The biggest news from the minors didn’t come on the field yesterday, but came off of it when it was announced that the Jays decided to promote JP Arencibia to fill in for John Buck, who was forced to the 15-day DL after taking a foul ball off his thumb. While Las Vegas, perhaps missing one of their star bats, lost big to Memphis, New Hampshire shut out their opposition, while Dunedin won a slugfest. The Lugnuts were shut out, but Auburn doubled Vermont and the GCL Blue Jays won a tight affair against the GCL Pirates.

The highlights were Las Vegas' plate discipline, a Dunedin shutout and an Auburn explosion with the bats.  The low lights were an extra innings loss and a doubleheader sweep.

Some mighty nice days on the farm as two stud pitchers started and won while a number of top prospects (and former top prospects) swung the big bats.

Great pitching and productive hitting won the evening for New Hampshire.  Ditto for Lansing.  Not Ditto for the other outfits on the farm.

Both Las Vegas and New Hampshire had bat-around innings,  both teams scored in double figures, both teams won.  Dunedin rode good pitching from Chuck Huggins and a strong game by Yan Gomes to win.  Lansing had to come from behind to get a walk off win, Sean Ochinko and Kevin Nolan led the way with the bats.  Auburn lost another tough game.  The GCL Jays won thanks to Canadians Nick Purdy and Michael Crouse.

The affiliates evidently could not stomach the loss of compadre Brett Wallace, as no one without a "League" in their name could muster a W. Apologies for brevity, but some of us have to get away for the Simcoe Long Weekend. Woooo!

Whew, it was not pretty.   Despite the farm clubs only scoring 7 runs in 6 games, New Hampshire, Dunedin and GCL Blue Jays managed to put wins on the board.

Two players involved one way or the other in the Roy Halladay deal had nice nights to highlight a 2-4 night on the farm.

Brad Glenn made the front page of Minor League Baseball tonight, as a result of hitting for the cycle. The rest of the evening featured 4 wins and 1 loss.

Over the course of the first three innings of their game against the Las Vegas 51s, the Portland Beavers scored as many runs as all six Jays affiliates combined on Sunday.

Overall the farm was not bad on Saturday.  2 losses and 5 wins with an outstanding day by third baseman Mark Sobolewski – 5 for 7, 2 doubles, two home runs and 7 RBIs.  The long ball blessed the 51s with Arencibia and Wallace each belting one, and producing 6 RBIs.

Pitching was the name of the game Friday, the Jays pitchers had a one hitter, a two hitter and a three hitter as the affiliates recorded four wins in five games.  Four Lansing pitchers combined on a one hitter.  Lansing themselves had only four hits but two of them were round trippers.  The GCL Jays had three pitchers combine on a two hitter.  The Jays had only five hits but one of them was a three run home run by Michael Crouse.  Three Fisher Cat hurlers combined on a three hitter and the hitters took it from there.  Auburn won a slug fest while Las Vegas lost despite a big night from Brett Wallace.

Dunedin and the DSL Jays were rained out.

Travis Snider had another monster of a game while Kyle Drabek didn't do so bad himself either. The whole thing shook out in a 3-3 night, and there were a couple of interesting performances.

One and Five: What a Wednesday on the farm, seventeen innings but  no cigar for Dunedin.  A Lugnut “W” and  “Ls” for the GCL Jays, New Hampshire and Las Vegas.  Our boys were outhit 62-46 and it showed.

We all know that prospect development in baseball is an uncertain and rocky process.  First round picks flame out and never make it to the major leagues.  Twentieth round picks or similar undrafted longshots do make it from time to time.  There is a saying in baseball development that in any year one third of your prospects will improve, one third will fall back and one third will stagnate. 

Last year was not a good one for the Blue Jays under this measure.  Approx one half of Jays prospects fell back last season while only about one sixth jumped ahead.  That might be why the Jays now have a new farm director and a new scouting director, not to mention a new GM.

So how are the Jays prospects doing in 2010?  Let's start with the Jays top 30 prospects for 2009, as selected by Batters Box.  We will also include the players obtained in the Halladay trade.