We welcome back the Advance Scout as the Jays wrap up their season series against the A's with their only visit to Whateveritscallednow Coliseum. So far this year the teams have split a pair of three game series in Toronto, the most recent of which was last week. Since the All-Star Break the Jays are 18-13, and are playing extremely consistent baseball with few highs and lows - their longest win streak was three games, and their longest losing streak two. Meanwhile the A's are 16-15 in the same time period, though interestingly they've been doing it more with the bats than with the arms, a reversal of the beginning of the year. What else? We'll find out next, on Advance Scout.

Wednesday was a huge night on the farm, with all affiliates in action and New Hampshire in action twice. Vegas and Dunedin won by huge margins, the GCL Jays won in 14 innings, and the farm as a whole went 6-3.

Brandon Morrow gets the start today in the rubber match.  This will be his first start back in Safeco since he was traded, hopefully the mound is to his liking.  Morrow looks to pitch better than Brad Mills last night.  The Jays comeback in that game helped obscure Mills inability to hold a six run lead.

The long ball help Dunedin picked up the only win for the Jays affiliates, who went 1-5 Tuesday night.  Other highlights included an awesome relief effort from an unexpected source, a good night at the plate for a recent call-up at Triple-A and an encouraging rehab outing at Double-A.

Sorry about the interruption.  We are running a customized, and old, version of geeklog software that does not appreciate a lot of volume.

The draft deadline is complete and in the next day or two the jury will render its opinion on the Jays draft, now that we know who is signing and who isn't.  The riskiest move of the day was Tyler Beede turning down $2.5m to go to college.  I hope it works out for the kid but unfortunately for him a lot has to go right to make it worthwhile financially.

A quiet night on the farm with some late inning dramatics from out west, but for the good this (damn Mariners.)

A lot of young men are going to be made awfully rich today. The Jays have yet to come to terms with 24 of their 55 June draft picks. Obviously a number of the later round picks will not sign but the Jays have a number of big fish left in the pond. Let's take a look.

The affiliates had a solid performance on Sunday with four wins in six tries. Former first rounder Kevin Ahrens had a big day, including a three-run homer. Today is Draft Deadline Day. By the end of today, the organization (hopefully) will have an influx of new, high-ceiling talent to help out an already-impressive system.

New Hampshire won last night in the only victory for the affiliates on the night. Drew Hutchison had a relatively poor start – for him – and still impressed. Noah Syndergaard and Griffin Murphy were also in action, while Adeiny Hechavarria continued to adjust to Triple-A.

In his first AB for Las Vegas, A-Hech doubles and adds a single later to go 2 for 4.  He had a throwing miscue as well for his first error in AAA.  A-Rod makes rehab appearance at Dunedin and goes long on a solo blast in the first inning.

Six wins in nine tries for the affiliates including four performances by top pitching draftees.

I caught up with Doug Davis, the Blue Jays minor league field coordinator, to talk about the short season teams and some of their players.

Thanks to Bauxite Jeremy Kennedy for crafting this outstanding "positional" Hall of Names feature.

NOTE: THIS STORY HAS BEEN FIXED. SORRY FOR THE BLANK PUBLICATION PAGE PREVIOUSLY POSTED! - md

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Over at the Straight Dope message board, there's a thread trying to create an "All-First Baseman" all-star team. The challenge is to find players who played at least 600 games at first base, and 600 games at another position (with the outfield counting as one position) and see if a roster, or at least a starting lineup, can be completed.

Dustin McGowan pitched well in AA and Henderson Alvarez seemed pretty good in the ole MLB, but that doesn't count for these purposes anymore. Elsewhere, some hitting, some pitching, some wins, some losses.

Please check out Anders' thread below regarding ESPN The Magazine's controversial article accusing the Blue Jays of stealing signs. Here is the main thrust of the story.

A few of the players in the bullpen turned their backs to the field to fixate on the man in white, while others watched the stadium's radar gun. As soon as each pitch was thrown, those watching the man would call out what they thought he was signaling, and those focused on the radar gun would confirm his signal. Sure enough, the man in white was raising his arms above his head before every off-speed pitch and doing nothing when the pitch being called was a fastball.

The article, written by Amy K. Nelson and Peter Keating, does not name any of the players making the accusations but makes reference to recent comments by Yankees manager Joe Girardi's complaints and Boston colour man Jerry Remy.