Thanks for the link to the Dick Scott interview.   Scott's comments on David Cooper were especially encouraging.  Cooper is struggling so far, with an OPS of just .682, but here is what Scott says about him:

DS: It's his first full season. Talk about rushing guys quickly. He was drafted just last year, and he's already in Double-A. Very good swing. His defense is improving. He's learning how to make adjustments. I certainly think in no time he'll be one of the top hitters in this league

Thought I'd do a quick AA stat check (Avg/OBP/Slg)...

Dopirek: 324/364/521
Jeroloman: 323/382/452
Emaus: 278/366/389
Cooper: 242/333/348

So Dopirek and Jeroloman are pushing for that AAA promotion while the others need more time.

AAA...

Russ Adams: 324/368/618 - off to a good start just like last year
Inglett: 333/407/375 plus 3 errors
JPA: 226/262/355 plus 3 errors
Campbell: 221/303/250 plus 6 errors

Looks like LV has an ugly field or ugly fielders, take your choice.  JPA better watch out as Jeroloman is showing that perhaps it should've been the other way around for who was in AAA and who was in AA.

Joe Inglett hasn't played since April 16, but doesn't appear to be on the DL.  Anyone know what's happening?

The Review-Journal reports that Joe Inglett injured his hamstring after 6 games with the 51s.

http://www.lvrj.com/sports/43266782.html

Looks like LV has an ugly field or ugly fielders, take your choice.

It looks like 2B has been Howie Clarke & Russ Adams, Inglett's had some time at short, and Campbell is learning how to play third. Not a great mix for young pitchers.

Ick.  Poor Cecil and Mills.  First told to pitch in Vegas after almost making the Jays then given Clarke/Adams at 2B, Inglett at SS and Campbell at 3B.  This I would rank as a very poor choice by the Jays unless they wanted to encourage their young pitchers to learn to strikeout everyone.  Give up a ground ball and you have the infield of horrors.  Give up a fly ball and see it leave the park.  Ugh.

Anyone else notice this in response to the question to Dick Scott about taking college guys if the first years if JP:

We thought college players would fill that gap quicker and once we got things solidified, we'd start taking the players we really wanted.

Maybe he mispoke, but I still don't understand why they didn't draft the players they really wanted right from the beginning! 

I'm not sure he misspoke as much as he said something he maybe shouldn't.

JP was married to college players for a long time.  Even in the year they took Snider there was a lot of pre-draft discussion of Matt Antonelli instead and I got the impression JP had to be convinced to go with Snider.

I'd figure they really wanted to get potential super stars, which tends to be kids you get very early (high schoolers).  However, in 2002 they were in a tight budget situation mixed with a team that needed help as soon as possible thus you go for the college kids who are much closer to the majors/cost less in bonuses (less leverage)/less likely to flop.  That's the way it goes sometimes - you take a less than ideal action in an effort to get yourself to the stage where you can take those ideal actions. 

As others have said, the Jays can't do a 'Tampa' and suck hard for a decade while saving up top prospects.  They do that and the SkyDome will have under 10k a game while TV ratings go through the floor.  A 500 team keeps the crowds decent which provides the ownership with the incentive to spend more on draft picks and free agents.  In truth, I don't think many could do what Tampa did unless they were an expansion team with a good lease and owners who don't mind coming in last for a long time.  And in truth Tampa tried to get out of it but had a GM who couldn't run the ML portion of the team.

Anyone else notice this in response to the question to Dick Scott about taking college guys if the first years if JP:

We thought college players would fill that gap quicker and once we got things solidified, we'd start taking the players we really wanted.

Maybe he mispoke, but I still don't understand why they didn't draft the players they really wanted right from the beginning!

Reading this along with listening to a similar question asked of Jon Lalonde on the Fan last week, I take it that JP and the minor league crew considered the cupboard pretty bare when they arrived and felt necessary to draft low ceiling "experienced" college players that could ascend thru the minors quicker.  Once they did that for 2 or 3 drafts that left their lower level minors thin, thus allowing to draft high ceiling type players that generally require 2 or 3 years more of seasoning than a college player.

Yeah, it's a bit of revisionist history and also a bit of an oversimplification.  The club is still leery of drafting "high-ceiling" high school pitchers, perhaps for good reasons. 

Ricciardi wanted to draft college players early in his tenure at least in part because of development time.  You could certainly argue that some of the draft decisions were motivated by this factor to the long-term detriment of the organization.  It is one of negative points on his ledger,  but given the state of the club in 2009, focusing on the negative points of Ricciardi's tenure would be unnecessarily churlish.

I've got the impression recently from a few interviews that Beeston has helped change Rogers' mind regarding draft bonuses and the scouting budget in general. So part of the early emphasis on college players may have been Ricciardi's choice, and part may have been imposed from above.

Cecil was pretty good his last start.  At least we know when these guys start succeeding they are doing it under adverse conditions.  That might not be such a bad thing if it conditions them to dealing with increased difficulty at a major league level.

Anyway, I think these guys have to worry about what they can control, that is the walks and to a lesser degree the homeruns given up.  As long as they're throwing strikes and are able to spot their assortment of pitches and get some swings and misses along the way, whether they give up some extra hits and runs is less important though it will limit how deep they can get in games.

We've seen from the example of Romero that things can start falling into place quickly once a pitcher finds the right groove and mindset.

The club is still leery of drafting "high-ceiling" high school pitchers, perhaps for good reasons.

It also turns out that some of these college guys have pretty high ceilings as well. This shouldn't be news, either. From Lou Gehrig to Ryan Howard.

To me the problem with ignoring HS pitchers isn't really an issue of higher upside, it's the fact that you are ignoring a huge percentage of the pitching talent available in the draft. It is counter-productive to ignore such a huge talent pool, especially since there is virtually zero conclusive evidence of HS guys being higher injury risks. Harder to scout maybe, but that's where scouting comes into play. The last two times the Jays took HS pitchers with their first pick, they nabbed Halladay and Carpenter. Now they probably won't get someone that good again for a bit, but it certainly reflects well on our HS pitching scouts. I mean I find it hard to believe a pitcher will get more abused playing pro ball with monitored pitched counts, etc than they would in college where pitch counts are non-existent. I just don't want the Jays to ignore HS pitchers completely-even Beane caught on to the value of drafting some young live arms.

That was one ugly performance by Tallet today. The patchwork rotation is starting to pitch like one would expect of the 11th/12th guy down the depth chart. 

I must say I really don't like pitching Frasor in a frigging 11-2 game. Use Bullington for 2 innings. Guy is garbage-time only anyways. If his arm falls off who cares. Keep all the good arms ready so you can maybe keep tomorrow's game close when Burres starts to "tire" (I'd say suck but that seems rude).    

Darn, posted that last bit in the wrong thread. Meant to just add that Fabio Castro appears to have been called up to to Vegas, and Brandon Magee to New Hampshire, judging from their respective rosters.

 

Reading this along with listening to a similar question asked of Jon Lalonde on the Fan last week, I take it that JP and the minor league crew considered the cupboard pretty bare when they arrived and felt necessary to draft low ceiling "experienced" college players that could ascend thru the minors quicker.  Once they did that for 2 or 3 drafts that left their lower level minors thin, thus allowing to draft high ceiling type players that generally require 2 or 3 years more of seasoning than a college player.

And do you notice what bears that out?

Look around the league at the talent in the majors now who were "prospects" on the day JP took over:

Alex Rios
Orlando Hudson
Dustin McGowan
Mark Hendrickson
Reed Johnson
Brandon Lyon
Gabe Gross

When your system only turns out 3 really impressive players, it was probably pretty thin.

You could certainly argue that some of the draft decisions were motivated by this factor to the long-term detriment of the organization.

How so? The Jays field more talent as a product of their last seven drafts than virtualy any team in baseball, and outside the first round, there are a bare handful of high school draftees that the Jays could have had and passed on in favor of college players that turned out to be better choices (of those who have reached the majors)

And in most of those cases, the Jays were just one of many teams who selected a lesser player first.

You can certainly argue for some of the high school players selceted after Russ Adams, but you can argue for some good college players to. The 2002 first rounder turned out to be a bust on his own merits and, most everyone agreers, a poor choice. but not poor just beause of the college comitment issue.

Just poor period.

and Brandon Magee to New Hampshire, judging from their respective rosters.

Magee?

I wonder what they see in that guy? he certainly never has pitched well enough to justify his promotions.

Of course, all Dunedin's starters are sucking and Magee is the oldest.

I wonder if this means Chuck Huggins will get to move up to Hi-A?

Good to see Castro move up, but I wonder what that means for the 61's rotation?

Miller/Mills/Cecil/Castro/Ray? And D-Ro to the pen?

Or dare we hope they are anticipating someone in that group being promoted to the Jays after Burres starts tomorrow?

Check that Huggins speeculation - I see Kenny Rodriguez has arrived so i assume he'll be stepping into the  Dunedin rotation.

WillRain, League was in the system too.  Steve Treder did a study of team system value production by Win Shares in THT a year or two ago.  The Jays of the late 90s were the top team in baseball.  Ash/Wilken did a superb job of drafting, but Ash made the least of the talent drafted (Michael Young being the classic example).  To suggest the cupboard was bare, though, is a vast overstatement.  There were significant young players on the club or in the system (Wells, Rios, Gross, Johnson, Hudson, Halladay, McGowan, Escobar, Carpenter, League). 

The Jays had major pitching issues when JP took over.  Sure they had Halladay, Carpenter (soon to the DL), and Escobar. But League and McGowan hadn't pitched higher than short A yet.  Who was the best pitching prospect between those two groups?  Mike Smith?  Vinnie Chulk?  JP has been head and shoulders better than Ash and Wilken in acquring pitching and producing pitching depth.

Without checking, as I recall the big thing with Ash/Wilken was the first round.  They aced it for the most part over the '95-2000 period while JP had Adams in 2002 and Hill wasn't too exciting then the Romero signing vs TT and things got ugly with the media quick.  Meanwhile after round one what did AW do? 

OK, now I gotta check for non-first round/sandwich (DNS = did not sign)...

1995: Craig Wilson, Ryan Freel, Brandon Duckworth (DSN)
1996: Abernathy, Clayton Andrews, John Bale, Casey Blake, Josh Phelps, Orlando Hudson (didn't sign)
1997: Mike Young, Mark Hendrickson, Sean Green (DNS), Hudson again, Brad Hawpe (DNS), Chad Qualls (DNS)
1998: Jay Gibbons, Bob File, Franklyn Gracesqui
1999: Matt Ford, Brandon Lyon, Reed Johnson
2000: Mike Smith, RIch Thompson, Vinnie Chulk
2001: Brandon League, Tyrell Godwin, Mike Rouse, Dave Gassner

Hmm.  More good guys than I recalled.  Many dumped for nothing by Ash, but Blake, Phelps, Hudson, WIlson, Gibbons, Johnson, Lyon, Chulk and League all were contributors and/or quality guys along with Mike Young of course.

What about JP?

2002: David Bush, Adam Peterson, Jordon DeJong, Dewan Day
2003: Josh Banks, Shaun Marcum, Jamie Vermilyea, Tom Mastny, Ryan Roberts
2004: Curtis Thigpen, Adam Lind, Casey Janssen, Jesse Litsch
2005 up: No one yet

Interesting group.  Bush, Banks, Marcum, Mastny, Janssen and Litsch are a nice pitching crew mixed with Lind.

Looking through it I see lots of starting pitching via JP and hitting via Ash.  Guess it depends what you are looking for (first round should always be best available imo while later rounds are more what you scouted for).

 

The last two times the Jays took HS pitchers with their first pick, they nabbed Halladay and Carpenter. Now they probably won't get someone that good again for a bit, but it certainly reflects well on our HS pitching scouts.

You are talking ancient history. I don't think the success of Halladay or Carpenter can tell us anything about how good the current Blue Jays scouts are at assessing high school pitchers.

League was in the system too.

Okay, cool....but League - like some others on that list - has yet to be a major consistant contributor and you can't really find fault if a guy going to work in 2002 wasn't placing his bets on a guy who was still just an uncertain bullpen factor seven years hence.

The Jays of the late 90s were the top team in baseball.

I don't doubt it. But that doesn't really alter the list I posted. A lot of that value mentioned in that article was already producing in the majors by the time JP was hired.

To suggest the cupboard was bare, though, is a vast overstatement.

Not bare, but absolutely wearing thin. The few premium guys were either right at the top (Hudson, Lopez) or in the very low minors (Rios, League, McGowan) - There was a pretty unimpressive wasteland in between the two.

There were significant young players on the club or in the system

if you include those already in the majors, yes, but that's not a factor in the strength of the farm system as a new hire would analyze it.
For example:
Carpenter, and Escobar and - for all he knew at the time, Halladay - would be long long gone before McGowan and League were potential major league forces (in the sense of building a team together you wouldn't even really be able to call HEC "young players")

I'm NOT trying to trash Ash's draft record. i thought he did ok for the most part, but four of the very best players he drafted - Doc, Wells, Young, and Koch - we're already established major leaguers (as were lesser talents like Blake)
They count towards Ash's record but they are not relevant to the evaluation of the system JP inherited.