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:

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.