I'm very excited about this -- can't wait for these lists and interviews.  You guys always do a great job on the interviews and the prospect rankings.

Just wanted to say THANKS again to everyone at Batter's Box for making following the Jays such an enjoyable and

stress releasing hobby - This has been my most enjoyable season following the team since 1993 - there is

hope once again. With regards to the minors:

3 prospects that enhanced their status the most

- Zach Stewart - for me, he has answered the question about his ability to be a quality starter resoundingly - he got

better as the season progressed and I like him as much as his more heralded teammate Kyle.

- Eric Thames - finally stayed healthy and his bat spoke volumes - however, with LF/DH his future, I won't

be surprised if he is packaged this offseason

-  Jake Marnisnick/Michael Crouse - some young,high upside outfielders to get excited about ( Gose also)

 

3 that disappointed:

- Chad Jenkins - even starting at Lansing (remember the clamour for Dunedin?) he underwhelmed with his

performance - maybe it was trying to develop the changeup, coming from a small college or being out of shape-

whatever, he better shape up next year.

-Justin Jackson - I guess, I was buying the injury/youth excuse - because I expected much better - for me, he's

now in the suspect division. 

-David Cooper - repeating AA, I was hoping for a dominant performance to allow AA to package him and recoup

something for a poor 1st rd. selection

3 confirming their suspect status

-Balbino Fuenmayor - remember how excited some posters were when he hit a HR at the Hall of Fame game a few

yrs. ago

 -Andrew Liebel  - didn't even make it  as far as Josh Banks - another high  rd. college suspect drafted

-Eric Eiland - A worthy gamble on a boom/bust guy, only wished it had been a later round.

it's worth noticing, and i assume the committee will, that Cooper was an entierly different player from July 1 on than he was before. I've been watching for some article which explains it (i.e. mechanical adjustment or something) but so far nothing.

I haven't paid nearly as much attention as I used to, but it seems like there could be significant differences in how one would rank certain players.  I know I have a hard time separating certain players for various reasons (likes Thames and Hechavarria).  And I'm guessing there's probably 45+ players that made it on to various top 30 rankings of each member of the minor league crew.

Looking forward to seeing this.

As a big follower of our minor league guys - this is always one of my favorite times of year. I see a few over 40 actual real prospects. Yummy.

But I was thinking - how many of them will end up actually being better than the present players. For instance will any of Gose, Thames, Loewen, Crouse, Sierra actually be better than Wells, Snider and Bautista? I think Gose has the skills to be a better defensive CFer than Wells - but offensively? I don't see any of the other guys as being as good or better than Snider or Bautista - at least not for the next 3 to 5 years.

It does look like catcher and SS are well covered in the minors - catcher with an embarrassment of riches. SS looks OK with Hech and his defense which is Escobarish - if not better - but offensively - neither of them are much cop (as my Granny would say). Pierre is still a long way from being ready.

After E5 at 3rd - nothing anywhere near as I see it. I think we will rue the day we let E5 walk - even with his warts.

At first - unless Lind makes it (and I think he just might fit the bill), or the under rated and under appreciated Overbay comes back, the only other real prospects there are JP and McDade neither of whom will be viable at 1st in 20111 - JP will HAVE to be at least tried at catcher. Longer term McDade might just be the guy.

Pitching looks to be the REAL DEAL for sure (any watchers of David Dickinson's BBC's show "the Real Deal" will know why I'm throwing that phrase around). In addition to the BIG FOUR starters we've Drabek who looks ready and then some, with Stewart, Jenkins, McGuire and many others looking like serious prospects. In fact we've so many serious starting prospects I think it might just be a good idea to use Stewart and Alverez as late inning guys to give the Bullpen a couple of real studs as well as the starting rotation. It appears AA is already considering this.

AA's going to have a real interesting off season - 'specially since he wants "trades" not "free agents" - gonna be a great off season - even if almost nothing gets actually done. I can't help but thinking it would be very easy to change this team and make it worse and very hard to change this team and actually make it better.

Gonna be a great off season - fortunately - I've lots of fine highland drinkies and ice cubes. 

for my own sport i make lists of prospects every off-season and in all that time I've never completely settled on whether ultimate ceiling based on talent trumps likelyhood of reaching that ceiling (which is often a fnction of how close a player is to the majors)

for instance, looking in from the outside, there seems to be a huge amount of similarity between Chad Jenkins and Asher Wojechewski(sp) - they are even listed at the same ht and wt.

So, do you rate Jemkins higher on the list because he's made it through a full pro season (albeit an inconsistant one)? or do you rank them virtually the same because their ceiling is so similar?

Or consider - Eric Thames is in the high minors and has real accomplishments which he's not that far from translating to the majors, whereas Jake Marisnick or has arguably a higher ceiling, especially when defense is considered - how do they rank in relation to each other?

I've never been able to find a rubrick to answer that to my satisfaction, for the most part I just employ intuition, hunch, bias, whatever to act as "tie breaker" at each spot.

I was very suprised to see Chad Jenkins make the BA MWL top 20 of what was a very stacked league, so there must be something there, cause the numbers for a college pitcher are not very exciting. I would have Asher + Deck + Sanchez ahead of him based on my own gut feel.

Eric Thames fills Baseball Prospectus in on his yoga regime.

On how he got into yoga: “It was on my own. It pretty much came to the point where if I didn’t do it, my career would have been done. I didn’t want to be one of those guys that ‘could have been,’ had they stayed healthy, so my goal was to stay healthy and on the field. I heard great things about yoga, so I decided to try it and sure enough, the first class I went to I had 60-year-old women laughing at me because my arms were shaking, and everything. It’s pretty difficult, but I love it.”

 

how do they rank in relation to each other?

The way I do it, is ask myself, ignoring team needs etc (which is key), is 'if I was offered these two players in trade, who would I choose?'  Or, if I was making a trade where I had to give up a prospect, 'who would I rather keep between these two players?'

Gerry - yoga - tremendous at building inner core strength and flexibility - most every athlete in any sport would benefit. Pilates is yoga-lite for softies like me and she who must be obeyed.

Forkball - I often use the same system. Would you trade X for Y.

On rating prospects; my gut says Snachez and Syndergaard (who some observers are now saying was seriously underrated by scouts) are the two best "chances" we've got among the new guys - but Wojciechowski's 96 mph heater excites me, McGuire's four pitch mix is close to the bigs and the first lefty we took  - Griffin Murphy - might just eclipse all of them - did I mention a 16 year old kid named Adonis Cardona?   I have a feeling we've had a decade worth of pitching prospects in one years signings.

speaking of gut/instinct/hunch/bias....i have Sanchez rated the 4th best SP prospect in the organization and i wouldn't be surprised if he passes Alvarez next time.