Future Blue Jays Newsletter

  It seems hard to believe that just a year ago, the Blue Jays minor league pitching development program was in shambles.

  It seemed like every other week, a top prospect had torn the UCL in their throwing arms.  Ricky Tiedemann, Brandon Barriera, and Landen Maroudis had theirs go in the spring, Chad Dallas in the summer, and Nolan Perry - a breakout performer - as the season was coming to a close.  All told, 9 Blue Jays (including big leaguer Alek Manoah) had a procedure performed on their damaged wings.  

  Changes were quietly and quickly made.  Pitching Development Coordinator Cory Popham (now with the Orioles) was let go, as were several other staff on the pitching side.  Popham’s place was taken by Ricky Meinhold (who we talked to in an earlier newsletter), and in January, former big league pitcher and 14-year pro Justin Lehr joined the organization in the newly created role of pitching development director, a job he had held in the Giants’ organization.

  Fast forward a year later, and the Blue Jays are widely regarded as one of the top pitching development organizations in the game.  Certainly, having draftees like Trey Yesavage, Khal Stephen, and Johnny King come online helped, but there have been several breakout performers this year who were already in the system, Iike Gage Stanifer, Fernando Perez, and Austin Cates. The Blue Jays had sufficient depth to deal Stephen and two other top pitching prospects at the trade deadline to bolster the big league club.

  I spoke with Lehr at his home base in Arizona.

DM Fox:  Justin, it’s so great to connect with you.  This has been a fabulous season for pitching in the organization.  Before we get started, let’s give readers some background.  I’m sure most know you pitched in the big leagues and the KBO, but give us the rest of the story.

Justin Lehr:  Yeah, and you can add Mexico, the minors, and winter ball in Venezuela as well.  

   After I retired in 2012, I decided to go back to school (University of Southern California) to finish my sociology degree……at the time I lived with my kids my wife in Arizona so I needed a place to kind shack up, finish out the 27 units I needed, and then find a job in baseball.

  I did it:  made the dean's list which I've never done anything like that academically, but I crushed out all those classes between the end of the summer and the fall to get my degree and then I started up in January with the Astros on the pro side of scouting.

 I wrote over 500 evaluations my first year covering the AZL and the Cal League.   I'm not saying they were any good, but... 

DMF:  You must have been really motivated, all things considered.

JL:  It's interesting because the athletic director didn’t want to pay my tuition at the time, because I'd been out of school for 12 years…he saw the number of classes I had to take, and he said, “Man, we haven't heard from you for 12 years.” I had gone back after my first year in pro ball, to take 20 units, but it had been a while.

  So it had been 12 years, and he really didn't want to do it, and I was super persistent that I needed it and I was going to kill the classes and get my degree and he never really believed me, but they paid the bill and at the end when he saw my grades he came up to me

one day and says, “I really misjudged you… I didn't understand how motivated you were.” 

   I think what he didn't get was that I had one window to get my degree before I needed to work.  And it was one fall. And so there was no turning back.  I was all in, I was living in the driveway of my sister's house in a camper van conversion, no electricity in this thing,  just sleeping and going to school and occasionally getting home on the weekends.

  So I went on to the Astros thing, did that for a year and then decided that I wanted to go on the amateur side and did that for four years with the Royals.

   I covered South Texas. Got a World Series ring in my second year of scouting there, which was a thrill. 

DMF:  Unfortunately, from a Blue Jays fan's perspective, that you got that ring, but that’s great. So how did you come to the Blue Jays?  I know from talking with Joe Sclafani, that was one of the first things he mentioned when we talked back in June. And he was thrilled to have you. So tell me about the process. What attracted you to the organization?  What made you decide to leave the Giants to go to an organization I'm sure you didn't have a whole lot of familiarity with because they're in a different league, different complex, in a different state.  How did that process all work out?

JL: I didn't know a lot about the Blue Jays being a west coaster really far from that… and this team being Canada’s team was something that I hadn't really considered.

 In a way it's kind of like the best kept secret in baseball, because they put me through a pretty rigorous interview process and by the end I had met 21 people, and with each interview  the connection just seemed to grow deeper and deeper. And I ‘ve got to tell you, by the time I was reaching the end of this process, I wanted the job so badly because of the people I had met.

 And I knew in my heart that I could be I a spoke in the wheel and just come in with my skill set, do the things I'm good at, and kind of leverage the resources and the personnel that were already in place, and having some experience building through the pitching coordinator role with the Giants where we were really thin on prospects, and really behind in some development areas on the pitching side. I just felt like I was set up for success and the people were super engaging and supportive of ideas, and there seemed to be a really strong alignment philosophically about where they needed to go and where I wanted to go. And so by the time the interviews were over and I was offered a job, I was trying to keep my cool at the end and not say something that someone took the wrong way….(I had) 21 interviews and they're pretty thorough. I think they knew I really wanted it by the end because I was pretty excited to keep talking to people and having conversations about what I wanted to do and how we would do it together. And,  I guess I've done everything in my power to fulfill that promise, you know, 

DMF:  Director of pitching. That's a new role for the organization.

  Tell me about your job description. Did you basically get to write it?

JL:   It’s a lot different than the coordinator aspect where you're kind of bogged down with a lot of logistics of player moves and managing rotations and the weekly pitch counts.

  I’m more focused on the processes and systems that we build to develop and customize player plans for our players and set goals. Really trying to just bring every department together in a streamlined fashion, because the information and the resources are abundant here, but there's no secret that we have a lot of resources to work with. And that's huge, because the commitment to put a great product on the field is there, and we have all that support. So I’m just trying to bring it together.

 I think I was quick to kind of just assess where we were in terms of what we had and what worked really well. And there are a number of areas where we were really in a great position to strike. And then there were some areas where I felt from a philosophical standpoint, could we kind of balance out a little better, because it's not really an all-or-nothing equation, right? We're not doing pitch design. Of course we are. But, when, why, how? These are the questions that I love to ask about when we deploy certain strategies with players…. it becomes about not only when we do it but how we do it, and using my experience there to just more appropriately prioritize what's most important for each player, and customize from there, because even within levels each player might be working on different things depending on their skill set and how developed they are, so I think that's where I fit in here and that's been really rewarding: to leverage that experience and bring people together behind the players and challenge the coaches to be their own version of a major league coach and coach in their style but with some structure that I think is important.  So I think that's where I saw I could fulfill my role. 

DMF:  And so what does a typical day look like for you? 

JL:  My morning starts out with a big review on the previous night's games.

I go through our after-game reports. If I have questions on deliveries, I might leverage some Hawkeye information, ask some questions, and reach out to our analysts if things are changing or if they’re seeing shifts. There’s a lot of communication on the coaching side in terms of what we're working towards and how we're doing it. Really letting them and empowering them to take action with players and make them better. 

DMF:  That sounds like a dream job.

JL: I feel like it is…. I really do. It's so different in the five years, obviously, where I was the pitching coordinator and we didn't really have a director of pitching in the minor leagues. So I was responsible for a lot of similar things and setting the course of how we want to develop pitchers.  Because we have such a great pitching coordinator in Ricky Meinhold, I’m more in the bucket of always thinking about how we can get our staff up to speed, improve their skill sets and make our players better so that's another huge aspect  - the staff development, because we have some younger staff that are really talented and we're trying to just show them certain ways that I think have been successful in the past

DMF:  So you take a step back or two from, say, Ricky's role. And you've got much more of  a big picture kind of look at the whole system.

JL:  It has allowed me to do that. And it's actually allowed me to use more creative space instead of being task-oriented  - that’s a big part of your day as a coordinator. It's very task-oriented. And so,  I love that part. I love that I can stand back and assess

and ask questions of people that are experts in different fields in our org and then come to a conclusion of okay, I think this is what's best for the player through my own research and my own questions. And then we’ll allow the coaches to execute those plans.  

DMF:  You mentioned philosophy, and that’s the direction that I want to go next.

Is the best pitch in baseball still strike one? 

JL:  The best performing pitch is probably the splitter….. But yeah, strike one. Love a strike one. You know, we try to balance that with just getting ahead, whether it's that, or converting two out of three.  Certainly, we want to throw strike one, and I think more importantly -  can we get strike one with more than one pitch type, so that we're not predictable?  And for a lot of guys that's a huge part of the development curve; show me you can get in zone with more than one pitch type and I’ll show you a path to the big leagues because if you have weapons to put guys away  - you know,  putting that challenge out there because sometimes get guys get lost in chasing a certain shape,  and to me, it’s can you get that shape in the zone when you need to is the question.  I think it’s about just being really clear on our expectations and then backing it up with training.  We train to throw it in the zone, we use visual constraints , we quantify how well they did it and make it really hard in training environments and spring training especially to set them up for competition.  We preached it and then we took it to the field and the visual constraints we had on the strike zone,  then leveraging Trackman portable, and then giving them the quantifiable feedback on how they did that day by pitch type, by count. Then it’s, “hey, we gotta get better here,” because obviously it's when they say you can't outrun a bad diet, you can't outrun bad process metrics very long.

If you're in bad counts, they're going to get you. 

DMF:  I know in the past,  the philosophy in the organization was switching to was, “your best pitch is probably the one that you should be going with primarily.” Or are you of the school that thinks that you've got to establish that fastball first before the secondaries come into play? 

JL:  No, it really depends on the type of guy and what they're good at. I think there are certain guys in our organization that we are heavily skewed towards leveraging their strengths at all costs because they have a unicorn pitch.

  But, you know, there's a whole population of successful players that are kind of in the middle where the core of their arsenal is in the global arsenal in terms of how their pitches pair together, so we talk a lot about I how you pair pitches in terms of  which

pitches work well together, and to basically say in a vacuum maybe your fastball is not very good but your fastball paired with a split is better, right?  So, we talk when they don't have

the unicorn about how you pair certain breaking ball styles. So maybe a guy has a carry fastball and a big curveball. Well, what can we get in the middle that's hard and maybe Iike a cutter or a traditional ball slider? And then pair those so that we can kind of cause more chaos for the hitter in terms of what's coming and what do they have to scout for. So that population of guys I think is the most fun to coach with versus the guy that's just the unicorn,  maybe a (AA reliever) Kai Peterson, or who has the really flat fastball and deception…we’ll say,  “oh he's gonna throw a lot of fastballs and that's just fine because that's what he does well ,” but  we're trying to support everybody and so we want to leverage strengths but sometimes,  depending on the sequence you've thrown your best pitch might not be the pitch that ultimately gets you where you want to be depending on the type of guy you are.

 DMF: Interesting …. finally, on the background administrative philosophical side, I think I said to you in my initial email I’ve been following the system and writing about it for 13

years now, and I have never seen a summer Iike last summer  where it just seemed I one week after another somebody was falling and I know -  first off, I know UCL damage tends to be a cumulative thing as opposed to a singular event, and when you look at other organizations they're going through it almost to the same extent as well but this year I believe there was only one guy - Jake Bloss - who blew out his elbow.

  What changes and processes did you guys make in spring training? I know people I talked to in the organization last year wondered about how well they ramped up pitchers in the spring, that sort of thing. I'm just curious because,  I'll be honest, I'm astounded at the turnaround.

JL: ….. It's tough to account for some of the things that happened before I was here. I’ve seen  where we were with the throwing program.  I have some idea of how pitchers were used and built up, and I don't know  - you know injuries are so multi-factor, most often there's so many contributing things in terms of how they're used, the biomechanics, their history. There's certainly some biomechanics that are more inclined to have injuries of that type, especially elbows. So, I've just really thought about where we are coming into this

and managing the pitcher's work, making sure they're adapted to the stress properly and I think whatever adjustments were made before I got here…. we were already kind of going that direction and in my mind actually I feel we've been sometimes more aggressive with pitch counts in terms of  letting guys go deeper when it's warranted for a development win, and we do a lot of workload tracking that kind of gives us the green light to let guys be a little more flexible with their pitch counts because they're in good range and a healthy range. And then being very aware of maybe the individualized risk of each type of thrower, their age, all of this matters, right?  For example, what have they done in the past? Where are they this week? Where were they last month? And being on every aspect of those details, looking for changes in the biomechanics at Hawkeye that might be flags for injuries. So if we've done anything, we've been on the details of every guy.

  And then using our good judgment we can have all the tools and resources in the world and really smart people to drive data, to analyze. But then, you know, I've been able to leverage not only experience in my own right, but Ricky, our pitching coordinator, is phenomenal on that side.  (Pitching Resource Analyst) Ty Dobos is the guy that drives all of our workload mode management, he’s incredibly brilliant so I've just tried to use experience and have good judgment and be in the details.

DMF: I read somewhere where you said that some of the technology and some of the data that's available now was available to you when you were playing. You think that probably would have made a difference for you. And you are far from the first former player that I’ve heard that from. So you were obviously there, there's a huge buy-in on your part on that side, philosophically. 

JL:   You know, when I talk to players, I explain to them what an advantage they have - that millions of pitches have been tracked. There's comps for every style of thrower. We have some idea, predictably, how pitches are going to play now, right? And when I played, it was trial and error. You had to get your face beat in three seasons, keep throwing the same pitch in the wrong count, the wrong header, and watching them hit it off the fence and then going, okay, that doesn't work.

  But now we can kind of be Iike, hey, this probably is not going to work. Statistically speaking, you're probably not leveraging the right pitch and the right count. And so if I had one wish, it would have been to understand  which of my pitches played best. Because that was mostly intuitive. There was no hard data to say, throw your curveball more or throw your split more to lefties or throw your split more to righties you know I it was more of a guessing game…

DMF:   And Blue Jays certainly are state of the art with the pitching lab and all of those resources now.

JL:  Absolutely…. it just takes a lot of information processing to figure out what to do with it all sometimes 

DMF:  Now let’s get to the fun part and talk about individual pitchers.  I know a lot of people probably would have liked me to have you talk about Trey Yesavage first, but to me, Gage Stanifer really embodies a lot of what you just talked about.  A year ago, he showed a ton of promise at Dunedin, but could just not find the plate.

 This year, it’s like he’s a different pitcher, and he’s really bought into this notion of attacking the zone, and now we’re looking at a guy who’s on the cusp of being a Top 100 prospect. 

  In his first start at AA I'm sure there were some nerves and I'm sure he knew that he was facing a tough Yankees’ affiliate lineup, but he struck out George Lombard  first at bat.

JL:  You get really attached to these guys when you see them grow you get you're really proud of them, but I’ll say that the dedication on Gage's part is tremendous. The staff have worked really hard with his delivery and improving his throw and getting that into a better, more consistent position. And then we just hit him right up front with training the strike zone all camp, which is let's see how many balls you can throw in zone because they're nasty.

Until they hit it, I just keep driving it in there. And, you know, it's not perfect that he has the ability to drive strikes, but it is much improved. And we're very optimistic that he's going to turn the corner.  I like that you have him up here talking about him first because to me,  if we get this right, he has an incredibly high ceiling because his engine is so big and his arsenal drives so much width.

   So, you have the big fastball, which I think is still going to be even better in terms of output. And his slider can be devastating. And then the split change shape, although tough to control for a young guy, is really good. So you can dream on him because I think he has the engine to start and the weapons, and that's really the question because I think some people can jump off guys based on the strikes. But I always go to, well, if he can't start, who can?  Because the big league standard of stuff is really high and if he can create the stuff then we need to get him polished enough to start, because he certainly has the drive, so  I'm dreaming big on him.

DMF: He makes hitters so uncomfortable and I have seen most of his starts this year. I love how he gets the ball back, he's on the rubber, he's ready to go and even a couple of times the umpires have had to step out and say, hang on, you've got to give the hitter a second.  One or two games, I think he even had a ball that was called. But I like that.  As a hitter, I know what it's like to have a guy on the mound who works quickly and makes things uncomfortable and keeps you from getting set. I really liked watching him pitch.

JL:  Yeah, he likes to go fast. We're trying to make that really consistent. We like to preach things about how we win the time between pitches, and he likes to get on the attack. So that's a great attribute.

DMF:  Yesavage, I think it's safe to say he has met, if not exceeded, all of your expectations for this year, which I think were considerable. 

JL:  Yeah, for a first-year player, in spring training, it was exciting. My first real look at him live, I thought, okay, this guy can do some things.

  When he's right,  he's got a plus fastball that he can use in multiple quadrants of the strike zone. He can actually move it around, which I think is elite. He’s a couple really good whiff weapons with the slider and the split. As far as makeup, he’s just really pretty gritty and hard-nosed and doesn't really let things slap him. And he just goes about his business. He's been really a pleasure because for a first-year guy, it's been fairly easy to get him where he's going. He's just kept his head down and translated outs.

DMF:  And the question everyone is asking is will he be a part of the Blue Jays this month, maybe get on a postseason roster?

JL:   We're just getting him a little bullpen experience right now in case of anything.

Really, I don't know. I think what we're trying to do is prepare him for anything and make sure that even in his first year that he's had multiple experiences with things. That way he's as prepared as possible, for anything.  And I'm not really in the inner workings of, you know, how close that decision may be. But I think from a development standpoint, our focus was let's prepare him for anything that's asked of him should there be a need.

  And then, and I think that's been really easy to coach Trey through hey,  we're going to have you come out of the bullpen because you never know, you might need to… and you know  he did it in some of these showcases….so that's where my head is right now and obviously long term we all know and believe that Trey is a future starter.  So most recently we're just getting him some different looks and making sure that if called upon, it's not the first time he's done it.

DMF:  Okay, I hear you. It's kind of above your pay grade. I guess the one thing that I would like to see from him, and I say this having seen his last two outings, so perhaps things are changing a bit, but I found the first strike percentage was lower. Obviously, he's at a higher level, but I certainly - maybe it's the end of a long first season, but I would like to see him basically throw more strikes. (this interview took place before his most recent start)

JL:  He’s still adjusting to the level, I think. You know, where we want to see him is not Trey against Trey, because obviously his stuff's good enough that if he's fighting himself, he can work through it. But, when he's fully committed to Trey against the hitter and he's in tune with his throw and everything is synced up, it's really good. We're just trying to make sure that we're getting as close to that as possible.  That's a confidence thing. Repetitions, it all matters in terms of experience at the new level. Like I said, we're just really focused on getting him as many experiences as we can. 

DMF:  Johnny King must have been a really nice welcome to the organization gift for you.

JL:  Yeah. That's a pretty good gift to walk into and see an 18-year-old throwing his caliber of stuff and trying to harness that big throw that he has, and the fastball and the curveball.

I'm not sure that there's anything Johnny - you can always do better, right? You can always do the things that you do better, but in terms of where he's at in his development and what he accomplished, pretty special kid.  The thing about Johnny is he really wants to be good. He's very driven to be really, really good. And he doesn't accept anything other than  his best shot.

  So in that way, he reminds me a little bit of Blake Snell in terms of throwing his best pitch every time and holding himself to an incredibly high standard.

DMF:  What impressed you the most about Johnny this year? I

JL:  I just love the athleticism. Yeah. And, I didn't know on the makeup side, because he's high energy and he's a little nervous when he's moving around, and then you get the ball in his hand, he’s like, “all right, I want to be the best. And when I'm not the best, I'm not going to be happy about it.” 

DMF:  Fernando Perez. I kind of forgot about him with all the hype of the other guys this spring. And then I look up and I think that he's throwing two or three miles an hour faster. And absolutely nobody in the system, to me, pounds the strike zone like he does.

JL:   Yeah, he has an incredible knack for pitching.  He moves his fastball around, he pairs his pitches well, has a good feel for pitching, disrupting timing, getting hitters to take bad swings. He's really good at advanced things….when he sees a bad swing, he knows that he can chase it. He's like, oh, I got this guy, I'm going to go drive a ball in on his hands, he's late. 

  And the awareness there is really special for his age because as he's improving his tools,

that will really play at the major league level, because recognition of what a hitter is trying to do to you is actually probably one of the hardest things to learn and also the latest.

It comes on development-wise the latest. He's got it already. 

DMF:  You mentioned his age, and I think we tend to forget that, how young he is to be to be already at AA, that's a great scouting and development story right there.

JL:   Yeah, we’re really happy with getting him some AA starts down the stretch just so he's, you know, a little bit ahead on that experience.

DMF:  No one - myself included - was paying much attention to Austin Cates in the spring, and over the past two months he’s been as dominant as any pitcher in the system.  He gets promoted to Vancouver, and he just continues to get guys out.

JL:  He has weapons, he's developing bigger weapons, and he can really just pitch, just an incredible success story for him, the kid can pitch, he's getting better.

  Down the stretch, the velo gains were just wonderful to see, so next year's gonna be really interesting to see where he's at.

DMF:  In his last two starts, I didn't think he used the splitter a whole lot, and that's maybe he wasn't facing a whole lot of left-handed hitters, I can't recall, but that pitch is an absolute weapon. 

JL:  Yeah, obviously, the harder he throws, the better it's gonna play.

DMF:  Is there any chance he might get one more start at AA, or is he going to be shut down? 

JL:  I think we're pretty content with what he accomplished, he certainly made a case for it. You could easily argue that it warranted doing that, but getting him across the country for one more game just wasn't really in the cards this year. Honestly, the amount of time he spent in Vancouver wasn't very long, but it was certainly being discussed, because it was Iike, wow, are we gonna keep riding these gains to the finish line, or are we pretty happy with what he's already accomplished? I think we were pretty happy with what he accomplished already.

DMF:  To me, as somebody who's got a big picture view of the organization, he's put himself on the radar this summer.

JL:  Yeah, we’re very happy with that, and I think in some ways it was a little surprising how strong he was finishing with the velo, and not that he wasn't working really hard, but,  it's just, that was a lot for a first-year guy at the end of the season to gain.

DMF:  To dominate Florida State in the league hitters in July and early August is one thing, but then to, you know, to move up in the Northwest League, where you got guys who don't chase as much, and you certainly have much more of a challenge, and if anything, he was more dominant at High A than he was at Low A, that's really impressive.

JL: We’re really happy with the handoff with the coaches. I just think they continue to build forward and be ready with development strategies that further his growth. 

DMF:  Daniel Guerra - A few starts ago, he took a perfect game into the 6th.  That was as dominant a performance as I’ve seen from a Blue Jays prospect all season - and that’s saying something this year.  53 of the 67 pitches he threw were fastballs, and it was like he was saying, “here it is, guys, try and hit it.”

JL:  Yeah - I was at that game!  I was trying to figure out what to do there, because the coaches were looking at me, and I'm looking at them, like what are we going to do if this guy's perfect through six, and he's under pitch count, because he hadn't touched the 6th inning yet this year, right?  So, giving him the 6th obviously made sense. He was dominating, and he hadn't even broken a sweat yet, but then,  umping him to the 7th, these are the considerations we make:  age, workload on the year, where is he at physically, and I'm thinking, man - can we jump him from five to seven ups in one game if he has a perfect game going?  And for a minute  I entertained the idea that we would let him go out for the 7th, and then he walked a guy, and I was Iike, yeah, we're good.

DMF:  Those are the kind of dilemmas you want to have, though, in player development, I guess. 

JL: That's right. I don't want to overly control the situation, but he's also very young, and having the game of his life, to that point. But, you know, I've had to do this before with older players, but we're working towards major league special wins, and great career feats in the big leagues.

  No one's going to remember a seven-inning perfect game in the minor leagues, you know? That's not the goal. 

DMF:  That’s a really good point. And obviously, for him, the key is development of a third pitch from this point on? 

JL:   I think he's done really well with the slider. He's kind of getting a feel for the split finger. We think that's a good fit for him.  You know, I don't know that he's covered a ton of ground with that, but for Guerra, we were more focused on how he was moving, syncing up the delivery. So, in some ways, we've kind of laid back on the design front as he's improving his throw, throwing harder. Because, you know, he's a massive guy.  He's also very young, and I can commend the coaches all day for the work they put in with the delivery. But that was before I got here. I didn't have anything to do with that.

   They had already worked really hard on improving the delivery, and we were just kind of bearing the fruit of that throughout the season.  Man, there were so many whiffs on the fastball that day. I was I, this is getting crazy.

He's just throwing it by everybody. 

DMF:  As fans, sometimes we expect guys who are returning from Tommy John are all set and good to go. But we saw when Landen Maroudis  came back, he struggled with his command, and people are asking me why isn’t he doing so well ?

JL:  This is just all part of the process. Maybe it's taking a little bit longer than we thought that it was going to be, but I think he's still kind of on that recovery continuum. Is that safe to say? Yeah.

   And, in fairness to Landen, I had a couple years where I worked with the rehab group, which is really where I cut my teeth as a baseball coach and in player development.  I've learned some things, and that is, generally speaking, the older the thrower, the better they usually are at performing when they come back. They just have so many more reps and muscle memory to fall back on. And, you know, it's been more challenging where we really start looking at the second year with younger throwers that undergo Tommy John.

    I have found that the younger the thrower, the harder the initial rehab can be because they just don't have as broad a foundation with their delivery, their stuff. And it raises a lot of performance challenges in the first year. And so I try to coach Landen to be patient, to obviously have the expectation you're going to be good when you go out, but not overreact if it's not up to expectations.

  And that's hard for a competitor that wants to be good because they're thinking,  “I'm healthy now,” right?   I say but you're also a very young thrower. And all of the things that I think the organization invested in are still there. It's just, he needs an offseason to work towards some improvements with his delivery. He needs an offseason to just refresh mentally. It's a really hard process and it's really long. 

DMF:  Silvano Hechevarria 14 months ago was in Cuba, and to me he's kind of following a very similar trajectory as Yosver Zulueta when he was in the organization, just blowing away lower level hitters.

JL:   Yes, he was also kind of in that Guerra bucket where they were really working hard on his delivery to untap the power and the consistency.

  That process all started before I showed up and he had a good plan in the offseason and he's been good. The fastball and slider are real. 

DMF:  And you mentioned just the delivery and that's interesting because, I go through the mental video files while you're saying that and I'm thinking, man, he does have, to me, one of the more polished deliveries in the system already.

JL:   I think he's really smoothed out some things and gotten a better sequence with his throwing.

DMF:  Is there a little added room for velocity there or are we, given his age, are we at the peak there? 

JL:  No, I actually think that, kind of from the holistic view of how we build velo, he's going to continue to get better. I think that the resources and the programming allow guys to continually make incremental gains, so I think he's going to throw harder.

DMF:  Tell me about some guys that I've missed, maybe some under-the-radar guys. I know you don't want to miss anybody necessarily, but who are some guys that I haven't asked you about maybe who have jumped out to you this year? 

JL:  I'm going to give you a couple lefties here and the first one, I think you're going to be like, “oh, yeah!” and that's Javen Coleman. 

DMF:  Yeah, oh yeah.

JL:   Javen Coleman has arrived and in a huge way and last check, I don't know what his strikeout percentage was in High A, but pretty obscene (14.03/9). 

 I love highlighting our deep projections, one of which was a younger kid who when he signed, he was maybe 84 to 86 and they were super worried about the velo, and never getting anything out of this really smooth and connected throw that he had, but the power wasn't there. And that's Juanmi Vasquez, who's in Vancouver right now and his punch out numbers in a small sample really jumped up (13.5/9 at Vancouver) and he's got pitchability.  He's throwing a lot harder than he did. He's  91, 92 now touching 94. He's really young.  I love his delivery. I just love the way he does it. I think he has a feel for breaking ball pitches.

He's learning to throw harder. He loves to pitch. 

  I saw the guy in spring training, he was throwing 88 and I was like, I love this kid. And then they told me he threw 84 last year and now he's touching 94. He's got all this natural ability and a beautiful throw and I love watching him do it. Yeah, I think he's our largest gainer in the system in velo….. last year, let's see, last year he averaged 88.7 across two teams and this year he's averaged 91.4 across two teams and he's raised his high velo 2.6 miles per hour. He's 21 so he's not as young as some of the other guys, but we're starting to realize some of the gains and I think his pitching ability is going to separate him. Those were the guys on my list that were more on the lower levels that stood out to me.

DMF:  I see the names, I see the numbers, I've seen him pitch the odd time but obviously I see the starters a lot more. So that's cool. And the guys in Vancouver that I know and that I deal with, they were raving about him.

JL:  I'd see Juanmi as a starter next year. If he handles his business well in the offseason, I think we should take a run at him in the rotation. 

DMF:  As far as injury updates go, I know there's a blanket statement that we could apply and that is that we’re looking forward to seeing every one of these guys in spring training next year ready to go. I'm just interested to know kind of specifically where they're at. I know with Tiedemann, I talked to Ricky Meinhold maybe about three or four weeks ago, and he said he was throwing bullpens, ramping up to face live hitters.

  Where is he at right now?

JL:   On some of these guys, I think they're making their push towards the end of their rehab cycle. I'm more comfortable with Ricky right now. He's going to have a little break here from the throwing action. He's been at it a long time. Other than that, I don't really have any more info on him from the medical  standpoint. That's where we're at.

DMF:  How about Chad Dallas?

JL:  He's about ready to throw his first live BP. He's done a great job.  He’s a performer, and I’m really anxious to see him back in action and get a first-hand look at him.

DMF:  Brandon Barriera had a difficult season this year. I  hoped we might see him pitch this year but I know he's had some setbacks.

JL:   Yeah, he's back to throwing. I think we're going to get through it. Just really hoping we can make progress at the end of this rehab cycle and get him home for a healthy offseason. He's just been in the rehab process a long time. It's amazing when we just get him outside of the medical umbrella and let him breathe for a minute and not be so worried about his health. A normal offseason ramping up as a healthy player is what we’d like. He's an incredibly gifted thrower. We all know that.

  This guy's engine is unbelievable. The shapes he makes are ridiculous. Just getting him to a healthy offseason is the goal.

DMF:  Now I don't know what your injury history was but the most common thing I think to all Tommy John guys or even if they've had the brace repair is there is that mental factor. Is my arm healthy? And obviously maybe not quite there yet maybe in his case?

JL:  I think he had a little setback medically and he's worked through it so all things are going. It was kind of out of his control, a weird thing that flared up on him. No real lasting repercussions in terms of the rehab on his elbow. That actually has been really seamless.

We’re pretty optimistic there. It just unfortunately has not given us the time to get him into games before the season ended.

DMF:  Nolan Perry -  last year he and Stanifer were the two guys who really stood out to me in Dunedin and unlike Stanifer, Perry was already commanding all of his pitches and I was really looking forward to seeing where he went from there.  So where is he at right now? 

JL:  He's going to do a two inning Live BP this week and then he will graduate rehab.

 DMF:  Okay, Dahian Santos. I really like that kid. I spent time with him in the Vancouver dugout a couple years ago and between my very limited Spanish and his limited English and Google Translate we had a great conversation. He showed me his pitch grips and everything else,and I am not the biggest guy in the world and kind of standing beside him, I just thought man, how does this guy throw so hard for somebody who is not a big guy.

Where are we at with him? Did he undergo surgery? 

JL:  Yeah, he did. He's rehabbing at this point. I don't know specifically what surgery he had.

DMF:  Time to get some Canadian content in here. Connor O'Halloran. Guy with bloodlines and a great Toronto area kid. Pitched really well in Florida last year. Struggled a bit in Vancouver. I’m just curious to know where he's at. 

JL:  He's in a similar situation as Santos, but as far as next spring, I think he'll be full go. 

DMF: And then somebody I was really looking forward to seeing this year but unfortunately we didn't get a chance to was Carson Messina.

JL:  So, this guy hit 99 the other day in his live BP.  He’s going to throw one more, and then we're going to send him home. There's been some bumps getting him back to this point but there's been two really remarkable things I've seen from him which were one of his last games before his injury in spring training where his stuff was absolutely electric and I was asking, “where did we get this kid?” Because what's coming out of his hand is elite.

  And then he had some weird things going on and I got to tell you the other day when I saw the velo, I said, oh he's back. What we saw, it's there. And so he's about to finish his rehab and go home.

DMF:  Excellent. That's good news. So it's pretty much good news on that front.

JL: I think we're optimistic and there are always, Iike I said, unforeseen things getting guys fully healthy and taking a couple steps forward, taking a step back. Pretty normal.

Especially the younger guys and the surgical guys, and I think we've seen some of that with some of our better prospects. They cover a lot of ground, have a little setback but we haven't seen anything catastrophic so we're very optimistic. 

DMF:  And you said you had spent time previously working with rehab guys in that kind of setting.  Is that kind of giving you some added insight into what they're going through? 

JL:  No doubt. I was  rehab coordinator with the Giants for two years, which was my first entry into player development. I had a lot of players, learned a lot, coached 17-year-old Latin kids, 33-year-old major league former guys.

  You work with every type of player and I think it really accelerates your coaching acumen in terms of meeting the needs of different types of players that are in different places in their career. You really have a well-rounded experience.

    I really wanted to get into player development and that changed my life, honestly. Being able to give back with players was a really joyous thing for me and it just completely changed my life to be able to deploy everything I've learned from grinding through my playing career, scouting side, working with injured players, and now doing what I'm doing now.  I feel incredibly fortunate to have had the path and the experiences that I had. I love that I scouted. I think that's incredible.

I love that I worked with injured players for two years and I was pumped to be a pitching coordinator when I got that job and did it for, I think, a long time. And now, this new thing, I mean, I've been thrilled. I try to encourage our younger guys to just don't limit yourself and don't pigeonhole yourself.  Just gain experiences and be great at your job and good things are going to happen.

  The rewarding part is just seeing guys run with good information and being able to table it to them, and then watching them grow towards their dream of being big leaguers,  and problem solving for them.

DMF:   Last thing I wanted to ask you, but I'm just always curious, especially now how the Arizona Fall League has kind of morphed from what it was maybe even a decade ago, but just interested to know who the pitchers you might be sending to Arizona.

JL:  We're going to send Alex Amalfi, who is a AA starter right now. I think he's interesting tools-wise. Still figuring out how to pitch.

   Kai Peterson from our AA team. Oh, and then we forgot a really good one, maybe under the radar guy, Yondrei Rojas. Yeah, that guy came out of nowhere too.  Probably has, I don't have it up in front of me, but probably the best numbers for a reliever in the organization. He's been phenomenal.  He came through the rehab process.  I guess I underestimated how dominant he was going to be.  Yeah, he's going to go. 

DMF:  Amalfi has been  a Swiss Army knife for you guys too this year. He's done some starting, he's done some relieving, whatever you guys want him to do.

JL:  Bulk, he's done it. Yeah. I'm just trying to figure out what he's going to ultimately be good at.  Because if you take all the pitches together, it's a pretty good product. You can dream on it a little bit. Amalfi, Peterson, Rojas, anybody else? Amalfi, Peterson, Rojas, Chay Yeager from our AA team.

And then I think we're talking about maybe Angel Bastardo, the Rule 5 guy. I think we want to get him some innings. 

DMF:  And being based in Arizona,  you'll get to see them pitch. 

JL:  I know, they'll be local for me and Eric Duncan is going to be the manager there, our director of player development for the position players. 

 Doing these long form interviews is one of my favourite things.  It takes longer to transcribe and get everything right (thankfully, transcription software has come a long way), but I think the final product is worth it.  I enjoyed talking to Justin, who was very gracious with his time - I asked for a half hour, he gave me twice that - and I came away having learned a number of things.

I toss this out every once in a while - if you appreciate my writing, and would like to show your appreciation, well - every little bit helps.