As the Minor League season winds down for another year, I caught up with Blue Jays Director of Player Development Joe Sclafani in Vancouver, where he was on hand to conduct meetings and watch the C’s close out their regular season and play a couple of playoff games.

After one of the most disappointing season in recent memory, every aspect of the Blue Jays operations will be under the microscope, including scouting, sport science, and player development. Seven pitchers blew out their UCLs this season and have undergone or are about to undergo surgery to repair them. The system has dropped from single digits in various prospect rankings to near the bottom of most. Changes have already started on the pitching side, with MiLB pitching development Cory Popham and several others not having their contracts renewed. And having talked to people in the organization this past week, many are unsure about their status.

The Conversation

I don’t tend to think of these as interviews, because it’s more of a discussion, and I always walk away having learned something, especially when I wander off topic to ask unrelated Minor League Ops questions I’ve always wondered about. Joe is unfailingly good with his time and open to the topics I want to talk about.

After making significant changes to the Rogers Centre over the past two offseasons, it’s now time to reconstruct both the big league bullpen and minor league pitching development. Certainly, there were some success stories in the latter this season, but they were overshadowed by the spate of torn UCLs that have (or will) necessitated surgery for seven minor league pitchers. Add in the demands of meeting roster limit deadlines that came into effect this year, and it was a challenging year for Sclafani and his player development staff.

DMFox:  So, how about those Cs?  That's a roster that's just nicely kind of peaking in time for the playoffs, and if there's a fan base in your system that deserves to have a postseason team, that certainly is the one. 

Joe Sclafani:  It's pretty special what they've been able to do, the support here has just been incredible. We try to keep things consistent. It can be logistically challenging at times to get people in and out, and there's been a lot of turnover just like there is every year. But (Canadians manager) Brent (Lavallee) and his staff do an incredible job. The support from the city, the fans, is always incredible. So the run that they've been able to put together in the second half has been really, really neat.

It's a testament to the staff, the players there. A lot of guys are in their first full season and that's an adjustment in and of itself, and despite maybe some more challenging starts,  just the perseverance and the commitment to learning and growing

throughout the entire year - you're starting to see some big time second halves and what they've been able to do is pretty cool and we’re very excited for their opportunity to bring another championship back to The Nat.

DMF:   Absolutely, and and something I’ve always wondered about that it's kind of related to is, can you guys expedite passports, visas, that kind of thing for getting guys from Florida to Vancouver -  how does that generally work?

JS: We can, but typically the process is we have our list. You know, it's a challenge that not many other teams have to deal with. Not only do we have to get U.S. visas for Latin American kids, we also have to get Canadian ones. So we try to get ahead of that as much as possible.  We are responsible for helping the guys with the visa process, they are for the passport process.  It doesn't mean that things don't get lost in the shuffle from time to time, but we try to stay on top of that as much

as possible, just so there are no limitations and we can get in and out. 

DMF:  Now, with Canadian passports, generally speaking, there is a waiting period. Is that true with American passports too, or is there a fast lane to expedite the process? 

JS: It's a very similar process - there's definitely a waiting period, it varies to certain degrees but there's a lot of parallels in both.

DMF:  I’m also just curious - anybody coming up from Dunedin to bolster the playoff roster?

JS:  That’s  always a tricky one, right? Because these guys have grinded together and really bonded, and it's an interesting wrinkle to bring in a new body, but with where things were at, as you know Dunedin was in it until the end, so we're not bringing anybody up for this one, and these guys are in a good spot, so we feel pretty good about it.

 DMF: So you and I talked briefly in the spring about the new roster limits and I know this is maybe kind of the final chapter in this brave new minor league world, but how did you find that whole process in the spring and as an ongoing thing throughout the season? 

JS:  To be completely forthright, it was challenging.  At the core of it, it's just accelerating windows. Unfortunately, it shortened some of them. So it was as challenging, if not more so than we were anticipating. But that's the world we're living in now, so we're trying to figure out the best ways to handle things. I think we learned some things this year.  The draft and the deadline was definitely the biggest pain point. We added a lot of players, which was a little atypical, obviously, because it's just where our big league team was at. But we added a whole lot of players in that span, and then that unfortunately means that we had to make some difficult decisions in a very crunched window so definitely some challenging pieces We wish we could have used the development list a little bit more, but some of the injury things we dealt with just made it even more challenging in order to be able to utilize that in the ideal way that we had imagined, but I think we still did a decent job with that. But, yeah, it was definitely an adjustment. We're going to reflect, learn, and see if we can attack that better going forward.

DMF:  And I have heard this, and I've seen it with my own eyes a little bit: now that we're missing a level of ball, and I know it's been several seasons now so maybe it's taken a while to take effect, but I do find the quality of play lesser, sometimes even sloppy, and I know the Eugene team (who the C’s closed their regular season with) was throwing the ball around yesterday and some of that's guys just trying to make an impression, I get that, but are are we seeing an inferior quality of ball because of the shortened windows you referred to and timelines and all of that.  Are we maybe seeing guys sometimes placed at levels that they're maybe not a hundred percent ready for and then that's being reflected in the level of play?

JS:  That’s an interesting question..in terms of the Eugene team, just this weekend, I think that was also a product of them kind of being checked out because the season was ending for them yesterday.

 But it's a tough question to answer because I don't know that it's watered down in any way, but I do think the reality is there are certain guys that are being challenged a bit more than they would have been in the past… you're seeing it more at the lower levels; I think from the Complex League in general to Single A is now a much bigger jump than it used to be without the lack of short season, so some guys are being thrust into spots historically they would not have been at those levels at those ages.

 There are positives there too, because you're seeing they are getting challenged in a way. You're accelerating the times where everybody's going to get punched in the mouth developmentally, and that's where you learn what adjustments you need to make, and you grow with your routines, your work, all of that. So there's a balance there and I wouldn't say it’s watered down, but definitely there are some guys that are a bit more challenged just with the level of competition than they have been historically. So there are pros and cons.

DMF:   Ok, so  the elephant in the room here, the thing I think we have to address, is the number of UCL injuries in the system this year. I've talked to different people off the record in the organization about it, and there are definitely a multitude of factors.

And I know even Mark Shapiro in his press conference a few weeks ago mentioned how it's something the industry, not just the organization, is going to be focusing on in the off season, but how, how are things going in that regard?  Are we looking at a philosophy shift with how you ramp up pitchers in the spring and how you get them ready for pro ball?

JS:  It’s not something that we shy away from, generally it's been a tough year on that front,  but to your point Mark addressed it -  it's not just us you know it was interesting…in 2021 there were a lot but you can kind of point to the (COVID) shutdown, and just how atypical that was. And then last year, by and large, we were very lucky with our health. But I don't think it changes our process.  At the end of every year, we sit back and reflect with all of our leaders and staff members and teams to go through all of our processes. And obviously this one has a bit more tension just because of the results this year and the things that went down…. it's a tough question to answer.   It's definitely something that we are thinking about non-stop, and we're going to continue to do that and spend a lot of time on it this offseason because you know you don't want anybody to get hurt period but just the amount that we had was difficult.

 We're going to look into our rehab process to make sure we help these guys get ramped back up safely enough, and get them back to their former levels and hopefully even better at that point.  There are a lot of open-ended pieces at that point, but we will be spending a ton of time on it in the offseason.

DMF:  And the guys who are rehabbing, they're doing that with you at the Complex? Like Tiedemann and Maroudis are doing that with you now?

JS:   Yes, everybody spends a good amount of time with us.

  Obviously, with the dead period (when teams are allowed only limited contact with players), there's some different elements to it. So with some guys, there'll be some type of hybrid where they spend some time at home. Some guys will have really good setups with facilities where they live, and they prefer to be at home. We're always open to a lot of those things, but they're going to spend a good chunk of their time with us especially as they start getting into ramping back up on the baseball specific side.

DMF:  Now you and I have talked about this before, and I know Mark's dream was to have more players in the organization make Dunedin their off-season home. And, of course, not everybody can do that. And then you've got the shutdown period that you have to deal with as well.

 Does the team help players, minor league players, find accommodation in Florida, or are they kind of on their own for that? 

JS:   Most of those guys are kind of on their own for that.

 I think it has worked like we've talked about, of guys wanting to be down there just because they see the yield of being able to utilize the PDC and be around our staff more often.

 So, we've had a lot of players who want to get places together and we can help to a certain degree because we have relationships down there, and we try to help as much as we can on a lot of these things.

DMF:   Okay, and this one just popped into my head - it's not even on my list of questions but I’ve seen international guys in other organizations work toward their high school diplomas once they join pro ball. Do you have a program like that? Is anybody doing that in the Jays organization right now? 

JS:  Yeah, we're actually very fortunate. Our education program is led by Sonia De La Cruz. We hired her away from MLB several years ago. She's super passionate about helping those guys. And we are too. You know, baseball ends for all of us. Time always wins out. 

 So, we're trying to do the best we can, not only to prepare them as the best baseball players, but the best people. We want to prepare them for life after baseball as much as possible. So Sonia and her team do a great job - we have a lot of guys getting their GEDs and even if unfortunately they're released usually we still offer for them to complete their GEDs to try to better set them up….we're just trying to do the best we can for all those guys because there is life after baseball for every single one of us, so we have English programs, we offer Spanish programs for English speakers to try to bridge that gap, and we teach some technical skills - we have some guys who are barber certified who have opened up their own spots which is pretty neat, so it's something we're particularly proud of that doesn't get highlighted enough, so I appreciate you asking about it. 

DMF:  That's something I've always wanted to ask you because that's my background.. I don't want to get back to the injuries and dwell on them for too long, but I should probably ask you for some updates. So Tiedemann and Maroudis have had their procedures done, I'm assuming, and they are how far away from flat ground?

JS: All of them have had their procedures done. I think Landen's already started throwing on flat ground, very light.  I think Ricky is not too far away.

 Obviously, all of that, it's hard to even comment on a timeline. It depends on how their bodies respond and all that. But we're optimistic that those guys will be back.  I know Landon for sure had the internal brace, and I think Ricky was an internal brace as well. So there's hope that most of those guys, Barriera included, will be back if everything turns well at some point next year. The one thing we know is that they're going to work their tails off, and do everything they can to get back and get back in a big way. So we're optimistic on that front, and we're just going to try to support them every step of the way.

DMF:  In the last couple of weeks you've had Nolan Perry, Connor Cooke and Carson Pierce go down with what appeared to be arm-related injuries

JS:  Not Cooke (he is listed as active, but hasn’t pitched since the beginning of August), but Chad Dallas.

DMF:  Could you just give me updates on those guys?

JS:   Dallas, I think, had his last week. Perry was slightly before that, or they're right around the same time within the last couple weeks. And then Carson Pierce, I believe, is coming soon. I don't think he's had his yet, but I'm not positive on that. 

DMF: Man, I really liked Perry this year, Joe. I loved watching his starts.

JS:  And so do we. He continues to progress at a very steady rate. The guy knows how to pitch. I think he's learned a lot about himself, and we were really excited about the path that he's on. It's very unfortunate for all of these guys that that happened. But again, we've got great guys. They're going to do things the right way, so we're hopeful that they'll come back, and they'll be even better when they come back. We saw McIlvain in that grouping as well. He looked good. 

DMF:   Fernando Perez (who didn’t make a start after August 9th), was that just a shutdown? Or was there anything beyond that? 

JS:  That was just a shutdown. He had already increased his innings load by 60% year over year. Obviously, it was a super positive year for him.  It was awesome he was recognized for the Futures Game. But some of that kind of interrupted his routines. And, you know, quite frankly, he looked a little skewed towards the end.

 He was disappointed, obviously, but we wanted to highlight for him just how positive this year has been and the things that he has learned and just give him an opportunity to get a jump start on that offseason so he can come back and really build off of a tremendous season going into next year. 

DMF:  Yeah, that was fun to watch this year. Must-see-tv is what I call his starts. 

I have a little piece of trivia, maybe you know this one. So since 2010, only three Single A, 18-year-old shortstops have hit 14 or more home runs….. I'm sure you know where I'm going with this.

Tatis, Bogaerts, and…..

JS: Arjun  (Nimmala).  That’s pretty special company to be in.

DMF:   I talked with some folks about his time when he was on the Development List and when he was back in the Complex League…. is it fair to say at the beginning of the season there was some debate as to whether he was ready to start at full season or not? Or was that pretty much a consensus that even if, as you like to say, he was going to get punched in the mouth developmentally, it was still better for him to go there? 

JS:  Yeah, there was a lot of internal debate. You know, Arj is obviously incredibly talented, but he was the youngest guy in the draft, and was one of the youngest players this year -  he would have been I think one of the younger players even in the Complex League this year, so there was a ton of a ton of debate during spring training. But he had an outstanding camp, the way he talked about things, you could see the maturity in some of the things he'd already learned.

 Ultimately, we felt like he was ready for the challenge and could handle it mentally. You know, we talked to him and when we talked about the assignment, acknowledged that it was a challenging one. We told him to be himself, do what he does best, but that there was a chance that we might pull him for, for a little bit if he struggled… and use what we learned about what he was struggling with, how he got exposed a little bit,  and started attacking those things.  That was how it played out. 

 He was great about it the whole time. We explained the reasoning,and we were pretty proud of the process that we put together. And Arj, he got after it. He was fully bought in, crushed the work that we did. You know, he would have been back a little bit sooner, but he had a little bit of a tweak of his back. But, you know, it was very cool just to see how he responded, and the work that he had put in all of a sudden started translating, kind of let him battle test it a little bit in the Complex, and we felt like he was ready to get back out there and challenge it with the level that gave him some issues early on, and everybody knows at this point by the time he got back he put together an incredible last last two plus months, and that's just a testament to him. He’s obviously super talented but the things he learned about how to prepare for different types of pitchers, and putting together a plan.  We all know just what he's able to do if a guy makes a mistake, but it was, the quality of the at-bats when he got back was remarkable.

 And defensively, one thing I want to highlight is just even when he was struggling early on, he did not bring that into the field. It is a difficult thing, first time you're ever struggling, to separate the offense from defense, and he did that the entire time. And not only did he improve offensively when he got back but he continued to make strides defensively and has become a pretty impressive shortstop.

DMF:  I watched a lot of him after he came back, and I agree with you about the at bats -  he cut his strikeout rate from 39% in July to 27 in August.  He was just putting more balls in play. Still would like to see him walk a little bit more, but one step at a time, I guess. 

JS:  Sure. He doesn't turn 19 until October. We can't say enough positive things about him.  It's been a really great end of the year for him, and I’m glad that he was able to push such a positive note.

DMF:  Orelvis Martinez returned yesterday.  I don't want to talk about what happened. Let's just hope that he's learned from it. Let's say that. It looked like he's adjusted his stance a little bit and he just, maybe that was that time in the big leagues because I know Stewart Berroa looks like a different ball player back in Buffalo now, but Orelvis yesterday looked really comfortable and confident at the plate and was seeing the ball really well. 

JS:  Yeah, yeah. You know, unfortunate circumstances, but I don’t think we have to touch on that. But, you know, along the same lines of what I just mentioned about Arj, you know, we met with Orelvis when he came back to the PBC after the news, and, we talked about ‘you're going to get out of this time what you put into it. You can either dwell on it or attack it and take advantage of it in the next couple months’

 And it’s testament to him and the team that worked with him on a daily basis, we felt like we put together a pretty good plan, attacked some things, and he was excellent throughout. He had a good attitude, worked his tail off. We did a lot of game prep things on the offensive side. We worked on a few things defensively, tried to work on the power output and the speed and agility. And he did his part.  We were excited for him to be able to get back out there and obviously it's not even surprising anymore -  

DMF: He goes back up and has two doubles in this in his first game after not playing for a while.

JS:  We were able to get him into some Bridge League games, which is that time after the Complex League ended up until yesterday, basically unofficial games kind of like an Extended 2.0,  so we're able to get him into some of  those, but you know he still hadn't been in a high intensity game in a while, so it was pretty neat for him to do that.  We talked when he left about all the things that you've worked on, all things you learned, the adjustments to the routine, how to prepare, game plan, etc don't lose that.  You get a chance to make a second first impression, if you will, to oversimplify it, and just show people the work that you put in and how you attack things differently now. 

 We're excited about the fact that he did take advantage of that time. 

DMF: Is he going to see more reps at 3rd or was this just Casey trying to get his bat in the lineup yesterday? 

JS:I think it'll be a mix of 2nd and 3rd. That's what he was doing previously. I want to make sure that he's an option at both spots. 

DMF: Who, to your eyes, took a leap forward this year,  somebody who's really opened your eyes and really made excellent progress this year ?

JS:  I can list a few and i'll give you a little bit of background on each of them. Starting on the pitching side,  Kendry Rojas looks outstanding;  it feels like he's taking a real step forward. He's maturing, not just in the way he goes about his business, but learning how to attack guys and utilize what he has. So that's been pretty neat. 

  Lázaro Estrada is another really positive story.  Ryan Jennings had a really nice year. Nobody really talks about Geison Urbaez, he flashed flash stuff that I haven't seen from him - in his last appearance he was up to 99; he's really interesting and not a lot of people talk about him so pretty interesting.  Kai Peterson was up and down but has shown some interesting things,  Colby Holcombe of the new draft class didn't get a ton of opportunities at Mississippi State, but some of the adjustments he's been open to and he's had a nice debut. Fernando, obviously, took a massive step forward. Perry, Maroudis, before they got hurt, they were in that same boat.

  On the position player side, I wouldn't say it's massive steps forward, but they've continued to do what they need to, and I think (Josh) Kasevich, (Alan) Roden, both of them were able to increase their peak exit velocity while not losing what they do really well as hitters, which is not an easy thing to do. They’re both gamers, and they contribute to the team in lots of different ways, and just have a great way about them. Will Robertson had a quietly nice year, (as did) Stewie Berroa, you mentioned earlier.

I mean, I could go on and on, but (Adrian) Pinto, it's nice to have him back. Hopefully he finishes well and finishes strong. Peyton Williams, I can't ask for much more from him. Obviously the injury piece wasn't great, but he's turned it into a great year, really good about a lot of things, really positive. He’s feeling really good about a lot of things. 

Who am I missing? I know you have some written down. Victor Arias is another one. 

DMF: Now, is he done for the year?

JS: He is, unfortunately. But really positive year on his end as well

DMF:  And the college guys. I find myself, as we get into the last couple weeks of August, I start watching Dunedin more, and I think that's just because the other guys I've seen, I know what they can do. One guy I like is Aaron Parker. He's like Alejandro Kirk with a ton of time in the weight room.

JS:  He's built like a fire hydrant.   And he's got some big moves, but he's got definitely some opportunities on the defensive side. Carter Cunningham is another guy,  the numbers weren't great, but he's an absolute stud of a human. We believe in him just because of the makeup piece of it. And he's got some real ability. Nick Mitchell's interesting. Eddie Micheletti, as well.  And then, you know, a lot of the high-end pitchers that we got didn't even throw. So I felt really good about that draft class. 

DMF:  I think I know what the answer is, but I'll get your take on it. Just why is that? We see some guys who are drafted and pitch, and we see some who don't. It just has to depend on what their workload had been like that year? 

JS:  Yeah, a lot of it's dictated by the workload that they went through and kind of trying to balance what the yield would be for getting them in playing versus getting them started on our program. So a lot of thought goes into that with a bigger group, and scouting included. So we're extremely excited to get them on our program and see what they look like coming into spring training next year. 

DMF:  I like the D3 guy you drafted. Colby Martin.  He lights up the radar gun.

Oh my goodness, if he could find the strike zone consistently. What an arm. 

JS:  We're pretty excited about that. I mean, he and (Jay) Schuler, they both were at the same school (Southeastern FL).  Both have big arms.  If we can reign them in and get them in the zone and teach them how to execute a little better, it might be pretty interesting. 

DMF:  And Martin, for a guy who throws that fast, it's not a high-effort delivery….that ball just explodes out of his hand. 

JS:  Yeah, pretty remarkable. It's just easy. One guy I missed, Jace Bohrofen.

DMF: Yes! He really turned it around in the last two months.

JS:  He's been pretty impressive. And it's been neat to talk to him out here because the way he talks about it and the adjustments, and what he's feeling and all that, it's not just he's gotten hot and feels good. There was clear intent behind it.

DMF: What were some of the adjustments? 

JS: He did something with his front foot that just put his body in a better position when he loaded, and it allowed him to be more efficient with when he fires the barrel, and he felt like he could see the ball a little bit longer. When he's driving the ball in his words to left center and stays on the heater to left center, it allows him to have a little bit more adjustability and it was just neat to hear him talk about it was very advanced.

DMF: That's a nice way to end the season for you guys. You have two guys (Nimmala and Bohrfoen) who were Players of the Month for August in their respective leagues.

JS:  Oh, yeah. Especially after what's happened this year. 

DMF:  And just along with that, I'm just curious about your take on the media going on about the Blue Jays' farm system and not developing impact players, and I mean, that's just such a complex thing that just involves so many factors. You know, Baseball America’s, farm system rankings and that kind of thing. And I don't pay a lot of attention to those because I think they're more focused on upside, and a guy like Spencer Horowitz is never going to be on that kind of top prospect list, but look at the weekend he just had. In player development,  do you look at those rankings and do  you say “what can we do to get better?” 

JS:  Everybody's aware of them, industry rankings are a thing but we don't put a ton of stock into that. We feel like we're doing a solid job.  Obviously, we need to do better in plenty of areas, pitching at the forefront of that. But you have the stories of Addison Barger, of major league value, and as a big leaguer, Leo Jimenez looks at home in the big leagues, Spencer Horwitz….. Davis Schneider has obviously struggled, but it's a positive story. Luis De Los Santos, I mean, pretty cool. Nathan Lukes, Berroa. I mean, there are a lot of guys that we feel pretty good about.

  I think we definitely have an opportunity to try to continue to focus on figuring out how to turn out those higher end impact big leaguers, not that those guys aren't, but in the way that the industry is looking at it, I think that factors in for sure.

 We're continuing to figure out how we can raise the ceiling as much as possible for each one of those guys. Like I mentioned earlier with the other processes, we're going to go back and look through and reflect and figure out where our opportunities are and keep pushing to raise the bar a little bit.

In the weeks to come, I’ll have a revised Top 30 prospects list with some thumbnail sketches, and hopefully one or two more interviews before the Rule 5 draft.