Future Blue Jays Newsletter

The week that was in the Toronto Blue Jays system.

Tuesday - C’s pull off an unusual feat

It’s not often you get no hit for 11 innings, and manage to pull one out in the 12th, but this has been a magical season for Vancouver, who recorded their 9th walkoff win of 2023.

Wednesday - Morris’ career night

Buffalo’s red-hot offence exploded for ten runs in the 2nd inning. Utility guy Tanner Morris could do no wrong at the plate.

Thursday - C’s win again

Adam Macko’s season has been inconsistent, but he turned in his finest outing in front of 4500 Nat Bailey faithful, and speaking of career nights, Gaby Martinez hit a pair of lasers to the LF bleachers as Vancouver blanked Everett, 7-0.

After a shaky first inning, Macko survived a tight strike zone to get command of his slider, and was dominant through the next four frames. With a fastball that sits 93-96, a cutter and a change to go with that breaking pitch, Macko oozes potential.

The first of the 2023 crop of draftees began their pro careers as a pair of collegiate position players, 13th round pick Brennan Orf, and UDFA Bryce Arnold, from Hamilton, ON, were in Dunedin’s lineup. Orf went 1-4 while Arnold took the collar in the D-Jays’ 8-2 loss to the Yankees’ Tampa affiliate.

More on the C’s

There is no news on the Dahian Santos front, and that’s concerning. Santos was pulled after only 3 innings going back to his June 10 start, but he seemed to have righted himself. But after tossing 5 innings and allowing only an unearned run against Spokane on July 1st, Santos has not appeared in a game since, and went on the 7-day IL on July 8th. The folks in Vancouver appear not to have had any updates, and while it’s always risky to speculate….that’s not good news. Santos is not the biggest guy in the world, and you can’t help but wonder what the strain on his elbow has been. Here’s hoping for better news.

Here Come the Draftees

Speaking of guys taken in July’s draft, many are slowly filtering their way into pro ball. Once a player signs, it’s off to Dunedin for an orientation camp, a large part of which is physical testing.

Look, I’m no draft expert, and anyone outside of scouts and a handful of connected industry outsiders is kidding you when they try to pass themselves off as one. I’ve talked to Shane Farrell in the past, and plan to again in a few weeks, and while I have established a line of communication with Farrell and other front office personnel, scouts are a different story. They prefer to be in the background, for the most part, and I tend to leave them alone. They have the knowledge, having followed players around for several seasons, and they tend to understandably keep it to themselves.

What I prefer to do is read the scouting reports like anyone else, then sit back and give these players some time to adjust to life in pro ball. Come September, I’ll start to talk to folks in the organization about some standouts, and I’ll share that with you. But baseball, more than any other sport, perhaps, is a game you practice, not necessarily one you just play. It takes thousands of repetitions to build a pro, and while you get a guy like Hayden Juenger or Alan Roden who makes it from college to AA in a very short period of time every year, there’s a reason there’s a ladder of progression in minor league baseball, and few players breeze through the minors and become front line big leaguers right away.

I certainly don’t expect a whole lot from this group, at least this year. Dunedin certainly got a lift from the college draftees they received around the beginning of August last year, but I certainly don’t see quite the same thing happening this year. The college guys are coming off a long year, and the high school kids need to be eased into pro ball. And Toronto didn’t have a 2nd round pick, which maybe doesn’t mean a lot in the long run, but in the short run, there’s not a guy like Cade Doughty who can step in and give a lower level team a lift.

The industry consensus seems to be that the Blue Jays had a decent draft. They were one of a half dozen clubs who had the highest draft slot overage. Insiders looked favourably upon their top of the draft strategy, getting one of the biggest under-slot deals with toolsy Florida HS SS Arjun Nimmala, then using some of the $750K they saved to sign 3rd rounder Juaron Watts-Brown, and 4th round pick Landen Maroudis.

Van Eyk Tosses

The return for C.J. Van Eyk from Tommy John surgery has been rocky. The 2020 2nd rounder underwent the procedure in September, 2021, and lost all of last season as a result. He’s had a setback since being sent to the FSL for a rehab stint; things did not go well for him in his first outing since early June:

Tiedemann Returns!

Ricky Tiedemann made his much-anticipated return to full season play with a rehab start for Dunedin. Prospect followers had a bonanza on this day, as Brandon Barriera made a return to competition in the second game of the D-Jays’ doubleheader at Tampa on Saturday.

As might reasonably be expected, Tiedemann was lights out against the lower level competition, tossing 3 shutout innings, striking out six. The only blemish on his day was a two out walk in the 3rd.

Barriera’s return was a little less spectacular, allowing an earned run and a pair of hits, walks, and strikeouts in 2 IP.

Where do we go from here? Depending on the recovery, it would seem maybe Tiedemann would make another rehab outing before heading back to New Hampshire, where he likely will be on a more limited pitch count as he builds back up. Barriera probably stays in Dunedin. Much depends on the injury and recovery status of both, things we don’t really get to hear much about.

Bye-Bye Sem and Kloff

It was not surprising that Sem Robberse was dealt yesterday; with the Blue Jays facing a 40-man crunch, and Robberse eligible for the first time this year, he was the price the Blue Jays had to pay in order to land Jordan Hicks. Another prospect was going to be involved all along, but with Jordan Romano landing on the IL, the price tag went up considerably in the form of Adam Kloffenstein.

Personally, it’s a bit sad to see both of them go. I had established a rapport and gotten to know both of them a bit; seeing them dealt is the hazard of writing in-depth about prospects. But looking from an objective point of view, I can understand why the trade was made. The Jays obviously wanted to scoop up Hicks before he was gone, and in evaluating Robberse and Kloffenstein, they saw a ceiling of back of the rotation for both. I have always enjoyed watching Sem pitch with his mechanics and the way he sequences, but the knock against him has been a lack of a put-away pitch, and while there’s still room for him to do so, the Blue Jays felt his time as a big league contributor was likely outside of this group’s competitive window. Much the same goes for Kloff, who really turned his career around this season.

Both have been assigned to AAA Memphis, which probably speaks a bit to the Cards’ pitching depth, and also suggests they want to see what they have in both in advance of the Rule 5 (Kloffenstein was eligible but not selected last year; this year might not see him sneak through).

As a sidebar: you have to feel for the Vancouver Canadians’ fans. Last year, they lost Nick Frasso in the lamentable Mitch White deal, this year they may lose one or two of their top starters to fill spots in New Hampshire’s rotation, with the C’s already having clinched yet another playoff berth. Such is the nature of minor league fandom, but you have to feel for the fans and staff out west.

Are the Jays done dealing? I hope not. There isn’t a lot of pitching depth aside from the bullpen guys at New Hampshire (or maybe one of the AAA relievers) to deal from, so it may come from a package of position players, including Davis Schneider, Leo Jimenez, Spencer Horwitz, Addison Barger, Orelvis Martinez, Otto Lopez, or even Tucker Toman, whose stats have not been great, but has drawn rave reviews for his approach at the plate.

Pitching Depth in General

Social media this weekend seemed to be full of experts deriding the Blue Jays ability to develop pitchers.

If you take a look around baseball, it would appear many other organizations have the same problem.

But is the Blue Jays track record so bad? I say no. Pitching - the starting variety especially - is the hardest commodity in baseball to develop. The Blue Jays have developed a number of pitchers in the Shapiro/Atkins era - some have made it to the big club, others have been used as currency to upgrade the roster.

Certainly, with the trade for Hicks, the ranks of the Blue Jays pitching depth has grown thin, and it’s probably not a coincidence that three of their top four draft picks were pitchers. But once you get past Tiedemann and Barriera, it’s scant for top-level pitchers.

But there are plenty of other mid-level pitchers - both starters and relievers - making their way up the ranks. Michael Dominguez was a player people in the player development department mentioned to me last offseason as a guy who stood out, and he’s come along this season. Chad Dallas has scuffled his second time through the Eastern League, but let’s see how he fares. Trent Palmer will be back from Tommy John surgery next May, and Devereaux Harrison and Rafael Sanchez have shown they should be in line sometime later this year or early next for a promotion to AA. 19 year-old Fernando Perez of the Complex League Jays has started to gain some notice as well.

So Long, Joey

Joey Murray absolutely rocketed through the minors in 2019. The 2018 8th rounder from Kent State pitched at three levels, and seemed to get better at each one with his high spin rate “invisiball,” and his low arm slot. A highlight of my prospecting travels was sitting in the pressbox in Lansing, the middle of his three stops that year, and watching his preposterous spin rates pop up on the laptop of the intern sitting beside me.

Murray seemed on the fast track to a big league job when COVID hit in 2020. He was named to the Alt Site, and spent the summer at Rochester, but he developed shoulder issues. Murray pitched only two-thirds of an inning in 2021 (after not pitching at all in 2020), and his 2022 season ended after only 5 AA starts, as he underwent Tommy John surgery.

Murray was attempting a comeback this year, pitching in relief for Dunedin, but it just wasn’t there for him, and the club released him this weekend. Murray serves as a cautionary tale that not all pitchers recover from surgery, and for many, their progress is anything but linear.

Murray is another player who I corresponded with over the years. I wish him well in his future endeavours.

ICYMI, yours truly was a guest on Blake Murphy’s Jays Talk Plus on The FAN 590 in Toronto this morning, coming along at about the 1:13 mark: https://www.sportsnet.ca/590/blue-jays-this-week/

While I will likely always keep this newsletter free for you, any contributions you would like to make to help defray my expenses (when I go watch an affiliate, I like to buy tickets to help support the team and the people who work for it) would be greatly appreciated: https://bmc.link/dmfoxF