Are we sure that Horwitz is a no-power prospect? So far in July and August combined, he has hit 14 doubles, 1 triple, and 8 HR.

Yeah, they really need to find a way to get him up to TOR. Unfortunately Belt is in his way but I wonder whether he might be an upgrade on VLAD right now.

Horwitz is 346/453/534 with 43BB/36K in the last three months. He is 420/515/642 in his last 23 games with 16BB/ 8Ks.

Thats just nuts.

I don't know if the scheduling makes sense for promotions at this time, but Bohrofen really should be up a level by now imo.

Vancouver are the only Jays team heading to the playoffs so who does the front office want on that roster?

Here's something to look forward to. Roden has grounded into 1 double play this season in 57 opportunities. He's 19-4 stealing bases, he runs the bases well, fields well, hits line drives and has developing power. He will be 24 in December.

No denying Horwitz is having an excellent season. His 143 wRC+ is 9th best of the 213 IL players with 200 PA's.

However triple slash lines are a bit misleading. Here are 2:

.226/.339/.485
.276/.355/.517

That's Orelvis in AA and AAA. The 2nd line looks better than the 1st. But the 1st is 120 wRC+, the 2nd only 109 wRC+. IL pitching seems to be really poor this year, combined with robo-umps seemingly helping hitters by shrinking strike zones.

Quite a few position players have done really well. Lots of arrow up's from where they were after last year. Having a hard time thinking of any pitchers doing the same.

The problem as we've seen with Biggio is that Horwitz won't get those calls from personal strike zone umps.

I still think it'd be surprising if Horwitz could match Vlad's hitting line, even playing at the bottom of the lineup.

Vlad is hitting 264/333/434 in his last 23 games.

He is 261/328/454 vs RHB this season. Thats just not good for a 1B. Especially with the bizzaro defence and baserunning.

Horwitz likely could do better than that in a platoon vs RHP? Something like 280/350/480?

It wont happen because everyone sees the potential for Vlad to do much better - but its just not happening. I still see him hacking away at the first pitch no what or where it is. So I just dont see the improvement happening.

Maybe if he sees Davis S and Horwitz grinding out tough at bats he might learn something.

For Horwitz fans - there is a BIG gap between AAA and the majors. FanGraphs projects him to hit 242/323/378 if he is called up. I think he has a shot in 2024 if Belt isn't resigned, but that's it. Orelvis Martinez they project at 208/278/390 (ugh) and Barger (best projected case) 245/302/429. None are inspiring. I'd have loved one of the kids coming up to take over 3B for 2 weeks while Chapman recovers, but I get calling up Ernie Clement instead (his projection is 266/319/391 vs AAA line of 339/394/533).

I just hope they give Clement the bulk of the time at 3B over Espinal/Biggio as I don't trust either of those guys at 3B (Esp for offense, Biggio on defense).

Those projections are just that - projections. You should take a look at the ZiPS projections for the hitters on this team that have all underperformed for most of the season. If you go by those then it makes no sense why we have struggled to score runs - but alas we have. If you go by "projections" we should be one of the best teams in the entire league.

Here's a fun one: Edouard Julien is actually hitting for a higher wRC+ against MLB pitchers (139) than he was against AAA pitchers (137) in 2023. His BABIP has actually RISEN in the MLB over 80 games. His projections? .239/.348/.397 by ZiPS. In actuality he is hitting .286/.378/.482. Big freaking miss there.

Did the projections have Davis Schneider at .432/.523/.919 over 10+ games lol? Of course he won't maintain that, but even that statline would be deemed absurdly improbable by computer models, and yet it happened.

It's more about whether skills translate or not, which is hard to determine until the opportunity is presented. Yes, some minor league hitters have inflated BB rates because minor league pitchers are wilder by nature. Some minor league hitters can hit ~92 mph pitchers but can't hit 96+ mph MLB pitchers. But that doesn't mean that every MiLB hitters will experience 'X' deflation on walk rate or overall hitting ability if promoted. For some guys it completely tanks them, and for others it presents barely a drop. Then you have guys like Jose Ramirez who somehow become categorically better in the MLB than they ever were in AAA. Dude hit for .139 and .115 ISO over two seasons in AAA and yet in his very first full MLB season he hit for .150 ISO, with that power only rising since then.

Yeah it's a big jump but a .339 average, outstanding K-BB ratios, and the ninth-best wRC+ in the league (min 200 ABs) suggests he's worth the look. The downside is the modest line-drive rate. But he's not a power hitter. He's an on-base machine that uses the whole field and shows the ability to produce enviable exit velocities when he chooses to.

He's also hitting .370 with a 1.051 OPS vs RHP this year.

And he has eight homers and 14 doubles over the past two months while hitting just shy of .400... With a 31-24 BB-K... Add his hits and walks together over those two months (42 games) and he's been on-base 93 times. That's more than twice a game on average for two months.

For a team that can't hit or generate runs... That kind of potential would really help.

Agreed Metafour. Will be difficult to hit at the MLB level…period. I’d sure like to see who, among the Bisons might feast at the top level. Will Horowitz get a chance next month?

John, I'd look at those projections extremely skeptically. You seem to be citing ZIPS for Horwitz and Steamer for Orelvis and Clement. I do not know what ZIPS is doing in-season - somehow it has a worse projection for Horwitz than it did pre-season (also true for Clement). Steamer gives Orelvis a worse current projection than he had prior to the season - again, I do not know how any system can look at his results this year and grade him out worse than previously. There may be better in-season projection systems for minor leaguers, but the ones fangraphs has don't make much sense.

Horwitz having a worde projection now than before the season makes sense, as this year's numbers are very babip-driven and don't have the power surge that he showed last year.

There is great uncertainty around prospect development once they reach the major leagues. Some players cannot adjust while others surprise with their development in the big leagues. At the weekend I was listening to Keith Law talk about Kerry Carpenter on the Tigers who hadn't shown a lot in the minor leagues but has bloomed in the majors.

So what is the answer....you need optionable spots on your 26 man roster and a manager willing to play the kids.

The Jays have had very few realistically optionable players on their roster and a manager who is unwilling to play the kids. Davis Schneider is getting at bats now because he forced the managers hand.

That is a bad precedent, if a player gets promoted he knows he has to hit the ground running or else his butt will be pinned to the bench.

The Jays should have a couple of hitting and pitching spots for optionable players next season. And they should tell the manager that any kids need more than one game a week.

Anyone know where our third round pick, Juaron Watts Brown is?

No idea what they use for the projections - just they are the easiest to find and far better than the WAG's we can give. But why not? Horwitz: 339/450/499 in AAA - some estimates cut OPS by up to 200 points when shifting (obviously not all cases are the same, but in general) so take away 200 OPS, or 100 from OBP and 100 from Slg to get 350/399 for Horwitz - that Slg% would be between Varsho (383) and Springer (407), OBP between Bo (344) and Belt (371), OPS of 749 between Merrifield (738) and Jansen (760). Stats are before today's game. Is that enough to bench a guy whose wRC+ is 116 (Vlad)? No. What about a guy with a 134 wRC+ (Belt)? Obviously no. Realistically that is the best one should count on from Horwitz at this point in time. Yes, he could be like Schneider and tear the cover off the ball, but Schneider was brought in to help the OF (Varsho & KK both being LH and Varsho having a horrid year with the bat, KK historically is unlikely to hit like he has so far this year). Also the only RH bat on the bench that isn't a catcher is Espinal who might as well go up with a wet noodle sometimes (at least then he wouldn't swing at 3-0 pitches). Right now there just isn't a spot for Horwitz. In 2024 there might be if Belt goes elsewhere and the Jays don't sign a DH, otherwise I don't see any use for Horwitz unless he proves he can play LF or something outside of trade bait.

FYI: Schneider's AAA line was 275/416/553 and I don't see him going back anytime soon as he is now hitting 425/521/875 - 1.396 - basically Bonds on steroids numbers (BB's total PED line was 316/505/712 - 1.217 for 1999-2007 when we know he was juicing, 2001-2004 was the insane peak of 349/559/809 - 1.368, a lower OPS than Schneider right now). That is freakshow that Schneider can produce at that level for 12 games. The last Jays rookie I can think of to come close was Carlos Delgado in 1994 - 271/352/771 - 1.123 over his first 13 games followed by a slump as the league figured him out (rest of 1994 - 183/352/244 - 596 sent down after the June 8th game, not called up until April 28th the next year, up for good in 1996, what a wasted stretch) plus he was asked to play LF which was really dumb - once 1994 was clearly a write off or in the winter of 94/95 Molitor should've been traded to make room - sigh... Gord Ash years.

Good question Maldoff - he hasn't pitched as a Jay yet, threw 82 1/3 innings in college this year, August 10th he was officially assigned to the Jays organization (no idea on the delay from signing on July 23rd to then) and nothing since. I'm wondering if the Jays shut him down as he did have an arm injury costing him most of 2021 (torn labrum) just to be safe and do a full exam and study of his arm issues. I'd expect 130 innings next year if he is healthy at 22, then 160 at 23, ready for a full ML workload at 24. The rule of thumb is adding 30 innings a year and he did do summer leagues before pushing himself to 107 innings total in 2022. I'd expect him to go to A+ to start 2024, AA late in 2024 if doing really well or in 2025 if just doing well, AAA in 2025 (maybe late 2024), set for a ML appearance in 2025/2026 as he reaches a full workload if all goes well (it rarely does).

Positive report from BA on Horwitz (#19 on their latest Prospect Hot Sheet):

19. Spencer Horwitz, 1B, Blue Jays
Team: Triple-A Buffalo (International)
Age: 25

Why He’s Here: .579/.625/.842 (11-for-19), 4 R, 2 2B, 0 3B, 1 HR, 6 RBIs, 3 BB, 3 SO, 1-for-1 SB

The Scoop: Few teams draft late-round sleeper bats quite as well as the Blue Jays. Horwitz and Davis Schneider are cut from a similar cloth. Both have advanced plate skills, contact and power. Schneider’s power is more actualized in terms of home runs while Horwitz is content with stinging liners all over the field. Last week Horwitz collected multiple hits in four of six games—he reached base 14 times in the series with Syracuse. Horwitz has the ability to see everyday playing time with a second division team and could be an above-average offensive performer over a full season. (GP)

Most teams rarely allow high draft picks out of college to pitch much more than 5-10 innings after signing - preferring to have them pitch in the more controlled setting of the Fall Instructional League.

Leo Jimenez has been promoted to Buffalo to fill in for Ernie Clement.

Thanks, Gerry. If Clement stays, Jimenez would probably get a month of triple A experience. He's never had 300 PAs in a season let alone 400, so his performance in Buffalo will tell us something about his durability.

Steward Berroa is also Buffalo bound.

I wonder if Berroa can elbow himself into the picture next year with likely no Kiermaier.

Anyone know when/if Manoah is scheduled to pitch next?

Devonte Brown has been promoted to NH.

And no one has a clue when Manoah will pitch next (other than the Jays).

Roden homers in his first AB tonight.

These promotions take me by surprise. They are well deserved but too slow in coming.

Both Jimenez and Berroa both made an error within two innings tonight.

Jimenez was also hit by a pitch (yikes) and Berroa doubled him home.

Tiedemann has nine K's through three innings tonight, he has also allowed a run.

After Jimenez was hit by a pitch for the second time, he was removed for a pinch-runner.  I hope he's OK.  It has been a repeating issue for him- getting hurt from an HBP.