you gotta love the farm system at the moment and for the foreseable future.
no doubt its been a great year in the bigs and throughout the organisation this year

Great work, Robert.

The great thing about this is that the top 8 are all in AA or AAA right now.

And I suspect that no one on that list, or in honorable mention, is the PTBNL for Kielty.

The minor-league boxscores aren't up at BA yet, but ESPN.com has them. Syracuse lost 6-2 to Toledo; Vinny Chulk gave up four well-deserved runs in six innings and no one did anything especially impressive with the bat. New Haven beat Akron 4-3, with Russ Adams going 2 for 5 with a triple and Adam Peterson striking out two in a hitless ninth (allowing one walk) to earn his second save. Matt Logan hit a rare home run.

Dunedin won 5-1 over Sarasota behind 2000 21st-rounder Jesse Harper, who put up a nice 6 IP, 4 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 1 BB, 6 K line. Harper's up to 97.1 IP, 81 H, 22 BB, 72 K on the year and deserves the title "prospect." He's eight months younger than Chad Pleiness, whose line for the year in Dunedin is 99 IP, 78 H, 44 BB, 73 K.

Charleston lost 7-2 to Lexington. Wesley, Fuller, Mora, and Romero combined to strike out 11 but also to walk five. Rodney Medina homered, as did Justin Owens.

Auburn had a very typical 7-3 victory over Batavia. Aaron Hill went 1 for 3 with a three-run shot. Chad Mulholland allowed three hits (including a home run) in as many innings while fanning five, and Brian Reed punched out four batters in half as many innings to close things out. Oh, and Jamie Vermilyea had a pedestrian outing in between. Only 7 K's in 4 IP? I guess we can let you off the hook for that, Jamie, considering that you didn't put a single man on base, but next time we expect more. And if you want to leave the NY-Penn League, 27 IP, 17 H, 4 BB, 48 K, and 0 HR just ain't gonna cut it.

Pulaski won 7-3; ESPN.com doesn't have a boxscore.

I was just looking through the Jays 2002 draft, and though it was highly regarded at the end of last season, I'm not sure it's turning out as well as expected this season.

Among the hitters the only ones I'd consider any kind of prospect are Adams and Perry, and Perry was traded to Oakland as a PTBNL. Maybe I'm too impatient or missed someone, but none of the other hitters are doing anything notable in Dunedin or Charleston.

The pitching is better. Bush, Peterson, and DeJong are all in AA right now. Maureau, Pleiness and Torres are all pitching for Dunedin, but Maureau looks a little disappointing for a 3rd round pick.

Digging further, Bubbie Buzachero is pretty dominant in Auburn (16.9 K/9 and a cool name) as a closer, but he was drafted out of college last year so I would think he should be higher up by now. There's a couple HS pitchers in Pulaksi (Savickas and Grant) but I don't see anything jumping out from either right now.

I don't know how this stacks up against other teams, but it looks to be a solid, but not great, draft to me.

This year's draft however, albeit in limited time, looks really strong right now.

In a Baseball America chat yesterday, "Jon from Toronto" asked Josh Boyd just how good Brandon League is:

Very good. I saw him recently throwing 96 mph with explosive two-seam life, to go with a hard sweeping slider. I think he might pitch around the strike zone a little too much and he needs to make hitters chase more often.

That's a much better problem than not being able to find the zone. Thanks for compiling this, Robert and to John for the suggestion.

I think a prospect everyone is forgetting is fransisco rosario. if it weren't for his tommy john surgery, he'd be the most talked about jays prospect.

it'll take him another year to recover and then only can we see if he can still be termed a prospect or not. others have recovered quite well (kerry wood, billy koch) but u never know bout these types of injuries.

on the bright side, rosario is still very young so he has time to make good.

Skywalker,

I don't think anyone is giving up on Rosario. I agree that if he hadn't been injured, he would have a good chance of being at or near the top of that list. As you say yourself, "it'll take him another year to recover and then only can we see if he can still be termed a prospect or not." Exactly. If we knew that Rosario would come back pitching exactly the way he did before his injury, we all would have given him high rankings. However, we don't know that he'll come back strong, and a whole bunch of other prospects are having better seasons than expected -- Rios, Quiroz, Bush, McGowan, and Gross, to name a few. Rosario hasn't slipped, but a bunch of other guys have leapt past him, at least in the opinion of a lot of bauxites.

If you go back to the original discussion you will see that there is in fact some discussion of Rosario and his place in the scheme of things.

I would put Rosario somewhere in the teens, together with (picking names out of a hat in no particular order) Pond, Cash, Griffin, Peterson, Rich, Perkins, Pleiness, Jesse Harper, and Nin. Oh, and the twelve or so pitching prospects in Auburn.

John

good points u make there John. i hear ya...

I was just reading Peter Gammon's column on ESPN.com and he listed 9 minor league position players who he thought were gonna be "stars". Aaron Hill and Guillermo Quiroz were both mentioned. Of course out of the nine pitchers he mentioned, none were Jays. One of the other position players he mentioned was Jesse Barfield's son Josh, who is with the Padres. Thought that was interesting.

During the 2005 push to become contenders, the Jays are banking on two or more of their pitching prospects to not only pan out to be solid starters, but above average major leaguers. If this does not happen, it could be terrible for the chances of this great team being currently assebled. I think it is neccessary to trade fo ra solid no. 2 starter behind an expensive Halladay. Here are some relatively young somewhat proven starters that can eat up innings and provide stability to the rotation in a few years.

John Thompson- Rangers
Age:29
2003 salary: 1.3 M

Kip Wells- Pirates
Age:26
2003 salary: 0.37 M

Brian Lawrence- Padres
Age: 27
2003 salary: 0.63 M

Ben Sheets
Age: 25
2003 salary: 0.43 M

Do you think the Jays have any chance of aquiring one of these pitchers and how much would it cost? The jays are willing to spend about 5-7 M on a pitcher like they did with Lidle but they probably would not be able to compete in the free agent market, and I don't know the player's contract status'. So would you trade prospects to get a pitcher of this calibre?

Most of those guys will be arb-eligible in 2004 or in '05 at the very latest (I think they are all eligible next year) pushing their salaries into Lidle territory.

the Jays are banking on two or more of their pitching prospects to not only pan out to be solid starters, but above average major leaguers.

I don't think the Jays are banking on it. By 2005, when they should be real contenders, there will be so much finanacial flexibility that the Jays will be able to sign free agent pitching help. They will just be smart about it.

Lawrence is signed for $6.55M over the next 3. He'd be a great pickup. But he's also the Padres' "ace" and would cost a lot. It's been reported that JP has tried to pick up Sheets but I can't see why the Brewers would give him up. They have no pitching as is.

Basically, my feeling is that unless the pitcher will still be under contract and relatively cheap for the 2005/2006 timeframe, JP would be better served waiting and seeing who the Ben Sheets type young and inexpensive guys are next year. Why burn up 2 of a guy's cheap first 6 years on seasons where the team won't be true contenders?

I guess I'm a patient fan. (But not a patient BBFL owner...send me your trade offers!) The big picture cannot bow to the impulses of the short term. Think Japanese, not North American! Just-in-time Inventory! ;)

I don't know if the Jays need these young hurlers to be above average. They just want them to not be awful on a night after night basis. The Jays will look more like the hard-hitting Indians than the A's when they contend.