Palmegiani, who played in high school in Alberta, is at 317/387/720 in his last 23 games.

Looking at the boxscore, Jordan Groshans was playing first base on Sunday. I wonder if they are planning to build up his positional flexibility.

It should be pretty much routine to bring prospects in whatever spot they might be needed.

The Jays have a good habit (imo) of trying to get prospects to play everywhere at some point so they can move into those slots if needed at the ML level. For example, Espinal was used at 2B/3B/SS/CF/LF in the minors/fall leagues so when needed in the majors he could cover all easily. I remember for years, even before the current crew took over, the Jays had outfielders play all 3 OF positions so they could move between them in the majors if needed, even if a guy was a clear CF or not good enough for CF just to ensure emergency use was possible for them, so their first game action in the other positions wasn't at the ML level.

1B is often seen as the easiest (next to LF maybe) to play. But we've seen clear growth from Vlad at 1B and I suspect this is to ensure they have good backups. So far in 2022 for example, Vlad had played 406 innings in the field, Biggio 71 at 1B, Gurriel 23, and Katoh 21 1/3. Given I suspect the Jays would like to use Biggio elsewhere on the field given his defensive skills it would be good to have kids ready to cover if Vlad gets hurt at some point (crap happens, you need to be ready for it). At 3B only Chapman and Espinal (40 innings) have played. At SS Bo & Espinal (7 innings). CF is one of note: Springer 274 innings vs Zimmer 183 2/3, vs Tapia 63 2/3 scary innings. LF mainly Gurriel (370) & Tapia (134) with Biggio/Capra/Hernandez covering just 17 1/3 between them. RF is Hernandez (273 2/3), Tapia (165), Springer (43 2/3), Biggio 19, Zimmer 15, and Capra 5. DH has been Kirk/Springer (14 starts each), Collins/Vlad (11 each), Gurriel (6), Hernandez (2), Tapia (1).

Back to Groshans. Lifetime he has 2 games at 1B (14 innings), 54 at 3B (449 innings), 103 at SS (826), and 6 at DH. I see 1B as purely a backup - so he can cover for Vlad if an injury happens and he gets his shot. Much like how Biggio is used there now. With Bo & Chapman at SS/3B he is very blocked outside of injuries so learning to play more positions is a very good thing. I'd like them to try him out at 2B/CF as well. If he can cover CF then a clear path exists for him (as odds are Springer will get more and more time in RF as time goes by if an adequate fill in exists). Groshans is hitting 291/394/355 in AAA which is low for power, but nice for OBP with more walks than K's right now (19 vs 18).

In one of the Jays FCL games today, the second one, the starting pitcher was Nathanael Perez. The 24 year old made 16 starts for Dunedin last season. He went two innings. He was relieved by Nathanael Perez, a 21 year old, who was in the DSL last year.

Both are from the Dominican but have different towns listed as their birthplace.

Our FCL team has a 44 man roster. So far SSS so I should wait a bit before getting excited.

bpoz, it's never too early to get excited!

Except if you're a Leafs fan. (sigh)

From what I understand (having not paid much attention to the NHL in around 20 years), if Leafs fans are to get excited, it may as well be early as there is not much chance of being excited late :)

In the last 20 years or so, the only legit excitement was winning the Auston Matthews draft lottery.

There is still 60% of the minor league season to go. The ML team will have needs and some will be potentially filled by the farm in 2022/23/24.

We have pitchers in AA and higher that are dominating. And even more dominating pitchers (SPs) in A+ that are making a strong case for promotion. Tiedemann (LHP), Robberse & Zulueta (RHP) have progressed with very few struggles. J Burnette, lefty reliever with power stuff has progressed to AA and has time to earn another promotion this year. He could be in the Jay's pen 2023/24 as a 2nd lefty.

Eric Lonenghagen has a scouting note on Orelvis.

Falling within the Top 100 is Blue Jays third base prospect Orelvis Martinez, who has proven to be extremely chase-prone at Double-A. His 55% swing rate there would rank him among the 15 most aggressive qualified big leaguers in 2022 (though many of them are quite good) and Martinez’s breaking ball issues prompted one scout to compare him to Maikel Franco. There’s still so much pull power here that I want to stay on Orelvis, but he slides among the boom-or-bust corner defenders, close to 100 overall.

On Orelvis i found this note from BA in the offseason:

“The Blue Jays infielder hits the ball hard at just 19 years old. Martinez’s max exit velocity was greater than 110 mph with a 90th percentile exit velocity in the 106 mph range. This plus-plus raw power really began to translate into in-game power”


Of course that "began to translate into in-game power" was a bit funny to me given tha he's posted near .300isop at every level so far. That's elite elite in-game power.