Once more, we assess the work of This Year's Crew, and as always we salute the great Dave Till who used to provide this very service on a monthly basis. Monthly!

I know I am not worthy to... dust his keyboard?

The Baseball America league top 20's started last week.  This thread will capture all the relevant Blue Jay rankings and comments.  Blue Jays listed so far:

GCL - Adonys Cardona #8

GCL - Joe Musgrove #13

Appy - Noah Syndergaard #4

Appy - Chris Hawkins #11

Appy - Aaron Sanchez #12

Northwest - Justin Nicolino #1

Midwest - Jake Marisnick #3

Midwest - Drew Hutchison #14

FSL - AJ Jimenez #10

FSL - Drew Hutchison #13

FSL - Deck McGuire #17

Eastern - Travis d'Arnaud #2

Eastern - Anthony Gose #3

Eastern - Henderson Alvarez #10

Eastern - Adeiny Hechavarria #19

PCL - Brett Lawrie #1

PCL - Eric Thames #15

That is 17 total Blue Jay prospects on the league top 20's. 18 seems to be the highest number.

 

The Advance Scout's truncated season begins to wind down as the Jays head to St. Pete's for their penultimate series. Tampa Bay is 2 games behind the Red Sox for the American League Wild Card with six to play, actually quite a formidable deficit. Tampa started the month off 5.5 behind before narrowing the gap thanks to the Red Sox mini-collapse. Fun fact: the Red Sox are 4-14 in their last 18, and since August 27th have won one game in which they scored fewer than 9 runs. So maybe Tampa has a shot, although they get the Jays and the Yankees while Boston gets the Yankees and Orioles. Still, the Bosox lost three of four at home to the Orioles this past week, and Tampa Bay is, statistically speaking, likely to go 4 and -1 against the Jays if recent history is any indication.

Every night in my dreams, I Advance Scout you.

That's my prediction. And in truth it is not altogether obvious to me that Bautista deserves the MVP award this season.

The Blue Jays have a new logo for next, per sports apparel blog Uni Watch. Check it out after the jump.

Doug Davis is the Blue Jays minor league field coordinator.  He has joined us several times this year here on da Box, most recently in August.  Davis was in town on the weekend for the Webster Awards ceremony and dinner.  I had a few minutes with him before the on field presentation on Saturday at the Rogers Centre.   The ceremony crept up on us so it is a little bit of an abbreviated discussion compared to most.

On Saturday the Blue Jays handed out the 2011 R Howard Webster Awards.  In addition the Jays presented several other awards to their on-field and off-field staff.

I was at the Jay's game on Saturday and I have some pictures of the winners to share.

The Angels are in town for a four-gamer to close out the 'Dome for the year. One would imagine that they would like to win these games, given they are 4.5 back in the AL West. Toronto has no such wants or desires, but the team has been gaming for the most part and a series victory would basically seal a .500 season, which is always nice as a talking point.

To Advance Scout, and beyond!

The battle for the post-season is just about settled. The Rays, by taking 3 of 4 from Boston, have prolonged matters. But they've got 10 games left, and 7 of them are with the Yankees. The Red Sox also have 10 games left, and 7 of them are with the Orioles.

Big, big advantage to the Red Sox.

Contrary to premature reports of their demise, Lansing was still alive and fighting to extend their season last night. Meanwhile, New Hampshire went for the Eastern League Championship. The headline may give away the result for each team.

Vancouver took  the Northwest League championship last week and Lansing went down in their series Thursday. Now, New Hampshire finds itself poised for the Midwest League title with just 27 outs to go.

The Yankees come to Toronto for the last time this year, and are the second last team to grace the Dome this year. They've pretty much locked up the division and homefield advantage throughout the AL playoffs, and have an outside shot at 100 wins (they have to go 10-4.) So, there's that.

Advance Scout, activate!

The Lugnuts season is hanging by a thread as they dropped the second game of their Midwest League Championship series to fall behind 2-0.

The affiliates went 1 and 1 in their playoff matchups despite two starters combining to allow 1 run while striking out 15 in 10 innings.

Circle Thursday, April 5 on the calendar.  That's the day the Blue Jays break out their new uniforms as they begin their 2012 season on the road against the Cleveland Indians.  The home opener is Monday, April 9 against the Boston Red Sox.

The Jays hope to enjoy more walk-off wins in 2012 like this one against the Baltimore Orioles September 10.