John Sickels top 100 prospect list has four Blue Jays

Starting off with a digression, yesterday I started to write something and our wifi (and TV and phone) went out. Shaw had an outage that affected a fairly large part of Calgary and lasted for about 3 hours. I took it as a sign that I should take a much needed day away.

Our old friend, John Sickels, who wrote for SB for several years, is now writing for the Athletic. He’s going to doing a weekly column. As if there weren’t enough reasons to subscribe.

His first column is his top 100 MLB prospect list. There are four Jays on the list:

#1 Vlad: He says: “Very rare combination of bat speed, raw power, plate discipline and general polish belies his age.” He also says he doesn’t feel Vlad defense is “terrible” but he might wind up at first base.

#13 Bo: Figures some of his doubles will turn into homers and that he steals bases with instinct and polish, not speed. Might move to second base.

#46 Danny Jansen: “Strong strike zone judgment”. “Throwing needs more work”.

#74 Jordan Groshans: “Likely a third baseman long term” “Maximal outcome comp: mixture of Ryan Zimmerman, David Wright and Nick Castellanos.”

He also lists two sleepers per team. For the Jays they are Samad Taylor and Hector Perez.

Nate Pearson isn’t listed, I think John wants to see more of him.

I’m glad to see that John’s found a place to continue his writing career. Pretty soon everyone will be at the Athletic.