is there a specific day when roster assignments are made?

Good to hear that Hech is hitting well in the early going. If he gets untracked this year, the Jays farm system will be just that much better. One question: if his sidearming is potentially an issue, has the team not tried to reconstruct his throwing motion? Or is this something that is just too hard to change?

Team assignments are made on next Saturday or Sunday.  Remember while the major league season starts Thursday/Friday the minor league season doesn't start until a week later.

The side-arming throws are probably just a preference of mine.  Tony Fernandez was an extreme example of it and he did OK.  If you throw over the top then generally your "misses" are usually up or down and the first baseman can still get them.  Side-armer misses are to the left or right and are harder for the first baseman to snag.

I want to say that a side-armed throw is more likely to tail.

But personally I find that I can get more on a throw, easier, throwing side-armed - you create more of a whip action.  I'm inaccurate either way!

It really has been a "good news" spring.  With Escobar and Davis hitting well, and Hechevarria and Lawrie taking noticeable steps forward, some of the short-to-medium term questions look to be in the process of being answered.

It's confusing to me that Gose seemed to fix his caught-stealing problems while in the big league camp, and then as soon as he goes to minor league camp he gets thrown out easily. Something about that doesn't parse. Was he immediately reverting to old, bad, habits? Is this a sign that he doesn't retain instruction? Or is there something else involved?

I don't think Gose "fixed" the problem based on a few attempts in the spring.  He just did well at it in a small sample size in which the goal was to get him running.  He also was getting picked off.

Do you think Matt Wright will be challenged with AA this year? I certainly would like to see him there and think the jump would be a good challenge based on his age (and really, he should have been at Dunedin last year anyway).

I'm not sure if we talked about this anywhere else, but:

Released: RHP Kyle Ginley, RHP Matt Morgal, RHP Jamie Vermilyea, RHP Josh Wells, LHP Sean Henn (subsequently re-signed), LHP Juan Hernandez, 2B Jon Del Campo, OF Concepcion Rodriguez

I would've liked to see us keep Vermilyea over Henn but really, apples and oranges. Ginley is a bit of a surprise - did he just not recover from injury?

the Jays still have in their employ (not counting the guys who'll break camp in the majors or on the DL) no less than 10 relievers who are at least 28 years old (that is, could reasonably be expected to be AAA pitchers)

Then there's Luis Perez (who might start if Drabek stays in the majors) and alan Farina (which would be wronged if he's not in AAA)

If one can reasonably assume that Farina, Roenicke, and Lewis are a lock for the AAA pen - and lay aside Perez for the moment -  then you have the following guys who'd ostensibly be candidates for the Vegas pen:

Henn, Abreu, Ledzma, Hinkley, Collazo, MacDonald, Perkins, and Bongiovanni

Then you have a rotation of Stewart, Mills, Richmond and, for now, Ray and probably Perez - if that's the starting five then you could consider Clint Everts a candidate for the AAA pen as well.

Or Everts in the rotation and Perez in relief?

Anyway, the point is - more of those guys will probably be kicked to the curb before Vegas plays their first game.


Among the hitters, there are 17 guys who seemingly be presumed AAA players so probably 3 or 4 of those are not long for the organization either.

Pending potential injuries of course.

That's a really depressing sounding AAA bullpen outside of Farina and Abreu.  At least the hitters will be interesting to watch.

I am back from Florida after a short day yesterday.  There was a big storm overnight and there were scattered storms and rain showers yesterday morning aned as I headed to the park I didn't know if I would see any ball.   When I got to the park I found out that the teams had cancelled their travel plans so the Yankees AAA and AA teams were not in Dunedin and the Jays A level teams were not in Tampa.  The bad news was the rain but the good news was that I was going to see Aaron Sanchez pitch, without the rain he would have been pitching in Tampa against the Yankees.  Two inter-squad games were on the docket but due to the bad weather the start was pushed back to 1:30 as warm ups were delayed by intermittent rain showers.

Joel Carreno and Reidier Gonzlaez started the AAA/AA game but most people were watching the Deck McGuire/Aaron Sanchez match-up on the other diamond (including AA and Tony LaCava).  Unfortunately the rain did not go away and it really came down in the top of the third and that was it for the day.  But I did get video of both and I will post it tonight.

The short scouting reports on McGuire and Sanchez are:

McGuire came almost as advertised, he throws four pitches and mixes them up.  His fastball on this day was sitting at 90 mph, less than the advertised 92-93.  Deck's slider is a plus pitch while his change-up was inconsistent in the first inning but better in the second.  I saw one curve. 

Sanchez is a skinny kid but his delivery is very smooth.  You often hear of max-effort pitchers, Sanchez is a minimum effort pitcher.  His fastball sat around 91-93 mph and he showed a plus curveball, thrown relatively hard at 77-78 mph with a hard 10-4 o'clock break.  As one front office person said to me, that curveball is the difference maker.  Dane Johnson believes than Sanchez can add a mile or two to his fastball as he fills out.  I had thought that Sanchez might go to Lansing when the season starts but one front office person I spoke to said that was unlikely, he thought the Jays would be better served by keeping the kids in Florida to get them used to pro ball in a place where they can get more attention and have more facilities available to them.

I will post a summary thread tonight or tomorrow, with more video and pictures.

I had thought that Sanchez might go to Lansing when the season starts but one front office person I spoke to said that was unlikely, he thought the Jays would be better served by keeping the kids in Florida to get them used to pro ball in a place where they can get more attention and have more facilities available to them.

Was it a Jays front office person?  I would think that there is a premium on spots for Short Season starters with all the teenagers around - that might force that Jays hand somewhat.

Of course injuries higher up the ladder will have a trickle down effect and some of the guys that stay in Florida will get promoted before short season ball starts I would expect..