Drew Hutchison and Noah Syndergaard made impressive debuts at higher levels, adding to what Nestor Molina had done on Tuesday.  Even Kyle Drabek had a decent start.

The Associated Press says long-time Baltimore Orioles pitcher and former Blue Jay Mike Flanagan was found dead outside his Maryland home yesterday.  He was 59.

Mike Flanagan was a member of the Blue Jays from 1987 to 1990.

New Hampshire and Dunedin were your Tuesday night winners in a 2-4 effort on the farm.  The lone Canadian club in the system had a horrendous night in Oregon.

Today's POTD looks at a Bauxite fan favourite and a couple of former Jays with St. Louis earlier this season.

Royals reliever Tim Collins shown on Crown Vision prior to his entrance to the mound against Oakland May 8.

It has happened, Aaron Hill is gone, along with John McDonald for Kelly Johnson via the Jays website.

Kansas City's in town. I don't want to jinx it, but what are the odds the Jays don't sweep? Oops, I just jinxed it.

Nothing to see here, move along. There weren't really any great performances from top prospects on Monday night - we're stuck with a decent outing from Chad Jenkins, a 1-4 with a HR from Anthony Gose... things like that. But hey, Kevin Patterson was great!

The best thing about Da Box is its community. You guys are great! That community exists to an extent on Twitter, but it's somewhat fragmented, so I'd like to compile a list of Bauxites so we can all be a big happy Twamily. If you want to be on the list let me know here. Just a forewarning: by putting your info here, you're giving me permission to re-publish it in future updates to this thread or on something like a static page at the top of the site.

The top two affiliates went winless but the young guys managed to pull out four wins to make it a solid night on the farm... Oh, and the number two is featured prominently in this report.

The largest variable determining how many runs a team will score is how many times they get their leadoff man on.
 - Bill James, 1988 Baseball Abstract

While there's only one leadoff hitter in the starting lineup, in the course of the game lots of players get a chance. Here's how the Jays' hitters have done (through Saturday's games) when leading off the inning:

4 for 4, 87 hits and 63 runs.  That’s quite a show for our farm club.  Individual performances continue to impress.  Hechavarria, on a blistering 9 game hitting terror with AAA Las Vegas, went 2 for 5 with an RBI and now bats .513 with an OPS of 1.214.  Nicholas Baligod slugged a walk-off slam for Vancouver. And the pride of North York and St. Michaels Col. School his his second slam in as many nights for Lansing.

Over the years the Jays have had many first round picks that worked out (Halladay) and many that didn't (Beede). But what if the Jays took the guy who came after their #1 pick - IE: instead of Romero they drafted Troy Tulowitzki. How often did the Jays make the right choice, and how often the wrong one?

Despite another great night at the plate for Hechavarria, the 51s fall and quiet bats cost the Fisher Cats their game.  Knecht lifted Lansing with a slam, Vancouver lost a squeaker and Bluefield plated 3 in the seventh to win.

The affiliates may have gone just 3-5 on the night but the pitching. Oh, the pitching.

With all the attention focused on the draft recently, it occurred to me recently to go back to Michael Lewis's famous baseball book, Moneyball, and look at the chapters on that year's draft (2002). Lewis dissects the draft, highlighting the players Oakland was interested in and the others who figured in to their picks. You could put together a pretty interesting all-star team from the players mentioned by name in that part of the book, and here they are: