a preference for risk/reward guys over more polished prospects.
- Goldstein is as annoyed with the PCL run environment as any of us.
Dwight Smith
I never got his appeal. Every scouting report I’ve read has said he’s a good hitter but he’ll never have power, and then that he doesn’t have speed, and that he doesn’t have the defense to play anything but left field. I never got that? Even if he hits .300 if he doesn’t have power or speed and plays left field is that good?
The pick was somewhat out of left field
I recall reading some feel he’s the best pure hitter the Jays drafted this year. I’m guessing the Jays think the power will some. We’ll see once he starts playing pro ball – I’m willing to give the Jays’ scouts the benefit of the doubt.
Every scouting report I’ve read has said he’s a good hitter but he’ll never have power
Where did you read that? While not a large sample size, I could see power develop after looking at his swing in this video. He’s got good bat speed, stays compact with good hip rotation, and it looks like he pushes off of his back leg pretty well. Here’s another video, and this one of him hitting a home run.
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."
- Niels Bohr
Sorry, unauthorized hotlinking of copyrighted material not permitted.
sorry meant to put "major power"
Meaning power you’d expect from a big leaguer at a power position, such as LF.
by T_Mizz on Jan 27, 2012 2:06 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Oh okay
That makes sense.
"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question that divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct."
- Niels Bohr
Sorry, unauthorized hotlinking of copyrighted material not permitted.
Best case scenario
Johnny Damon without the stolen bases?
.300/.360/.420 would be a pretty decent left fielder.
In the BP podcast
Goldstein said that the 3 star for the jays goes all the way through 20, so I don’t think 20 for the Jays is similar to 20 for another team.
His 2011 wRC+ is 26
I think I'm late to the party here, but...
-Haven’t seen Smith live myself (my budget is a little too limited for me to be catching every Georgia prep kid) but I talked to a scout who gushed about Smith. Said he had a pretty left-handed swing and “a huge ceiling.” Had some very high praise and thought he could emerge as a top prospect in 2012. Got a couple other positive tidbits from other people, too. Don’t overlook Smith.
-Dean was probably a supplemental round kind of talent who fell only because everyone thought he was headed to Texas. Great looking swing and lots of things you like to see in a prep 3B.
-The Jays really need to get out of Vegas.
Mets actually seem like a good fit in Buffalo... but Syracuse makes some sense eventually.
Rochester is kind of a special case with their history, but I’m sure the Jays would love for that to be able to happen down the road, too. Getting a IL team back into Ottawa would probably be the ideal situation, but I’m not sure that’s happening anytime soon.
I’m sure you guys are aware, but even forgetting the nonsense run scoring environment of LV that makes talent evaluation difficult, its also inconvenient on a number of other levels. Instead of driving a couple/few hours or hopping on a short flight players, scouts and FO personnel have to take a 5 hour flight to and from the US Southwest. Its a pain in the butt for all those people and also can prevent the team from calling someone up at the last minute or having a minor league come to the Rogers Centre and be “on call” if a guy on the 25 man isn’t feeling well or for whatever reason is a game time decision.
Apparently
There are rumblings that the Buffalo ownership is unhappy with the Mets commitment, so they might be open to switching. Geographically, it’s almost perfect. The problem with Syracuse could be the history – there was a 31 year affiliation that came to an end after 2008, so who knows if that’s a viable option. Not sure what you mean by the history with Rochester – appears to me they’ve only been affiliated with Minnesota since 2003.
As for Ottawa, I think that certainly makes a lot of sense. It’s not as ideal in terms of geographical distance, but it fits with what Rogers is trying to do in billing the Jays as Canada’s team. I just don’t know if there’s a team to be moved, but the stadium is there and it’s worked. I also wonder if Montreal’s a possibility, in the same vein. There was a long history, pre-Expos of minor league ball in Montreal, but then again Montreal has changed a lot and I don’t know if MiLB might be seen as too small-town (similar to how the CFL is overlooked some in Toronto) . Also, Rogers doesn;t have as strong a media presence there, so the cross-platform thing doesn’t apply to the same extent.
Vegas…yeah, that was just the game of musical chairs. Luckily, it didn’t really stop the Jays from calling someone up on little notice…it just meant that poor Mike McCoy made about ten roundtrips between Toronto and Vegas.
Comments For This Post Are Closed
Secondary Sidebar
User Tools
FanPosts
Community blog posts and discussion.
Recommended FanPosts
Recent FanPosts
Baseball Nation Recent Stories
In Association With
Big League Stew - MLB - Yahoo! Sports
- Giancarlo Stanton misses cutoff man, and Logan Morrison is thankful he did (Video)
- Snoop Dogg delivers memorable first pitch at U.S. Cellular Field
- The Juice: Mesoraco’s grand slam helps Reds complete four-game sweep of Braves
- Please hold: Indians’ Joe Smith jumps the gun on relief appearance
- Local radio host honors Cubs’ Tony Campana with parody song
