Forrest Wall with a bases loaded single breaks up a 1-1 tie in the top of the 10th. 3-1. Travis Bergen on to close it out.

...which he does masterfully.

One of the Prospect Live guys was at Blue Jays Instructs and posted about a minute each of batting practice on twitter for Groshans, Conine and Orelvis Martinez.

https://twitter.com/ProspectsLive

I really like the season TJ Zeuch is having. He has succeeded at 2 levels after only half a season last year due to injury. So he has moved fast.
He has pitched a lot this year 156.1 regular innings plus 12 playoff innings.

https://futurebluejays.com/2018/09/12/blue-jays-instructional-league-roster-announced/

FisherCats up 4-1 with a chance for more. Bases loaded 1 out.

Eric Pardinho is not on the instructional league roster and he pitched very poorly in his last outing. This smells like an injury to me. Can anyone sniff this one out. Gerry?

Jon Harris is shutting Akron down through six innings. It's interesting that Harris gets the start and not Hector Perez or Jordan Romano.

6-1 Cats heading to the bottom of the 8th.

Corey Copping strikes out the side in the ninth to seal the win for the Cats.  Good experience for Copping and Bergen the last two nights. 

NH using Corey Copping to close it out tonight, not Travis Bergen. John Schneider is really trying to use plenty of pitchers.

Jon Harris gets the win and finishes the season on a positive note.

Tomorrow is an off-day. Jordan Romano tries to nail down the championship on Friday. If not Hector Perez is scheduled for Saturday with TJ Zeuch and Charlie Wholestaff for Sunday.

Eric Pardinho is not on the instructional league roster and he pitched very poorly in his last outing. This smells like an injury to me. Can anyone sniff this one out. Gerry?

"Very poorly", seriously? 1 run on a double and 2 singles and 3 walks, with 7 Ks over 4 innings. You're scratching pretty hard to find a story in that. "17-year old fireballer is wild, runs up pitch count in short outing. News at 11".

The Jays are splitting their instructional league time with the Canadian Jr National team and will only play 3 games. Is that unusual?

Pearson is going to Arizona after all.

Jonny, you're wrong. This playoff game was Pardinho's last start.

http://www.milb.com/milb/stats/stats.jsp?gid=2018_08_31_prirok_blurok_1&t=g_box&sid=milb

Thanks hypobole, and Apoligies, PeterG. That playoff game was indeed awful for Pardinho.

*Apologies* even.

I would not infer from Pardinho's absence from instructs that he he is hurt.  He's 17 years old and from Brazil.  He's had a fine pro debut, playoff blip notwithstanding.  I can think of good developmental reasons for him to have a longer break and to spend some time with his family. 

I had completely missed Zach Plesac until seeing his name as Akron's starter for Game 3.  He is Dan's nephew, but a right-hander (what were they thinking!).

I'd describe pardinho's season as closer to "incredible" than "fine", I think.

Even KLaw can't not make Vlad Prospect of the Year:

This wasn't exactly a hard call, and it's now the second year in a row I've given this award to Guerrero, Jr. Baby Vlad hit .381 to lead all of the minors, slugged .636 to finish second in the minors to 28-year-old Jabari Blash and did so in Double-A and Triple-A at the age of 19, the equivalent of a college freshman. His plate coverage is exceptional, and his approach is well beyond his years and beyond anything his father ever developed.


The No. 2 prospect in baseball was slowed this year only by an injury that cost him about 35 games in June but didn't affect his performance at all. He returned to Double-A New Hampshire and hit in all seven games he played there before Toronto bowed to the inevitable and bumped him up to Buffalo. He struck out just 38 times and drew 37 walks for a strikeout rate under 10 percent compared to league averages of 21-22 percent. He's played at least 30 games at each full-season level in the Toronto system in the past two calendar years and his worst line was in low-A Lansing, where he hit .316 with a .409 OBP.

Guerrero remains a well below-average defender at third with very little chance to stay at the position, but there is zero question in my mind that he would mash against big league pitching if the Jays weren't blatantly manipulating his service time to save Rogers some cash. He's the obvious choice for our Minor League Player of the Year for 2018.

True. But he still couldn't resist a dig at the management team.

To my point from the other thread, the comment about "well below average defence" (which may or may not be true, I have no idea) is based on what? How many viewings etc.?

The issue with Law is that he says things so stridently and without nuance. I do understand that that helps "sell papers" but it makes people tune out. For example, his comment from the other day that Toronto's system wasn't a top 10 system. In my view, that's an extreme view and is difficult to reconcile with the majority consensus. Most people (perhaps understandably) will tune out immediately. Lost in that will be the kernel of a legitimate point that Law made which is that it is an open question of how many impact prospects the system really has. With Jansen no longer eligible I think it likely the Jays will have two consensus top 15 players and no other top 100 prospects. Law has some interesting things to say, I wish he'd say them a bit differently.

well, the real issue with Law is that he's a career Beer who literally just makes things up and then rehashed the other rankings to make his own. he's not only not a scout, but he doesn't out in any legwork, either.

That being said I don't quibble with that Vlad analysis. personally I think it's a waste of time to try and turn him into a third baseman, and that the best we can hope for is a couple years of bad but not awful defense there followed by a quick decline.

I will never understand why Law is even mentioned on sites like this. He doesn't provide anything that much more established publications/sites/writers do on a consistent basis, and he comes off so insufferable as a person that even promoting his work seems too good for him. I joke around that any time Law hates a Jays prospect, I instantly expect that prospect to become a good big leaguer, but that's really all the entertainment value I could get out of him.

by Career "Beer" I meant career "BSer" but I like that autocorrect.

I admit to not knowing what a "beer" is in reference to Law, but he does put the work in, he is paid to put the work in, he does go to games.

We should have all learned over the last many years that prospect evaluation is hit and miss. Many prospects tagged for greatness fail, and some unheralded ones pop up. Law is not infallible. It is hard to say whether he is any better or worse than Sickels, BA, or the Fangraphs guys. The major difference, as noted above, is that he very stridently delivers his opinions. So when he is wrong, you really know he is wrong. If Sickels puts a B+ on a guy who fails, you barely remember. Law is in your face.

Just to add.....teams send their scouts to watch a team play for five or ten games per year. They might have multiple scouts watch a team. And they get it wrong in trades.

Teams see their own players every day, and sometimes they trade a guy who turns out to be much better than they thought he would be.

So guys like the ones I mentioned above (Law, Sickels, etc.) are lucky to see a player once, and maybe twice. They might get an opinion from a scout but that could be wrong too.

Everybody is wrong, some of the time.

Bang on Gerry in both posts. I think its a mistake to completely tune out Law (but that's just me) as I think he's got a perspective that should be considered. Considering different perspectives on matters that are in aid of extrapolating what someone or something might become is more rather than less valuable in my opinion.

One more point, that I believe I made a week or so ago.

If teams are somewhat hit and miss on knowing which prospects will succeed then having a large volume of prospects in your system gives you a better chance of hitting on some who will over achieve.

Law devalues the Jays large pool of marginal prospects but the Jays hope 10% or 20% turn into something special.

"If Sickels puts a B+ on a guy who fails, you barely remember. Law is in your face."

Nailed it again, Gerry. People here remembered the "Teoscar is a good defender" minor league report, but no one here remembered it came from Sickels.

You know, I was originally very down on the idea of just giving up on Vlad sticking at 3rd (and Bo at SS), but with Tulo still around next year, and Kevin Smith looking good, I'm inclined to think moving Vlad to 1B and Bo to 3B might be for the best. Might have to keep Vlad at 3B for next year, and give Rowdy a shot at 1B, but I'd want them ready for their new positions for 2020. If Rowdy still looks like a major-league hitter, I guess one of them can do a lot of DHing.

Only 3 3rd basemen have been double digit negatives by DRS this year. All 3 play for teams with winning records and the worst of the bunch, by far, is on a team that had a black hole at 1B for much of the season. Maybe MLB teams don't view things like we do.

Andujar, Franco, and Devers are the third basemen referred to here.

With more hitters looking to elevate, and more strikeouts, I believe infielders are seeing much less plays than they did say ten years ago. Less plays means less value to a good fielder or fewer negatives to a bad one.

With respect to Vlad, his upside is a close to average third baseman for several years. If the Jays are not going to win in 2019 then try him there. Part of the problem is that Sanchez and Stroman get ground balls so it could be a negative for them to have Vlad there. Most reports from Buffalo don't say he is terrible, his arm is good, its his range thats not the best.

I'm wondering if Law dumps on other teams as much as he likes to dump on the Jays. IMO it's almost like he's got an axe to grind in regards to the Jays.

it's fine to defend law with the everyone is wrong argument.

but, at the same time, you should have to earn our trust in the first place.

What is one semi-interesting call that law has ever been right about, that we should trust him?

Tulowitzki over Romero.

And with that comment, the Internet has been awarded to the victor, Mike Green.

Didn’t most people at the time favour Tulo over Romero? If in fact Law did argue for selecting Tulo, that’s a point in his favour, but it probably reflects the majority view at the time of the draft.

yep. consensus ranking. and it's not like he ranked tulo #1

My criticism with Law is not necessary how often he’s wrong/right, but just his content in general. With prospects there has to be some level of hedging your bets because of the unpredictability of the entire process. Sickels will rank someone a B+ but then list a weakness or two that might prevent that player from reaching his ceiling. Law has an opinion backed by basically nothing and goes all in on it. That’s more shock jock analysis than actual analysis, though I’m sure some will disagree. I prefer a more objective analysis in general, and Law isn’t it.

FWIW, I liked Maybin better than Tulo or Romero.  I don't recall that there was a "consensus".

Really look at the Jays Minors as others would. Some of the Prospects called up are not that high on the 30-Man list, #3/#71 Jansen (AA), #10 Reid-Foley (AA), #19 Paulino (Trade-RA), #20 McGuire (Trade-RA), #21 Davis (AA), #22 Urena (AA), #27 Pannone (Trade-RA) and #29 Tellez (AA). Maybe 3-5 of these make the Majors to stay.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. (AA) is the #1/#1 Prospect in all of Baseball and his bat at least is said to be MLB-Ready. With those listed above and Vlady with #5/#89 Alford (AA) are the 2019 crew.

Keith Laws contention is that the Jays are top heavy on the list (AA and above) and there's a large gap to the next group of top talent (RK, RK+,A-). I think that's true.

No. He completely under estimates the strong depth of the Jays system.

Okay. Thank You.

I'd put the jays 1-5 prospects against most any teams' top 5.

I'd put the jays 6-15 prospects against most any other team's 6-15.

And their 15-30.And their 30+.

I think if Nate Pearson hadn't gotten hurt the Jays system would have looked even stronger.

How many players in the 15+ usually become regular players?
Currently the Jays have Tellez, Davis, McGuire, Fernandez, Guerrieri, etc... already playing at the MLB and not looking out of place. How is that top heavy?

Quite honestly, who is your #15 and beyond prospect matters very little as few outside the top 10 or so will have any serious impact in the majors for any team.  Yes, the odd low end one will surprise but Law's focus on beyond the top 5 as a reason to knock down the Jays is pretty dumb imo.  Ones goal for a minor league system should be first to develop stars as getting them any other way is super-expensive (Roger Clemens for example in the 90's) or requires massive good luck (Bautista/Encarnacion who both drastically outperformed even the most optimistic projection when they were acquired).  Guys who are replacement level can be had on the open market anytime pretty much, it is nice if you produce them yourself but if you don't it won't really hurt.  0-1 WAR guys are a dime a dozen.  It is the 5+'ers that you dream of. 

Betts, Ramirez, Cain, Martinez, Goldschmidt, Carpenter are 6 of the 15 5 fWAR position players. None were top prospects early on.

basically law is talking about the 2nd layer of prospects - I.e. the guys that fill out the rest of the top 10 behind vladdy bo and Danny.


so he's crapping on all of:

SRF Pearson Pardinho Kloffenstein (Borucki?)
Smith Biggio Groshans (Gurriel?)

who likely fill out our top 10.


the thing is, it doesn't matter whether you favour raw tools or performance, proximity or upside, or draft pedigree, that group matches up well with most any 4-10 group in baseball.

"so he's crapping on all of:"

Law said Jays Top 10 ranking is laughable. So he's actually crapping on every other evaluation site, because I haven't seen one that has the Jays system outside the Top 10.

Vlad and Jansen get named to BA's 1st team milb all stars.

Jansen finally getting the respect he deserves as arguably the best catching prospect in baseball. he could have been named to this team last year, too.

for some reason, they picked Royce Lewis as the 1st team SS, dropping Bo to the 2nd team. don't ask me why.

Nice list John N for lucky "finds". I definitely add Donaldson because he overperformed expectations.

P DeJong of St Louis 4th round looks like K Smith.

Good question uglyone.  Royce Lewis - 19 years old, in A and A+ hit 292/352/451 between them, but just 255/327/399 in A+.  So one year younger than Bo, a level plus lower and worse performance.  Maybe he is an Ozzie Smith with the glove?  He was the #1 overall pick in 2017, and some seem to feel he will be the best prospect in baseball after next season (once Vlad and others are promoted).  Sounds like a pedigree over performance situation to me.

Mike, we're talking about different points. This is the point I was referring.

"Quite honestly, who is your #15 and beyond prospect matters very little as few outside the top 10 or so will have any serious impact in the majors for any team."

After Betts 1st season, he was not top 15 in Boston's system. Even after his 2nd season, Sickels didn't have him Top 20 - didn't even have him as an "other"

https://www.minorleagueball.com/2013/1/7/3848710/boston-red-sox-top-20-prospects-for-2013

Prospect lists are year by year snapshots, and guys without high draft pick/high signing bonus pedigrees often have to prove themselves over and over before evaluators catch on.

Lewis is, by the way, a young 19. He was born in June and three months younger than Bichette.

3 months younger at the levels, 15 months younger overall?

How many people have seen all of the Blue Jay top 60 prospects at least 3 times in the last 3 months? I'll bet the number is 0. And even that number of viewings is not enough. If you multiply that by 30 organizations, it's easy to see why any evaluation of organizational strength is highly subjective and relies essentially on quite a bit of hearsay.

Very well put, Mike.

Prospects Live is a new site. A couple of their guys were at Blue Jays instructs. Here's what one of them saw.

https://www.prospectslive.com/featured-articles/2018/9/13/backfield-banter-blue-jays-instructs-camp-911-912

"How many people have seen all of the Blue Jay top 60 prospects at least 3 times in the last 3 months? I'll bet the number is 0. And even that number of viewings is not enough. If you multiply that by 30 organizations, it's easy to see why any evaluation of organizational strength is highly subjective and relies essentially on quite a bit of hearsay."


And, conversely, the statsline gives us information on every single pitch and play the prospect is involved with.

No doubt, fielding is the hardest part to glean from the stats.

Then again, fielding is also the hardest part to glean from eye scouting.

This is a really interesting discussion. Just two small things to add when thinking about overall strength of the league's farm systems and the Jays' systems(and before someone fires back that I'm being critical of the Jays' system - I'm not, its an excellent system right now). One issue that doesn't get a lot consideration, but I think is important, is balance. The Jays system is currently somewhat imbalanced - extremely long on middle infielders, 3B and C and lighter on P and OF (to be fair, fairly long on 4th OF types). Now this imbalance is better than having a plethora of 1B and 3B, because, as others have said, there are opportunities to move middle infielders to other positions but its still an issue. I've never thought it was as easy to trade good position player prospects for good pitching prospects (for example) as people believe. The other issue which some prospect sites to a better job at than others is assessing risk based upon the amount of data they have. In the Jays case, there are five potentially (based upon age, performance, draft/signing history) elite prospects (Pearson, Groshans, Pardinho, Kloffenstein and Martinez) about whom we have very little actual performance data. The distribution of outcomes for them (and hence the system) is disproportionately large.

As Gerry said above, bulk real value in this realm.

Personally, I'm not worried about the relative paucity of corner outfield prospects.  The ability to move to a corner is very common.  Center-field is different.  A limited number of prospects have the defensive chops to play center competently at the major league level.  And it is an issue for the organization- Forrest Wall, Chavez Young and Cal Stevenson are the names I see with the possibility of playing the position and that may be optimistic.  Pitchers are an even bigger issue, and it certainly does help to have bulk.  The organization doesn't have that. 

I've found the scouting versus stats debate silly for a long time. Every single organization uses both. Stats can tell you a lot and can find breakout players who scouts overlooked or who changes something. Scouting can tell you things you can't see in numbers which is plenty. It isn't one or the other. It's both. As for Law. I don't really like him that much because he speaks too much in absolutes and less in ranges which I think is more helpful but I never bought into the anti-Jays bias. The Jays are absolutely a top 10 system because elite prospects are so much more valuable than others and the Jays have the most elite prospect around. Anyway, I have some faith in the system that some of the young guys will step up next year the way Smith did this year. I'm not at all worried about top many prospects at one position. Guys can get moved down the spectrum if there is a logjam.

Mike - good point about CF versus the corners. FWIW I think the one name you missed is Palacios - when he was in Vancouver he definitely appeared to have the defensive skills for CF (although not at an elite level). I will also add that Young seems to have played more corner OF this year than I would have expected if he had the chops for CF.

Thanks, Nigel, for the scouting information on Palacios.  For what it's worth, neither he nor Forrest Wall scores very well on Davenport's metric. 

athletic IF who may not actually have the hands for the IF can usually turn into good OF (like Betts).

guys that fit the bill in our system include Gurriel, Lopez, Taylor, and maybe some others.

Nigel, part of the reason for Young playing RF a lot is that while Pruitt is very good in CF, he doesn't have the arm Young does.

FG has him at 50 speed, 60 arm, 2080 guy who watched him said 60 speed, 50 arm. I watched him a few times on TV, looked good in both CF and RF and his throws were pretty accurate, nailed a few runners although he did air-mail one. The announcer raved about his routes, although the 2080 guy begged to differ, especially going back on the ball.

hypobole, thanks for that and I had forgotten about Pruitt. Pruitt is an excellent defender and if you were playing both I understand why he would have been chosen to play CF (for the reasons you mentioned and that he might just be a better defender in CF than Young). Now, why you would play Pruitt at all is a different question.

Cantwell RBI double scores Biggio from 1st. 1-0

Palacios SF scores Cantwell. 2-0 going to the 3rd.

Congratulations to the Fisher Cats, Eastern League champions.

Good set of games for the kids to play in, gives them all sorts of confidence. Didn't hurt anyone's prospects status.

The only way a playoff is negative is if someone gets hurt.  For the Jays this AA experience is all good.  Some top prospects got to see how they did under pressure and got rewarded for it.  IIRC the manager there has been following along with the kids and is going to AAA next year.  Wonder if he might come to the majors in 2019 or 2020?  Keep him with the kids as they get settled in as major leaguers.

NH really is a super team. Undefeated in the playoffs.
Their manager John Schneider spoke with K Barker and the other guy (forgot his name) yesterday. Baseball central on the Fan.

Don't know how many here are interested in watching minor leaguers hitting and pitching, but 2080 baseball posted 50 Jays videos, from prospects like Vlad, Bo, Biggio, Murphy, to ??? guys like Ryan Thurston and Gage Burland.

If you have interest, recommend scrolling down to the Prospect Video Library bar and click on Organization twice. Washington prospects should appear, scroll down and the 50 Toronto videos are next.

https://2080baseball.com/2018-video-prospect-library/

Will these guys qualify for the purposes of the end of season Batter's Box Top 30 prospects?

Billy McKinney
Anthony Alford
Thomas Pannone
Danny Jansen

I believe all of them will pass the 45 days service time limit on being considered rookies in 2019, but none are likely to reach 130 AB or 50 IP.

Thanks J German for the facts about prospect qualifications. I did not know about the 45 day limit.

Adam McInturff from 2080 watched Lansing for a week in August and posted reports on Noda, Samad, Chavez, Pruitt and Maximo.

https://2080baseball.com/2018-scouting-report-library/

Thanks for the link hypobole. They have different take on Taylor than most. The consensus of earlier reviews has been: solid hit tool and good plate discipline; questions about power potential and below average defence. The 2080 report is pretty glowing on the defence but raises questions about the hit tool and plate discipline. I only saw him play once in Vancouver so I have no views on his defence. However, I will say that if 2080 is right about his defence then I think Taylor is close to being a top 10 prospect for me.

I should note that everyone agrees that Taylor has plus speed.

What bugs me about scouting reports like these are the comments about a player's "ceiling". They're assessing guys who are in their late teens or early 20's and saying "ceiling is a mid-reliever" or "ceiling is a 4th outfielder", or "ceiling is a backup infielder". My guess is a lot of current good mlb players were at some point labelled with a "ceiling" such as that. It's not reasonable to state that a player that young, that far from reaching his potential, has such a limited "ceiling". Players develop differently, learn new pitches, get stronger, figure out how to hit the breaking pitch more consistently, etc. Now if they want to say where they see a player most likely to end up, sure I'd go along with that.

"What bugs me about scouting reports like these are the comments about a player's "ceiling"."

That's the way scouts talk though, that's part of their job and makeup. Like the last line in this:


"I saw Goldschmidt only once as a prospect, at the Futures Game in Phoenix in 2011, and saw a strong guy who wasn't a great athlete and showed raw power in BP but didn't have more than average bat speed. I talked to a number of pro scouts and front-office guys after that and heard similar opinions, calling him a fringy regular or a platoon first baseman."

Sure, it's the way they talk, and I think it gives a false impression to fans looking at the reports. A ceiling would imply that's as good as a player could possibly get, and it's misleading. You hear it on sports talk shows as well, and I think it gives viewers/listeners the wrong idea.

Agree dan gordon. Marco Scuttoro. M Estrada. They seemed to go higher than their ceiling.

Regarding prospects. Tellez can only play 1B and DH. C Biggio plays more than 2B. 1B, DH and 2B. He is learning OF. How is Biggio's defense? Biggio also had 20 SB's this year.

It's talk to a degree, but essentially, it's the scouts being wrong.
It's not easy to spot the players who will develop and make adjustments and those who won't.
It's like predicting the stock market, so the experts are just occasionally right.

I looked at JB Woodman. Picked #57 and signed for $975K. So highly regarded. But why? Good CF defense, LHB, power and speed. Ks too high.

Prospects Live previews the Surprise Saguaros.

https://www.prospectslive.com/featured-articles/2018/9/21/2018-arizona-fall-league-preview-scottsdale-saguaros