The minor league season starts on Thursday and the rosters were announced yesterday. As the season begins what should you look for with each team? Below I explain what I will be watching over the next couple of months. After that I tell you why you should buy the 2015 Toronto Blue Jays minor league handbook.

Today is the day that minor league rosters get announced. As I noted last week the Jays have locked down their process for releasing their minor league rosters after complaints from their affiliates. However all teams are headed to their respective cities and the rosters will get announced today. I will get a copy of all rosters but not until the teams have announced. I think the Jays have also asked their players not to tweet about their destinations as I have seen only a couple of definite roster tweets, namely Casey Lawrence headed to New Hampshire and Chase De Jong to Lansing.

The rosters for the full season minor league teams will be set this weekend. As the Jays put the various pieces in place there are several questions that are creating uncertainty for those rosters.

Here is a quick look at the latest happenings on the farm, Blue Jays style!

A quick trip over the border this past weekend led to the acquisition of the Baseball America 2015 Prospect Handbook. There are over 900 prospect files inside, including 30 of your Toronto Blue Jays hopefuls, which can be found after the jump.


Catcher Max Pentecost — the 11th pick of the 2014 draft — is rated the Jays' 5th best prospect according to Baseball America. That places the Kennesaw State alumni second among position players in the farm system.

The Blue Jays swapped left-handed pitchers with Colorado on Wednesday, sending Tyler Ybarra to the Rockies organization in exchange for Jayson Aquino.


Newest Blue Jays acquisition Jayson Aquino pitched for the Tri-City Dust Devils at Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver in 2013.

2015 will be my twelfth year of minor league coverage for Batters Box. 2004, when it all started, seems like a long time ago, and in many ways it was. I remember the trip that got it all started. In the summer of 2004 Robert Dudek and I headed to Buffalo to see the Syracuse Chiefs play. We interviewed several players on that trip, names from the past. We talked to Stubby Clapp, Russ Adams, Gabe Gross, and Jason Kerschner.

The Blue Jays have announced their minor league coaching staffs for 2015. There are no changes for the Buffalo Bisons while the New Hampshire Fisher Cats, the Dunedin Blue Jays, the Vancouver Canadians and the Bluefield Blue Jays will have the same managers again for 2015. There will be new men at the helm for Lansing as well as the Gulf Coast League and Dominican Summer League affiliates.


Jeff Ware has been promoted to Lansing to be the pitching coach for the Lugnuts in 2015. The former Jays hurler was the pitching coach in Vancouver in 2014.

Here is a comparison of top 10 Jay prospects from various sources.  If a player is gone and the list includes past the top 10 I'll add a note at the bottom to help understand.  The list will be updated as other top 10 lists appear. Feel free to link other top 10's and I'll try to add them.

Welcome to the creme de la creme, the number one through ten prospects.  In case you missed it number 11 through 20 are here, and number 21 to 30 are here.

We hope you enjoyed this top 30 and the hope it brings to the future of the Blue Jays organization. 

Today we look at the prospects rated 20 though 11. For prospects 30-21, click here.

Welcome to the Batter's Box Top 30 Blue Jay prospects for 2014. Five of your trusted minor league correspondents pooled their votes to come up with the list. The same trusty five shared the task of writing the prospect descriptions you see below. Come back tomorrow for numbers 20 through 11.

There is turnover from 2013. Marcus Stroman, Kevin Pillar and Ryan Goins have all graduated. Aaron Sanchez still qualifies as he was called up in mid-July, giving him less than 45 days service before September. Tom Robson, Clinton Hollon and Adonys Cardona were injured and didn't pitch enough to make it on this year's list. Kenny Wilson and Deck McGuire were traded. They make room for a new crop of exciting prospects who shot onto the scene in 2014, starting with a holdover at number 30.

The Vancouver Canadians have unveiled its expansion plans for Nat Bailey Stadium in 2015.


An artist rendering of the Nat Bailey Expansion Project was unveiled at the stadium during the Vancouver Canadians World Series Party for Nat Pack and season ticket holders.

With the amazing year we've seen in the Jays minors it got me to thinking about prospects and how the Jays ones have done and what is the best year we've ever seen.  Could we currently have the strongest farm in Jays history?  Doubtful, but lets do a check.

A second straight month of co-winners! Congratulations go out to Scott Copeland, Franklin Barreto and Rowdy Tellez for winning the last monthly installments of the Batter's Box Minor League awards.


Scott Copeland won Pitcher of the Month honours for August/September by earning four first-star selections to give him 20 points. Franklin Barreto and Rowdy Tellez earned 14 points apiece to share the Hitter of the Month hardware with two first-star selections as well as a second and a third. The 3 Stars voting by the Batter's Box Minor League Crew is done on a 5-3-1 points system.