If anyone is interested in Dominic Abbadessa's hitting mechanics, here's some video.

https://2080baseball.com/draft-prospect-video/dominic-abbadessa/

I've been really pleased at the progress Maximo Castillo & Yennsy Diaz seem to have made this year - both well over 100IP - would love a scouting report from an eyewitness.

This is Yennsy in late May while he was still in Lansing.

https://2080baseball.com/spotlight/yennsy-diaz-2/

This is from a different guy, who saw him earlier at the complex.

https://2080baseball.com/spotlight/yennsy-diaz/

GCL and DSL are completing suspended games at the moment.

Thanks Hypobole - hoping their secondary pitches improved as the season progressed as the jays really need quality starting pitching prospects.

And I watched some of the NH game. Sanchez looked awful, other than a few nice curveballs. Horrible command. Especially in contrast to a rehabbing Eduardo Rodriguez who was sharp for Portland.

What were your impressions of Hector Perez?

Meant to watch Perez 2nd start, but I I haven't yet.

Anyone know where uglyone has gone? Hopefully the trolls on the site didn't drive him away. I know he was a fan of the Kloffenstein draft pick.

Trolls like the guy with the multiple snarky remarks about the High Performance Dep't?

Chavez Young report in prospect update on fangraphs

Anyway, I do miss convo's with uo and Mike G, who at least let us know he's still around the other day.

From Longehagens Daily Prospect Notes today

"Chavez Young was an old-for-the class high schooler in 2016 who signed for $200,000 instead of heading to a JUCO. He’s had a strong second full pro season, slashing .280/.350/.440 while amassing 45 extra-base hits and 34 steals (though he’s been caught 12 times). Young has above-average raw pull power from the right side of the plate but lacks bat control and is strikeout prone. From the left side his swing is much more dynamic and has allowed his strength-driven gap power to play in games. He’s an average straight-line runner with a plus arm. Young has big-league physical ability and is shedding the “raw” label by performing. If he ends up in a corner outfield spot, his tools will be on the edge of profiling."

I don't know if it was the "trolls" who drove ugly away. He could always take the best we could dish out.

After our last disagreement, we both got a "final warning" from site admin about a ban if we didn't get the invective under control. I was like, "meh" [insert vague promise to myself to keep things more civil in future] but maybe ugly decided to call it quits based on that?

On FanGraphs, there's a person whose posts are very similar to ugly's (really, the resemblance is uncanny) and he's been pretty active today on the article about whether Vlad Jr. could hit .400 this season. So I think ugly is okay; he's just not here.

Yeah, ugly is Damaso on FG.

Yeah, ugly is Damaso on FG.

I thought so, but he wouldn't admit it.

I'm glad he's okay.

Actually Ugly did admit it.

I would like to say hello to UO. I saw D Jansen as being good at the same time as UO but he claimed him first. I would like a share of D Jansen since UO has left or maybe is still here incognito.

Actually Ugly did admit it.

Link plz?

All I remember was a sarcastic laugh.

I would like to say hello to UO. I saw D Jansen as being good at the same time as UO but he claimed him first. I would like a share of D Jansen since UO has left or maybe is still here incognito. You guys were both right; Jansen looks like the real deal.

ugly, are you Damaso in the FanGraphs comments section?

His/her commentary there is very similar to yours, and appears to be even more well-respected there than yours is here.

yes, parkie, i have fans everywhere.

and the red sox fans on fangraphs are still upset that i was right about swihart.

Written as an admin.

We do get notified when abuse reports are submitted. Over the last 12-18 months several have been filed about the interactions between parker and ugly. As Parker noted we have asked them about three times to tone it down and essentially ignore each other. That usually worked for a little while but not for long enough.

Ugly understood the issue but felt he was the picked upon party and that he was never the instigator. More recently ugly had one post that was reported that had nothing to do with parker. That post has since been deleted. When he was contacted about it, he felt that he had hit a limit and decided to back away from Da Box. He could re-appear, he was never banned.

Very nice performance from Zeuch tonight: 5 2 0 0 2 5. His season line across two levels (high-A and AA) is now:

146.1 IP
144 H
53 ER (ERA 3.19)
11 HR
36 BB
99 K

Pretty strong season overall from Zeuch, especially considering that he got off to a slow start in AA in May.

It's unclear whether he'll be able to succeed in the majors as a low-K starter, but he's making his case for an audition sometime in 2019.

Ugly understood the issue but felt he was the picked upon party and that he was never the instigator. More recently ugly had one post that was reported that had nothing to do with parker. That post has since been deleted. When he was contacted about it, he felt that he had hit a limit and decided to back away from Da Box. He could re-appear, he was never banned.

I never said or even implied that ugly was banned. I said that after that "final warning" the admins gave him, it appeared that the admins pushed him into a situation where any reasonable person would choose to leave.

And he did.

Nice work, admins.

I am very happy with the resolution of the conflict. Well done.

I will miss UO on draft day. Realy, realy,

realy.

Vlad with 3 hits, the 3rd an 8th inning RBI double off Justus Sheffield to tie the game 1-1.

After looking like he should look for a new career earlier this year, Max Pentecost is staging a remarkable turnaround. His OPS in June was a staggeringly bad .394, which he upped to .684 in July, and now to a robust .980 in August. Two more hits for him tonight. He'd always hit reasonably well up until this year, so I guess the turnaround shouldn't be a complete surprise, but at 25, he's running out of time, although the bar for backup catchers is pretty low.

Jackson McClelland had his 2nd consecutive scoreless appearance since being promoted to AA. He's another name to consider for a bullpen spot in another year or two.

Cal Stevenson continues to put up some crazy stats for Bluefield. Today he walked twice, had a hit, stole 3 bases and scored 3 runs. He's hitting .382 for the season, with an OPS of 1.044. He has 57 walks, compared to only 19 strikeouts, and has scored 67 runs in only 52 games, roughly a 200 runs pace for a full mlb-length season. He's 15 for 16 in stealing bases. I imagine he will skip Vancouver next year and start the season in Lansing.

Dan, I kinda noticed Pentacost the other day, but checking his splits, even the decent July had 68 AB/2 BB/18 K and his excellent August thus far 54 AB/0 BB/12 K.

Read somewhere McClelland is one of 2 Jay kids (Murphy the other) to hit triple digits this year. In all likelihood a hot gun, but still impressive.

I noticed that this is the end of the road for Pawtucket. The Red Soz are moving their AAA team to Worcester, Massachusetts.
It seems like a huge blow for the 70K Rode Island city.

I still miss the Lynx here in Ottawa.

Good lord. Uglyone provided a lot of great content to this site and was, I always thought, exceptionally good-natured and mild-mannered under the circumstances. (The exchange Hypobole quoted above is a good example.) So if site administrators were harassing him (my words, obviously), I don’t blame him for leaving. It’s too bad for everyone else, though.

Uglyone good natured? He was nasty. One of the last posts I saw him make was calling Shapiro 'a rat' for some nothing statement on ticket prices. He derailed almost every thread with his same few obsessions. I've also never seen someone so consistantly wrong about almost everything with so much confidence. The content he provided was usually nonsense-pre selected numbers that changed designed to show whatever he wanted. Whether that be Devon Travis being better than Mookie Betts or that the Jays had the best young core or that every Red Sox prospect sucked or that The Jays would have been great if they had they signed Fowler and Encarnacion last offseason. The board is vastly better IMO without him here. There hasn't been a single thread about signing David Price in weeks.

"Uglyone good natured? He was nasty. One of the last posts I saw him make was calling Shapiro 'a rat' for some nothing statement on ticket prices. He derailed almost every thread with his same few obsessions. I've also never seen someone so consistantly wrong about almost everything with so much confidence. The content he provided was usually nonsense-pre selected numbers that changed designed to show whatever he wanted. Whether that be Devon Travis being better than Mookie Betts or that the Jays had the best young core or that every Red Sox prospect sucked or that The Jays would have been great if they had they signed Fowler and Encarnacion last offseason. The board is vastly better IMO without him here. There hasn't been a single thread about signing David Price in weeks."


You are wrong on so many counts I don't know where to start!

Again, as an admin...

In case I didn't represent ugly's opinion clearly in my last post, lets try again.

In ugly's opinion things would be going fine, with the usual back and forth that we have here in Da Box. Soome of you appreciated ugly's posts, some didn't that thats what debate is often about. Then parker would appear and the attacks on ugly would start. We would ask them both to desist, and parker would generally disappear and things would return to normal.

Then, a month later, parker would reappear and the merry go-around would start again. As admins we try to stay neutral and not pick sides so both were asked, again, to refrain from engaging with each other. Ugly was unable to resist defending himself against parkers attacks and so the back and forth resumed. Ugly felt that trouble started when parker showed up and that it was unfair that he, ugly, should be warned when he was not the instigator. To be clear, he believed parker was the instigator.

As mentioned we received several complaints when ugly and parker started verbally jousting with each other. As admins we didn't react because we arbitrarily decided to, we reacted because of complaints. And so, if the admins did push ugly out, it came when we received complaints and we asked him to ignore parker and he decided he could not do it.

We sent similar notes to parker and ugly. Maybe that was a mistake, maybe we should have taken sides.

And, finally, in the words of parker "any reasonable person would choose to leave". Ugly did, parker is still here.

I assume the admins "harassed" him because some poster or posters complained. If that was the case, what were the admins supposed to do?
I know I have felt like telling people they're idiots, but I haven't, because this isn't a private conversation, it's a public forum. And as with any public forum, I'm not oblivious to the fact there are a wide range of personalities and some are more sensitive than others.

As for uglyone, I personally am disappointed he left.

I felt the admins were overly tolerant of the conduct in question, although I don’t know what went on behind the scenes. My impression is that the gratuitous attacks on uglyone were excessive and obnoxious. Ideally uglyone would not have engaged with them at all, and the admins would then have banned the troll after a few such attacks. However, that is obviously not how things played out.

I'll miss ugly. I thought that he had actually come a long way as a poster and I quite enjoyed discussions with him on many topics (i.e. he was clearly right that Biagini should have started the year in the bullpen). Dissenting opinions are always good on these sites (who wants to agree all the time) and he was generally respectful of others

My memory from the exchanges with Parker was that it was about 80% Parker and 20% ugly. Parker's veiled gloating in the above posts seem to support my memory although I accept that I may have missed some of the discussions at issue.

Regardless, there is almost always an initiating party in these things and I could see how someone would get frustrated if the admin response is just to warn both parties.

I miss Ugly's stats and opinions,too. There's always room for dissenting views in a forum like this, but the bickering sometimes made me uncomfortable when it became personal.

I never complained about it but I've found the last month or so to be really civil on here and also some knowledgeable posters have been contributing more than in the past.

I have no issue with Parker or UO for that matter. UO did present numbers and SSS like it was proof. A hot streak is not a career or season. Those proofs had flaws and they were pointed out.
IMO he also seemed unrealistic in his optimistic hopes/praises of Jay prospects. T Snider, JPA and B Lawrie broke me of my superstar/impact player hopes. Vlad and Bo currently have me in a similar position as prospects. A Hill and R Romero busted fast. UO did not break. He still believed strongly. That is UO's reality. I do not handle those disappointments well.
Whenever a FA was not signed that he wanted he was very upset. The disappointment I feel hurt him more than most of us. 2 seasons like 2017 and 2018 is very painful for all of us. It hurt him more I think. I have learned to accept failure from the Jays. It always hurts me. UO is a very strong Jays fan. It seems that he returned to the 2018 Jays from the 2018 Braves.

Of course UO is entitled to his opinion as am I. I took the side that 1992 and 1993 were stronger teams than 2015 and 2016. He is entitled to believe 2015 and 2016 were better teams especially when he provided his proofs.

Parker's veiled gloating in the above posts seem to support my memory although I accept that I may have missed some of the discussions at issue.

Gloating? Seriously?

I'm sorry he's gone, especially if it's because of me. A couple weeks ago I posted that I missed seeing him around here.

You're clearly looking for something that just isn't there.

Parker,

Seeing how you miss ugly so much, maybe you would like to explain why you hit the abuse button around 20 times on one day last month, basically tagging all of ugly's posts that day.

To change the topic to baseball, Stevenson is having another nice day 2 for 4 with 2 doubles. I wonder if the Jays are keeping him in Bluefield because of playoff implications?

Stevenson could be remaining in Bluefield for playoff reasons but another thought that has occurred to me is that he provides leadership to a young team that features many teenagers and 20 year olds.

Seeing how you miss ugly so much, maybe you would like to explain why you hit the abuse button around 20 times on one day last month, basically tagging all of ugly's posts that day.

Well, aside from the fact that he posted abusive comments directed towards me that day, that seems like a gross exaggeration, Gerry.

I deal in numbers, not hyperbole.

I think Stevenson not being moved up also has to do with the OFs already in Vancouver. All three are likely voted by the organization as real prospects who need development at that level. I’m not worried though. These things have a way of sorting 5msleves out. The talent always rises in the end.

hypobole, those K:BB numbers are certainly bad signs for Pentecost. Probably indicates the recent hot streak is a bit of a fluke. Would be nice to see some more advanced numbers like hard hit %, line drive %, etc. I've pretty much given up on him as a prospect, and doubt he's on the 40-man this offseason, but at least he's showing something.

In The athletic, Bowden rates the Jays with third best system in minors after trade deadline, Interestingly, he has Smith #3 and Biggio #4.

Thanks to Gerry and all the bauxite volunteers! Admin is a thankless job, especially on a non-ad/pay site, no complaints from this long time lurker.

100% agree, budgell. The admins here do the thankless yeomans's work that keeps the platform (and community) going. Beers and/or Cheers for the admins!

Should Biagini have started the year in the bullpen?
The Jays were off to a great start when Biagini was in Buffalo. They didn't miss him at all.
He had only 4 starts in AAA with an ERA of 4.57 and clearly wasn't ready to be recalled.
There's no reason to think his starts would have been better coming out of the pen.
It's not like they had a lot of options with Pannone suspended.
His relief numbers are very similar to his starting numbers, except his K/BB ratio is better out of the pen.

A pitcher with 4 good offerings is always tried as a starter which is what Biagini has been in the minors.
They probably selected him out of the Rule V draft specifically to be a starter. That's where the need was.

I agree. Trying Biagini as a starter was the right thing to do even if it didn't work out.

I disagree on Biagini.

I think that we had enough information from last year's 18 starts to conclude that he was better off in the bullpen. A 4 pitch mix is nice when it works. But when he is not getting the reliever velocity bump and hitters have more time to see him he struggles. His second time through the order numbers were downright awful.

Regardless of why he was picked in the rule 5, the need at the start of this year was in the bullpen, not the rotation.

And none of this matters because I have still not seen tangible evidence that facing AAA hitters as a starter is better than facing MLB hitters as a reliever for the development process.

I think there was a much stronger need at the beginning of the season for a #6 starter than a reliever and that proved to be true. It just appears that Biagini is more suited to the pen but that had yet to be determined at that time.

Do you think next years pen looks weak at the moment? I am not completely sold on Mayza. A 2nd set up man is needed. Maybe Tepera and Biagini will be good enough.

I'll start by saying that I don't view "#6 starter" and "reliever" as mutually exclusive. In fact I'll go one farther, if your 6th best starter is not pitching as a reliever in the majors then your resource deployment is suboptimal.

That was my fundamental problem with the decision at the time. A playoff team moves their 5th starter to the bullpen as a competitive advantage, why should the regular season be any different?

I also personally thought that Borucki, Gurrieri, Pannone (pre-suspension), and Reid-Foley were better depth than Axford, Clippard, or Loup. Hindsight may suggest otherwise but its how I felt at the time.

Relievers are a crap shoot.  They vary so much year to year it is hard to predict what to expect outside of a small handful of the extremely good.  I say keep signing live arms and give them a shot out of the pen.  Right now we have a closer who can't pitch unless it is a closing situation, a few setup men who are 'meh' and lots of kids on the farm with live arms.  I say the Jays go out and sign a few more good AAAA guys to stock Buffalo and if anyone looks good in spring give them a shot in the pen. 

And none of this matters because I have still not seen tangible evidence that facing AAA hitters as a starter is better than facing MLB hitters as a reliever for the development process.

There may be no evidence. I guess the point is that once you are in the majors you are not concentrating on development, you are concentrating on winning. If someone fails in AAA, it's not such a big deal.

But Biagini wasn't a 19 year old trying to develop a 3rd pitch or add weight/velocity.

He was 28 (well, almost) with a mature body and 4 pitches. What could he possibly "develop" at AAA against inferior competition?

Nothing as it turns out.

I suspect the Jays were looking for 2 things - one to stretch him out, make sure he could go multiple innings when given a shot at the start of the season, #2 to ensure the Jays have another year of control.

Oh I think you are spot on with the why Not. I just don't know that there's a huge benefit to control manipulation at the back end of the roster. And how long does stretching our really take? 2 turns maybe?

Better to keep the arm in the bullpen and tandem start with #7 for the first turn or two in my opinion.

Biagini sure nailed it this year. 6 ERA in 60 relief innings? I don't know how that reflects well on the bullpen pitcher OR the manager who let him be so bad for so long.

Gibbons is famous for this kind of bullpen management, too. That's a... strange... assessment.

Biagini pitched exclusively out of the stretch and kept running out of gas after 4 innings.
So they tried to simplify his delivery and make him throw out of the wind up to save his arm.
His fastball command went missing and they called him up.
You're wasting time at AAA if you're putting numbers, not if you're struggling there.

At some point it looked like they needed help in the pen, but it's only because the starters were not giving them enough innings. Gibby never really figured out who had what role this year.

How about Taylor Guerrieri? He was ranked as high as 48th by Baseball Prospectus and 62nd by Baseball America.
They stretched him slowly and then gave up on him as a starter after he walked 5 batters in 5 innings in June. Only 1 earned run in that game. He's been worst in the pen. Should they call him in September? He's on his last option.
They could give him an extended look in the Spring/April. It looks like he's been healthy for the first time in a while.
He's a waste of a 40 spot if they just keep him in Buffalo and eventually release him.

Bowden is an idiot.  Smith and Biggio and arguably top ten, likely not top five.  Personally, I'd go:  Vlad, Bo, Jansen, Paradhino, Alford, Pearson, Smith, Biggio, SRF, Groshans. 

Biagini to the rotation is a hard one.  I personally think it is possible to ruin a player by putting them in a situation that they can't succeed in, but I have zero evidence of this.   Arguably, it's smart from an organizational perspective to try and turn a fungible talent -  a possibly decent middle reliever like Biagini - into a significant talent - even a fifth starter fits that bill. 

But was it the best thing to do in terms of Biagini's career?  doubtful.  and that impacts the Jays' bottom line too, even if you don't buy the idea that the org owes the minor leaguers a developmental debt.  decent reliever Biagini has a better impact on the win-loss record than terrible starter Biagini. 

"Bowden is an idiot. Smith and Biggio and arguably top ten, likely not top five. Personally, I'd go: Vlad, Bo, Jansen, Paradhino, Alford, Pearson, Smith, Biggio, SRF, Groshans. "

He's not an idiot. It's a reasonable list. I always push pitching prospects down the list because failure rates are so high. I also would have Pardinho lower because he's a pitcher in rookie ball right now. These lists aren't just about theoretical upside. Biggio will almost certainly be a major leaguer of some sort. What are the odds Biggio has more career value than Pardinho? Don't know but it's high. Also, not sure Alford is even top-10 at the moment. Scouts are way down on him and his numbers are just bad.

The Biagini discussion reminds me of the Liam Hendricks debates or the hand-wringing over releasing Danny Valencia. It's such a minor detail for a minor player. Biagini was a mediocre middle reliever. The Jays thought they could make him into a #5 starter type which has more value. It didn't work. Now, he's back to being a mediocre middle reliever. Look at the relievers in 2016 who were similar (around 8K/9IP, XFIP 3.50-3.90, 50-80 IP). and you have AJ Schugel, K-Rod, Vidal Nuno, JP Howell, Tony Barnett, etc...Biagini is having more success than any of them so maybe trying to make him a starter actually made him a better pitcher? (I don't think so, I just think the idea that we ruined a mediocre middle reliever because we tried to start him is ridiculous). Amusingly enough, two guys who are still having success who were most similar to Biagini are Cahill and Mike Montgomery who were both turned into starters.

I don't think that we ruined Biagini over this. Maybe messed up his routine for a period but nothing major.

I just think that it was poor asset management and there was plenty of signs that this was the case.

What is one thing that Bowden has accomplished?