Nice to see Paulino finally pitch a decent game for the Bisons. I see they still have Gurriel playing 2nd base, and he made another error in game 2. He also went 4 for 8 in the DH, and is hitting .425 with 4 HR's in his last 40 AB's.

Kevin Smith now with an OPS of just .570 after 85 AB's.

Great for Taylor come up with that big game, with 3 steals to go along with the 3 hits and walk. He had really been struggling.

Taylor was off to a better start than you'd think looking at his base numbers because the league has been so bad for hitting. He had a 112 WRC+ going into yesterday with a .352 OBP. For a 20 YO at high A, that's not bad at all. Definitely someone to watch this year.

Taylor is striking out way too much for somebody who does not have much power.

"Taylor is striking out way too much for somebody who does not have much power."

He's also 20 YO and the youngest player on the team and one of the youngest in the league. He now has a 131 WRC+ and 5 SB. He's not a perfect prospect by any means but he's definitely someone moving up the prospect rankings IMO. Serious question. Is Kevin Smith a better prospect? He's 2 years older and only one level higher and struggling badly at that level. Maybe, but it's definitely getting closer.

Maximo Castillo is the youngest player on Dunedin, who I also think is a better prospect than Taylor. I guess I just don't believe in Taylor as much as most, if he played a more demanding position I would probably understand more.

FREE CAVAN BIGGIO! Seriously, the franchise has a lot of guys that profile to be, at best, an average second baseman (Gurriel, Sogard, Drury, Travis, Urena, Hanson, ye gods there are a lot of replaceable parts), none of whom would seem to be blocking Biggio. He seems to have genuine power and patience, and has a full season of great results in AAA now. He's 24 - this might be his peak, and service time can't be a concern for a guy who wouldn't hit free agency until his 30's. Is there something specifically wrong with him? Even his K rate is down this year, even though the IL league K rate is up more than 1/game over last year.

and has a full season of great results in AAA now.

Huh? He's at 93 AAA PA's. Since when is that a full season?

Cabin Fever #2?? Love this.

The Jays currently have 3 young hitters who might form part of a contending team - Jansen/Vlad/Tellez - it's very early but they are still finding themselves, so I would wait a bit before adding Biggio.

Even biggio's inflated .405babip doesn't actually seem like something to worry about too much, as it's directly related to his 30+% line drive rate. he's just torching the ball again this year, with great plate discipline.

Samad Taylor's line this year is off in a bunch of ways - walks are way up, strikeouts are up, power is down - but overall it's balancing out to a very solid level so far (131wrc+), especially for a guy still a bit young for his level. Overally it's still a good start imo, though with some worry spots.

NH is playing right now and leading 4-0. Y Diaz is pitching well through 3 innings. He had to deal with an error.

I think Taylor is doing fine. The LD rate has gone down and GB rate up from last year, but he's 20 in A+, so some struggling early isn't all that surprising. His 15 games were awful. In his last 5 games he has 7 walks, 4 strike outs, 3 doubles, and 4 SB's in 23 plate appearances. All of this is SSS so far, but as long as he shows improvement as the year goes on it's a good sign. I think he's a better prospect than most rankings have him listed.

Once Smoaky's traded Biggio is the obvious call-up. Could send Rowdy down to make room for Biggio tomorrow, but I wouldn't.

Glad to see Biggio playing the outfield at least periodically. Alford can barely get his OPS over his weight much less his BA and there ain’t much to get excited about elsewhere in the minors. And yes, trading excess infield talent for another outfielder might help.

Sorry meant OBP not OPS

CF Grichuk 28
RF Gurriel 25
LF McKinney 24
3B Vladdy 20
SS Bichette 21
2B Urena 23
1B Biggio 24
DH Tellez 24
C Jansen 24

UT Teoscar 26
OF Hansen 26
IF Drury 26
C McGuire 24

grichuk is 27. my bad.

For such a strong system, the Jays affiliates have been disappointing so far.  Dunedin in the only team with a winning record, and that's with the offense being carried by three guys who are too old for their level in Adams, Large and Noda.  I like all three of them as prospects, but hopefully they aren't in A ball all year. 

Buffalo has to be the most disappointing team, with Bichette on the shelf, the entire rotation struggling badly, and a pen lead by 27 year old non-prospect Dusty Isaacs and 28 year old Derek Law.   Biggio looks great, but the only other contributors on offense haven't really played a lot for the team yet.  Forest Wall is the only positive offensive player in NH.  Their pen has some intriguing arms in Tice, McClelland and Snead, but rotation prospects Perez, Murphy and Diaz have all struggled. 

Nate Pearson is obviously awesome, but the only other A ball pitchers of note have been Max Castillo and Josh Winckowski.  They both look like top 20 guys in the system to me right now, if they can continue pitching the way they have.
Lansing has some of the best individual performances with Groshans, Lopez and Kirk forming an exciting young offensive core - maybe Pruitt as well?

If you peruse the Pipeline top 30, you could argue that we have 5 guys who have exceeded expectations compared to 10 who have underachieved, (with 6 guys who are on low level rosters that have yet to play for keeps this season). 

What do you guys think?  Who is due to breakout or surprise?  Did I miss any performances of note, one way or the other?

I'm with Glevin on Smith and Glevin (and others) on Taylor. I think its fair to now be worried about Smith's contact abilities. His K% last year jumped quite a bit after promotion to Dunedin and its jumped again this year. It's early days of course, but its a definite red flag for me. Taylor is a different kettle of fish for me. He's demonstrated fairly solid contact skills at each level - I'm not worried about an initial blip in k%. For Taylor, I think the issues continue to be how much power does he have and the reports on his defence vary wildly. I'm a fan of Taylor so I'm biased, but I wouldn't be surprised if he's solidly in the Jays top 15 prospects by year end.

The affiliates have been disappointing, but the news was mixed individually.  Pearson's start is such good news that it makes up for a lot disappointments.  He makes his first start in May tonight.  I'll venture a guess that he's in the Eastern League in mid-May, after 3 more FSL starts.

I am going with the concept that the moves to AA, AAA and ML are the most difficult. So patience is important to me.

Borucki struggled badly at Dunedin in 2016. Then succeeded. Hopefully he gets healthy soon.

Many injuries, Zeuch, Jon Harris, E Pardinho for example.

To me our AA rotation is of great value to the farm. Y Diaz has had 3 v good and 2 v bad starts. P Murphy, Z Logue and A Sopko are doing ok. All 4 are looking good to me as they adjust to AA. H Perez bad.

In Dunedin Pearson is outstanding. He should be promoted soon. Pearson is pitching today and it is his day in to go 2 innings (pattern). M Castillo,N Allgeyer and T Larkin are all doing well. If they are promoted I expect it to be late in the year. The FSL favors pitchers.

I agree that there have been a handful of starts to the year that have been excellent from a farm system development perspective; but if you had to generalize, the system's pitching prospects, through injury or poor performance, are really struggling. Other than Pearson, all of the top 30ish pitching prospects (SRF, Pardinho, Perez, Zeuch, Romano, Murphy, Diaz, Paulino) are injured or performing somewhere between "meh" and "God awful". It's early but is an issue.

Definitely frustrated that all these older arms we traded for aren't even pitching well enough to give us that depth they were so hyped about.

Though, to be fair, Thornton is one of those guys and has provided us with decent depth so far.

I am enjoying our discussion on top pitching prospects. Over the next 3 seasons I will watch and compare 4 pitchers. F Whitley, M Kopech, C Mize and N Pearson. Basically their success and health.

M Kopech pitched well in the minors and was v good in his 1st 3 ML starts. The 4th, Sept 5/18, was terrible. TJ surgery. It happens.

F Whitley: AAA. Poor results so far but the season is young.

N Pearson: 3rd year pro. Only 40.2 IP so far.

C Mize: Stud ... untouchable.

Injuries happen to pitchers. Matt Harvey is a good example of a ML #1 pitcher that is struggling because of injuries.

CWS, Toronto and Detroit are rebuilding they probably will not trade the above pitchers. Houston probably will not trade Whitley either.

What I fear the most is CWS trading M Kopech to us. We got damaged goods with M Sirotka and Sergio Santos.

Romano and Paulino are not considered top 30 prospect.
If any of the two does well in the bullpen, I'd be happy.

Pardinho is kinda injured, but if he recovers in time to pitch for Vancouver, he'd be right on track.

Kloffenstein should be good to go soon. Thornton in our 4th starter.

Diaz seems to be doing OK. Luciano is in the pen, doing reasonably well.

SRF, Perez, Murphy and De Paula are struggling.

It's more of a mixed bag.

Pipeline guys who haven't played: Kloffenstein, Martinez, Hiraldo, Jimenez, Moreno

Do you see Pardinho, Zeuch, Connine as underachievers?

Guys doing well: Guerrero, Groshans, Biggio, Thornton, McGuire (defensive catcher outhitting Maile), Noda, Kirk, Adams

Guys struggling: Kevin Smith, SRF, Alford, Perez, Murphy, Young, Stevenson, De Paula, Vicuna

Taylor is doing OK. Bichette was doing OK.

I think it's about half and half. Just not enough pitching right now.

Scottt, I see the injured guys as underperforming, so Zeuch is on that list, as is Bichette, and Conine for the suspension.  But I left the short season guys out, so no Pardinho.  Did I miss an injury to him? 

I was using the rough one third rule - in a given year, one third of prospects will improve their prospect standing, one third will stay the same, and one third will decrease in 'value'.  But by that metric, Vlad hasn't done 'well' - he has met his expectations, as high as that bar is.  McGuire has, at best, met his expectations, and I wouldn't list Thornton or Noda in the 'doing well' category either.  Thornton is at least providing decent innings in the bigs, but like Ugly, I would like to see more of the 'close to the majors' guys we traded for actually performing like major leaguers. 

Pearson's performance is, like Mike Green notes, so good that it makes up for a bunch of the disappointments, but I've lauded the Jays' minor league depth for a while now, and a bunch of the sleepers seem to be struggling.  I would expect some regression to balance things out, but I am legit concerned about AA, SRF and a bunch of the prospects we acquired over the past year. 

Kiley McDaniel Fangraphs chat today:

12:17
A big dumb idiot: See my username, but is there any changes to one’s opinion of Cavan Biggio with him demolishing AAA?

12:17
Kiley McDaniel: Eric just saw that club and didn’t think anything had changed materially on Biggio

I hope we agree on the concept of "under performing".

1) Under performing due to injury.

2) Under performing due to poor performance. So hitting issues, defensive issues and error issues which includes bad base running.

Gurriel's hitting is good but his errors are bad. So poor (under) performance defensively.

Please note that I am not trying to teach anyone. At 67 years old I have great health but my mind is poor performance.

Noda has a 149 wRC+ in the FSL.

Pearson struck out 5 of the 7 batters he faced in today's scheduled short outing. I think he needs to be moved up in order to keep learning.

Early in the year, I think it’s helpful to look at the process for the prospects rather than just pure results. For example, I worry less about Taylor’s start because the k rate is somewhat out of character. Contrast that with Perez or SRF who have a history of serious command issues. Their starts suggest no progress on that front and actually suggest significant regression. I see those sorts of issues as being far bigger red flags.

2 very poor defensive decisions in the 1st.

And a poor choice for a challenge. That play was far too close for them to overturn it. You're wasting your challenge when you do that.

Everybody makes mistakes, like posting in the wrong thread for example.

I haven't heard anything about Perez. SRF was very happy after his first spring game even if he gave up a homerun. He said there was nothing he could do about that but that he was feeling very good.
For him, the walks can be a result of his fastball moving so much.
Hopefully he bounces back like he usually does and ends up in Toronto this year.