Shi Davidi mentioned today that Patrick Murphy developed some shoulder fatigue from his remade delivery and needed some IL time.

5.2 no hit innings for Pearson tonight...1 walk, 8 K's.

Stevenson’s minor league career to date has been very impressive. I expect Fangraphs will be upgrading his 35 FV before long. Questions:

Will he be able to hit against pitchers with better stuff in AA and above?

Does he have enough speed, power, and/or defensive ability to set him apart in the majors?

Fangraphs now has a fluid farm ranking system. With Vlad, Danny and Biggio graduating, we're down to 21st.

https://www.fangraphs.com/prospects/the-board/2019-in-season-prospect-list?sort=-1,1&team=&type=100&filter=&pos=

"Fangraphs now has a fluid farm ranking system. With Vlad, Danny and Biggio graduating, we're down to 21st."

Fangraphs are the low guys on Groshans and Pardinho. Pipeline for example, has them both at 55. Fangraphs has them at 45. Obviously, the system has lost a lot of talent, but I think a system is still in the top half of the league. There is elite talent at the top of the list and a lot of interesting young talent on the way to give the system depth. Where the system is lacking right now is I think the depth of talent in the upper minors. I don't think after Bo and Pearson, there is a single player in AA and AAA who looks like a regular major leaguer. Those guys on MLB Pipeline are Smith, SRF, Alford, Zeuch, Perez, Murphy, McGuire, Diaz, Adams, Espinal, Davis, Warmoth, Murray. There are probably a few part time players/backend starters/relievers on there but right now doesn't look like more than that. The Jays need some of the A ball guys to keep performing as they move up.

Glevin - that's a solid description of the state of the farm. All the premium talent after the two you mentioned is, at best, a couple of years away.

A lot of pitchers that are close.

Some are having a very hard time in AAA. SRF is the big example for me. We will see how Zeuch, Pearson, J Diaz, Murphy, Logue, H Perez do.

Pannone in the ML is not good but V good in AAA.

I gotta say it's a bit annoying when people say "aside from these 2 great prospects...."

how many great prospects do you guys think other teams have? You "aside from" any teams top 2 mlb ready prospects and then there's not a lot of mlb ready legit prospects left.

even after the recent graduations:

AAA: Bichette, SRF, Zeuch, (McGuire, Alford)
AA: Pearson, Smith, (Diaz, Perez, Murphy, Murray)

with Kirk, Stevenson, Castillo, Winckowski all playing well enough in A+ to deserve a promotion.

Out of SRF, Zeuch, McGuire, Alford, Smith, Diaz, Perez and Murray I would be surprised if they ultimately ended up with more than one middle reliever and one back of the roster (back-up catcher, 4th OF, utility INF) player out of that group. If I had to guess McGuire looks like he may be an interesting back-up C (in large part because he's a LH) and one of SRF or Perez may make a useful reliever. That's just a group of prospects that I don't hold out much hope for. Having said that, I hope they all get looks in the next year and a half. Because - youneverknow.

that's fine.

now go around and look at other teams AAA/AA prospects, and remove their best two prospects, and see what's left over.

Clint
@_ClintB_
Baseball America's re-ranking of the farm systems has come out, Jays come in at 9 with this blurb "Vladimir Guerrero Jr. has graduated, but Bo Bichette and Nate Pearson is still one of the best 1-2 prospect punches in baseball."

uglyone - not sure how to respond as it wasn’t me who made the comment you were taking issue with:). My only point was that after the top two all of the really interesting prospects in the system are players who are a few years away and (mostly) for whom we have little or no pro data. To Mike’s point that makes the system hard to rank and one with significant subjectivity. A year from now this system could easily be top 5 or bottom 10 (ignoring the issue of promotions to the majors).

If the Jays trade most of their available veterans for prospects and select near the top of the rule 4 draft next year (and again the year after), the team should have an opportunity to have one of the better farm systems in baseball, perhaps even after Bichette and/or Pearson graduate.

Was Gurriel ever ranked as a prospect? He has huge power and a v good Avg. Our system may not have got much of a boost when he was a prospect because he is a late bloomer sort of.
He surprised me by being this good.

Nigel, my point is that if you remove any system's top-2 prospects, they're not going to have a whole lot of high-minors sure-thing prospects left in the system.

If you look at other systems that are generally considered the top systems in the majors right now - SD, Atl, TB, CWS - they can graduate 2 top prospects and still have some top 100-150 prospects in AA/AAA. You’re right that lesser rated systems would have similar issues to the Jays.

Adding to what Greenfrog said about adding prospects in trades and having a high pick in the Rule 4 draft, the Jays will most likely have a top 5 pick in next June's amateur draft. This could be a very good player who will rise quickly through the farm system.

When teams have top prospects at AAA, it's usually because they are struggling there.
If a guy has an OPS over a 1.000 at AAA, you make room for him.
It's the same with pitching. I think the Dodgers are the only teams that don't need pitching help.

Let's see.
Top rated pitching prospects by MLB pipeline.

M Gore, 3rd overall, ERA of 6.75 in AA
F Whittley, 9th overal, ERA of 12.21 in AAA
J Luzardo, 13th overall, ERA of 3.65 in AAA, but out with a lat strain
M Kopech, 14th overall, has not pitched following TJ surgery
M Keller 15th overall, ERA of 3.10 in AAA

So after Bichette gets promoted, the Jays will still have Pearson, Groshans and Pardinho in the top 100.
And a year from now, they should have a strong draft to restock.

As far as a top 5 pick next year, just noticed the Jays are now 28th. KC has been playing good ball and don't seem to have much on the trade block. Neither do the Marlins, although they have a brutal schedule from here on out.

Don't think we'll catch the O's or Tigers, but with a lot of our best pieces on the block it's not outside the realm of possibility.