To complete the minor league week here on Batters Box let's look at the movement in the top 30 lists from 2008 to 2009.  Five players graduated to the major leagues, replaced by five players who are new to the organization since last season.  Thirteen players dropped off the list from 2008 and thirteen players made it on to the lists despite being overlooked last year.

Here is the final installment of the top thirty prospects.  Unfortunately it is not an inspiring lot but prospect evaluation, and player development, is an uncertain process.  With some luck the Jays top ten listed below will all develop well and be productive.  That is what makes prospect following so enjoyable, you cannot predict the course of human histroy.

Number 30 through 21 are here.  Numbers 20 through 11 are here.

Check back tomorrow for some words from Dick Scott, the Blue Jays farm director. 

Today we look at the prospects rated at 20 though 11.

Welcome to the annual installment of Batter's Box's Top 30 Blue Jay prospects.

2009 was a mixed year for the farm system.  The system as a whole had a losing record and was one of the worst farm systems in baseball in terms of wins.  The winning was not helped by the Jays being unable to sign any of their top six picks in time for the Auburn season.  The Jays did send a lot of pitchers to the Blue Jays this season and there are some more pitchers in the queue behind Cecil, Romero and Rzepczynski.  The Jays did not have as much success with their hitters.  Most of the high school hitters from the 2007 and 2008 drafts had poor seasons.  College players such as JP Arencibia and Brian Jeroloman did not progress as hoped. 

The Jays farm system is short on top level prospects, any of the top five prospects could be considered number one, not because there are five number ones but because there are five number fives.  This system will likely be ranked in the mid-20's by Baseball America.

None of that stops us ranking the top 30 prospects so here we go, comments are welcome.

The Blue Jays recently announced the Webster Award winners who will be presented with their awards this weekend at the Rogers Centre.  Baseball America is starting their league top 20's today with the GCL and Carlos Perez makes the list.

In a season where the minor leagues send players such as Travis Snider, Ricky Romero, Brett Cecil, Marc Rzepczynski and Scott Richmond to the big league club, is it fair to say that 2009 was a disappointing year for the minor leagues?  Although those players made a great contribution to the major league team the system behind them is thin and many players who had great expectations on them failed to develop in 2009.  A major area of concern for the Jays should be the lack of development in most of the high school hitters picked over the last three drafts.  The Jays do a great job in developing pitchers, the success with hitters, in particular the high school hitters, has been less so.  The Jays need to evaluate whether their drafting has been poor or if they need to change how they develop those high school hitters.

Yesterday, braden thought maybe the affiliates would reward him for a year of great Minor League Updates with a perfect night. Unfortunately, they left him one victory short. I'm setting my sights lower: on my last minor league update, would the affiliates win one game???

I've been waiting all season for a perfect 5-0 day from the affiliates.  Could the final Sunday of the season be the one?

Four wins out of five = a really nice night for the farm teams. The offense was especially impressive - as were the performances from two catchers.

As the season winds down in the minors the affiliates won two of five games last night. Las Vegas won on the strength of a one hit-around inning while some of Auburn’s bats came to life, at least temporarily. Meanwhile, Lansing and Dunedin both lost by two and the Fisher Cats lost a tough game. Players with the initials A and M turned in the two best performances on the farm.

That is the combined score of the games last night (not in the Jays' affiliates' favour), as they combined to go an opposite of perfect 0-5.

The top two minor league affiliates swept a doubleheader of sorts against their San Francisco counterparts and number three laid the smack down on a Yankees affiliate.  Those are the highlights of a 3-2 night on the farm.

The theme of the evening was... well, I sort of already told you in the title, so I really don't need to elaborate here. But I have to write something, or else it won't let me post the story. So... blah blah blah, watermelon watermelon. Is that enough? Okay.

Four wins in six tries for the affiliates.  But you'll have to read the details to believe some of the stuff that went on.

The affiliates one-upped themselves from Friday night and won four games on the Saturday.