Macdonald is a better prospect than Josh Banks right now

This may be, and certainly the statistics say this is so, but I would add one caveat: if Macdonald is going to make it, it will be, almost certainly, as a long relief guy. Josh Banks, from what I have seen, has the ability to start and go deep into games. With Macdonald, no matter how good his stats look, after the fourth inning it really feels like you're playing with fire out there. If you look at his game log on firstinning.com, you'll see that he's never gone more than 7, and only made it through 7 just twice in his last ten starts. In those same ten starts, he hasn't made it through 6 in four of those starts. On another level, in Macdonald's last start, in the first four innings, to 9 of 14 batters he threw first pitch strikes. In his last two innings, he only through first pitch strikes to 2 of 10 batters. Other figures may be better at showing this, but this does demonstrate a little bit of the fatigue I'm talking about.

Banks, on the other hand, has the ability to go deep into games without so obviously tiring; in only two of his last ten games has he failed to make it through six, and he's gone 8 twice. He'll have to work on keeping the ball down, but he is much more cut out to be a starter than is Macdonald at this point. However, this reality may put him lower on the totem pole.

I admit, I'm more used to seeing the more polished draft picks of the past take to the pros almost immediately.  But does the performance of all of these young hitters drafted this year hold any cause for concern?  Brett Cecil is the only pick in the first and supplemental and even second round whom you could say is putting up numbers that would be seen as good.

Other than Tolisano who appears to be holding his own, almost to a man every other young hitter has performed terribly in their first couple of months of pro ball.  Very low averages, tons of strikeouts, little patience, little power.  Arencibia as the lone college hitter of the bunch has shown a little bit of pop but little else in the way of polished hitting or patience.

I'm the first to give these young players, especially 18 year olds, the benefit of the doubt on their first exposure.  But doesn't it seem a bit unusual that out of several hitters (Ahrens, Arencibia, Jackson, Eiland, Tolisano, etc) we haven't seen anyone step up to be good and maybe only one step up to be average?

Are these leagues usually this hard to hit in or did the Jays consciously draft a lot of "projects" this year?

Oh you can also add Fuenmayor to the list who started the year pretty good but whose current numbers are as bad as anyones.  Is it just a lack of good coaching at that level?  I would think the coaching is extremely important especially for the raw players.

Eiland's been holding his own so far - 250/338/331, with 12 steals without getting caught.  Granted, the strikeouts are worrying, but he looks okay. (Actually, he can't seem to hit lefties, but he's been pretty darn good against righties)

Ahrens and Fuenmayor are quite disappointing, though.

Well it seems to put Snider's fast start in perspective.  He really was quite advanced when the Jays picked him, both mentally and physically.

I was one of the people criticizing the Revere pick but even as I was doing it, I felt in the back of my mind that the Twins generally seem to know what they're doing and wouldn't it be funny if he actually performed well.  I guess if he can hit .300 with his speed he'll always have a place to play.