It was an early Christmas for a baseball fan at the minor league complex on Saturday. On one field the AAA team were playing the AA team. On another the Dunedin team were playing the Yankees. On a third field the Lansing team were also playing the Yankees. And on a fourth field the extended spring team were playing the Phillies. Four games, five teams, playing at the same time. You could develop a sore neck from swivelling around to check out something on another field.
The AAA - AA game featured Kyle Drabek against Rey Gonzalez. Drabek pitched six innings for the AA team and gave up three hits and three walks over six shutout innings. Gonzalez had a rough first inning but settled down thereafter.Needless to say Drabek looked very good, he comes after the hitters with a hard fastball and a power curve.
Pitchers in the AAA-AA game included Andrew Liebel; Trystan Magnuson; Marty McLeary and Zach Dials. Magnuson looked good in his one inning of work, he was pounding the bottom of the one with a two seam fastball that the Jays are asking him to throw more.
Ryan Page started for Dunedin, followed by Daniel DeLucia, Dumas Garcia and Russ Buckwalter.
For Lansing Ryan Shropshire started and Matt Wright finished up.
The extended game was started by Daniel Webb, an 18th round JC pitcher. Webb was followed by Druben DeLa Rosa, Juan Hernandez, Shawn Griffith and Zach Outman.
Other than Drabek, the two Lansing pitchers, Shropshire and Wright looked the best on the day. Shropshire has a very good slider and Wright will pitch as a lefty out of the pen and has a good lefty mix with a good fastball, change and a curveball.
On the hitting side, Brad Glenn had a home run and a triple in the Lansing game. Gustavo Pierre had a couple of hits; Daniel Perales, a free agent signing, had two doubles for Dunedin; Kenny Wilson was on base three times, look out for him in 2010, and Carlos Perez had a hit.
Perez is injured and will start the season in extended spring. He has an issue with throwing, but he did DH in the game. Perez is much smaller than I thought he would be, he could pass for a middle infielder. MLB lists him as 6'0", 193lbs. I would put him at 5'10" and 175 pounds.
I have a copy of the provisional opening day rosters. I will post them later today, hopefully.
Las Vegas have added a free agent third baseman, Christian Colonel, who played in Colorado Springs last season and had been in Red Sox camp this spring.
As mentioned over the last few days, Moises Sierra; Kevin Ahrens; Kenny Rodriguez; AJ Jimenez; and Egan Smith all start the season on the DL.
When you look at the rosters there are not many players above Lansing who are moving up. Rey Gonzalez moves up to AAA to start. Bobby Bell moves up to AA as does Eric Thames and Adam Loewen. Henderson Alvarez; Joel Carreno; Justin McClanahan; Wellinton Ramirez and Yan Gomes get the move up to Dunedin. But most players start 2010 where they left off in 2009.
Pitching looks to be the strength of the Jays minor league teams. The higher level rotations look stacked.
I took a lot of pictures and some video in Dunedin which I need to upload to my computer. Look for this additional content here over the next few weeks.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20100404090402720