The affiliates won just one of three Thursday. The Bisons were rained out.

Max Pentecost had the banner evening on the farm, while pitching prospects Francisco Rios and T.J. Zeuch had so-so outings.

The parent club is too depressing to watch so let's look at the Top 30 prospects in the Toronto Blue Jays system according to Baseball America.


Baseball America ranks 2016 first-round pick T.J. Zeuch as the #8 prospect in the Blue Jays system.

The affiliates were 2-2 on Wednesday with two extra innings games. A couple of pitching prospects had their best starts of 2017, Conner Greene and Angel Perdomo both looked like what we hoped they would.

The affiliates dropped three out of four Tuesday.

Two slugfests, one pitching duel. Two losses, one win.

There was only one game on Easter Sunday, a loss by Buffalo, so here are some notes from around the system.

Extra-inning heartbreak at two levels as a couple high-end prospects stay hot.

All of the affiliates won on Wednesday with Lansing also suffering a loss in a doubleheader. Standout performers include Gunnar Heidt who hit a three run home run for New Hampshire; Matt Dermody, who struck out all five hitters he faced; and Andy Ravel who pitched five shutout innings. DJ Davis also had a good day. Sean Reid-Foley was disappointing.

The affiliates went 0-for-3 Tuesday.

The affiliates went 1-3 on Monday with the lone win coming from the Buffalo Bisons.

The most tempting thing, early in the season, is to over-react to small sample sizes. The Blue Jays are 1-5, panic! Similarly the minor leagues have many players hitting over .500, or zero, and pitchers with good or bad starts. I am going to ignore those for now. Buffalo and Lansing have started with three and four wins respectively. Dunedin are 2-2 and New Hampshire 1-2.

Dunedin was the only affiliate who showed up on the first day of class. The rest of our affiliates skipped out due to "weather." Nonetheless, our revamped MLU is up and running.

Its opening day in the minor leagues. Buffalo's game has already been rained out with the games in New Hampshire and Michigan in doubt too. Dunedin could be our only hope for a game. But before the games begin it's time to talk about the minor league updates. The first MLU on Da Box was published on April 10, 2004. Alex Rios was in AAA, Aaron Hill in AA and a host of players who we had high hopes for were scattered through the system. Those of you with long memories might remember Vito Chiarravalotti, who we got excited about for a while before we learned that first basemen who mash in short season ball don't always make it to the big leagues.

I wrote my first MLU on April 12th, 2004. The Jays had a minor league team in Charleston and Greg Zaun was playing for the Jays AAA team in Syracuse. 2017 will be the 14th year of minor league coverage on Da Box, the longest continuous coverage of the Blue Jays minor leagues on the internet.

Minor league rosters will be announced this week. The Blue Jays do not release rosters until the home town teams have their chance to announce their teams first. Most of those announcements will come today and tomorrow. Some of the reporters covering the major league team will have some news sooner, and as I type this the Fisher Cats have released their roster.