Future Blue Jays Newsletter 6/10

A quick look at the short season rosters, a re-thinking of top prospect rankings, and a Fisher Cats update in this week’s edition.

FCL Blue Jays

They play their games at noon, under the blazing sun, with the threat of late afternoon showers arriving ahead of schedule. Games are long, and can be of the sloppy variety because the players involved are just learning about how to play the game and life as a pro.

Welcome to the Complex League.

Baseball is a pyramid; only the truly elite players, no matter how marginal they might seem, are at the very top. Just a handful of Florida Complex League players will make their way to the big leagues, and at that, only two or three at the most in any given year will become regulars.

FCL players compete with little or no fanfare. There is no streaming of their games, and only a small gathering of parents, girlfriends, the odd scout, and a few team officials are on hand to watch. But that doesn’t stop one from perusing the Opening Day roster of the Blue Jays affiliate for potential future big leaguers and/or interesting stories.

Of the latter, one look no further than Alfred Pesto III, and right handed recently signed by Toronto. The hard-throwing Pesto took a path slightly less winding than Ben Baggett, who I wrote about a few issues back. Pesto led his Georgia high school to a state title, then went off to pitch for Duke. A back injury cost Pesto much of two of his four seasons with the Blue Devils, and not surprisingly, there were no pro offers waiting for him when he graduated.

Pesto went off to get his MBA and pitch for an NAIA school in Florida, and connected with a team in the now-independent Pioneer League. It was while at a minor league game in FL that the wheels for his eventual big league signing were set in motion. Pesto toured a “Fun Zone” set up outside of the ballpark prior to the game, and tried his hand (more like his arm) at a radar gun cage. When the gun was reading only in the 60s even though Pesto felt like he was firing them in there, he went to an empty field with a radar unit of his own the next day, and hit 100. Further training and a series of tweets later, Blue Jays VP Joe Sheehan was on the phone with a contract offer.

At 26, Pesto is a big league longshot. But you can never have enough guys who throw hard.

Other names to watch:

-RHP Michael Brewer, another Indy ball guy.

-Leam Mendez, a hard-throwing Cuban let go by the Yankees.

-Nolan Perry, a 12th round selection last July; the RHP was New Mexico’s HS Player of the Year for 2021-22.

-Gage Stanifer, an Indiana HS RHP taken in the 19th round last year, already throws 93-95 with a feel for his SL,CH, and Splitter.

-C Luis Meza, one of the top 2022 IFA signees who struggled at the plate in the DSL last year.

-OF Yhoangel Aponte, a “name to know” from the 2021 IFA class, according to Baseball America:

-IF Gregori Canó, younger brother of the former big leaguer.

Catching Up on the Fisher Cats

Truth be told, New Hampshire is the team I likely watch the most of during the season. Dunedin (except for this week) is in a streaming black hole, Vancouver’s games tend to start late for a guy who has to be up early in the morning, and Buffalo’s roster, while worth watching, is not in my wheelhouse when it comes to prospects.

So it was great to chat with Fisher Cats broadcaster Steve Goldberg about the club. Here’s my session with Steve (I’m in regular font, he’s in bold):

I would, of course, like to talk to you about every single guy on the roster, but I realize we don't have that much time. So I'll try to I'll try to hit on individuals and get an overall sense of the team, and my feeling is is that Vancouver kind of got the accolades at the beginning of the year of having maybe the best conglomeration of talent in the system, but I like where your ballclub is at right now: I like the bullpen. I like the rotation, and I like the everyday lineup.

 It certainly is an overall improvement from last year, just the group that we have, like a lot of it came back to start this season. And you know, some of the young prospects that we've gotten from Vancouver over the first couple of months of the year, have already stepped in and made some impacts - we saw a Riley Tirotta and Rainer Nunez getting involved last series, along with a couple of others like Connor Cooke, a guy who's sitting like 96-97 right now, he's got a nasty looking slider. Guys who have been arriving just up from Vancouver and just now reaching that AA level but, you know, were showing a little bit more promise and, you know, showing that they're a little bit more advanced in their development than guys that were getting around the same time last year. So, it's good to see that core from last year that's back with us now continuing to have success and build on last season. You know, Adam Kloffenstein is an excellent example of that. And, you follow it, you understand what's going on too, so you know there’s definitely a difference from last year to this year for guys like that, so it's great to see those guys back and now having success second time round at AA, you know, that's certainly the goal. You know, not everybody shows up to this level and immediately clicks - I mean, there are definitely major differences between High A and AA, so you're facing plus pitchers every single night and guys who can throw multiple pitches anywhere they want, their control is a lot better at this level and down there if you can punish a fastball, you're going to put up some good numbers. It doesn't always translate well here, but it's been nice to see some of those guys having success right off the bat.

That's great. And I like the point your you made about the difference in talent between now and a year ago, and I hadn't thought about that. But, there is a bit of a gap in the system, although it's kind of start starting to rise up to your level right now. So the the first guy I'm sure anybody would want to talk to you about is Orelvis Martinez, who might just wind up putting a triple slash line for the ages this year. I was on the FAN 590 the other day, talking with with Blake Murphy in the morning and saying, one thing about Orelvis’ start is that it points out is the limitations of batting average as a statistic because it assumes assumes hits all have the same value. We all know he's come a long way. Maybe it was a bit of an aggressive assignment last year, but I can understand the rationale for it. And I've talked with Joe Sclafani about it. Last year really was a development year for Orelvis. He was challenged with breaking stuff away, fastballs on the inner half and having a hard time laying off pitches that he couldn't barrel, but I really feel like this past month when he drew 15 walks that maybe he’s starting to get more comfortable with his knowledge of the strike zone.

  Yeah, seeing that walk total rise also was one of the good things about his performance from April. I mean, despite that extremely sluggish start - he really wasn't hitting all well but you know, but it's been it's cold month of April up here. And it does take some guys a bit of time to get going. So I wasn't too concerned by the slow start. I know a lot of people were like, “Whoa,” alarm bells and red flags and all that, but, I was always like, give it time, let him settle in. Sure enough, this month he really, really hit his stride, but the one positive about April was, he wasn't striking out nearly as much as last year. So strikeout numbers are down, walk numbers are higher, and with the strikeout numbers down he was putting more balls in play… the power numbers weren't there in the month of April, but in the month of May it's pretty much been Home Run or bust for him. Obviously, you would like to see more singles, you'd love to see the average rise a little bit more and you know, probably as we get towards later in the season that'll even itself out a little bit more as we go. I'm not sure if he's going to repeat the month that he just had for the rest of season - it would be incredible if he did, and I wouldn't put it past him just given his natural abilities and that extreme power tool that he's got, but even if that doesn't continue, even if the power number dips a little bit, you know he's probably going to wind up close to if not even beating out his total in terms of Homers from last year, and he should wind up hitting better at the end of the day when it's all said and done, and given the bumpy start in April, and that's probably even more impressive, and it definitely does show him building and developing, cutting down on the strikeouts, getting on base more, and what also impressed me about the month of May a few of those homers were the opposite way. And last year he really didn’t drive the ball the right field a whole lot, and talking to our coaching staff early in the year, one of the things that they were working on with Orelvis was trying to generate more power to right/right center field which also might have contributed to the slower start in the year. He’s looking a little bit different at the plate. His approach is different but he's also trying to drive the ball the other way which is, you know, unnatural to him. His temperament is obviously pull hitter. So, they were they were working on that, and we noticed an adjustment in his batting stance to a lot more open stance at the plate now compared to last year. So, the month of April, part of it could have been the cold weather, part of it could have been some of the new things that they were trying to implement. But, you know, we really, really saw things come together in the month of May.

Yeah, you'd mentioned that - I remember earlier in the year that they were trying to get him to go the other way and that explains some of his slow start, and not that I put a lot of stock in batting average on balls in play, but he certainly was low, but I think that's possibly why because there wasn't a lot of loud contact to the first maybe six weeks. So, as far as his defence is concerned, charitably can I say he's inconsistent?

 Yeah, you could say that. I would say, honestly, that one of the things I've liked seeing this year compared to last year watching him defensively, he's been a little bit more aggressive in the field, and it's led to more errors early in the year but one of the things that I was going back on and thinking about this last year with Orelvis, I would have honestly liked to see him make more errors. You know, there a number of errors that's a little bit higher, it almost almost shows you that he's trying to get a little bit more aggressive and there were a lot of times last year where he would just ease up on balls or he would eat balls that maybe he would have had a shot to make a play on it first. Yes, you could airmail it to 1st, or yes, you can skip it or throw it wide or whatever and it goes down into the book as an error, but if it's a play where you really don't make the full hearted attempt on…..I would have rather seen him try to hustle to get to a ball, throw that ball away and wind up making an error on the play than not have been attempted at all. Certainly at this age and at this level, seeing a high amount of errors isn't necessarily cause for concern. We’ve seen him get a little bit more aggressive in the field which I've liked to see early in the year. So yes, he’s still inconsistent defensively, it's certainly not the defense that's going to get him up to the big leagues at some point. But you know, you want to see him get a little bit more polished on the left side of the infield, whether it's short or whether it's third, he’s been playing a mix of both. Throughout his time here last year, and again into this year, where he ultimately lands is still kind of up in the air. If he winds up staying with the Blue Jays that is, or maybe he's maybe a trade chip down the road too. So, you kind of try him out in a couple of different positions and, down the line, maybe he's a piece of the puzzle in Toronto, maybe he’s just a big bat that gets you a lot back in a trade. So that's a great point.

Adam Kloffenstein would be next. I was in touch with him just last week. What a turnaround. What I really like about Adam, he's added a little bit of velocity - looks like more in a chase kind of way. I asked him what specific adjustments he has made and he said, I haven't really made any, but he just seems to be a lot more consistent with his mechanics. You saw it last year - he would cruise along for a few innings, then lose his delivery and the strike zone, then drive up the pitch count. He he has done everything you guys could have asked him and more so far this year.

 Yeah, you mentioned the bad innings and last year, it seemed like there were starts where he would have his stuff for like three out of five innings or you know, four out of five perhaps six innings, but there would just be one or two blips where he would face a series of four or five batters, didn't have great stuff, velo was low, control wasn't there, and he was putting guys on and walking guys. Then he would groove a pitch and give up a three run homer and, all of a sudden, it's sort of at the end of the night. He’d put up a stat line of like five innings of work and given up 4 runs, a handful of hits and a smattering of walks - three to five walks - and you know, it's a so-so outing, you feel like he was out there for three or four innings but just didn't have quite what it took to get over the hump and actually call it a true solid start, but he's done a much better job controlling his pitches this year. His slider looks a lot better to me this year compared to last year, he’s locating it a lot more, it seemed like last year a lot of times, the arm angle and arm slot didn't look quite right on the release point with it, and there would be times where he started it out well outside of the zone and wasn't necessarily going to get guys to chase….it starts off close to a foot off of the plate and then it keeps breaking from there. You’re not going to be fooling AA hitters with that. He just seems to be having more control over that pitch and everything else has kind of played off nicely off of that. Fastball veclo seems to be a little bit harder. He was still not one of our harder throwers, but I would say I think he's up around like 93-94, maybe, fastball and, you know, probably only adding a little bit more to that over the next couple of years. He's a guy even like watching him last year, I had to remind myself a lot of how young he is, because you watch him out there on the mound, he's got a really tall really muscular frame, kind of reminds you have a guy who should be like, 25 or 26, but he's only 22. Now, he was 21 last year and he had the struggles that he had and even even coming up to us, I mean, he didn't post outstanding numbers at all with Vancouver. He kind of had a bumpy 2021 as well. Last year was maybe a little bit more of like an aggressive promotion up to us, but he started the year okay, and it was probably a good time to be challenged to AA, and I think for the most part, he was kind of overmatched, just in terms of the stuff that he had and where he was in his development, but right now, he's a guy who, definitely looks like he could be on the cusp of a promotion and AAA at some point, relatively soon…I imagine that by mid season certainly by late season, it'll be up in Buffalo.

You guys can pencil him in every five days for a minimum of six innings and 90 pitches. It just seems like he's just been so consistent. But I want to move on to a pair of guys in your rotation who got off to good starts but have been up and down of late in Sem Robberse and Jimmy Robbins.

  I really don't know what it is. Jimmy - I was really excited to have him back. He had a great first start with us this year, and since that outing he's been really, really struggling, and even a couple of the starts where he's gotten into the fifth name, just doesn't all look like it's quite there….he's sort of laboring through five. He's walking too many guys at the moment, the control is just not there. And for a guy who's 25, you'd like to see a little bit more of what we saw towards the end of the year last season. So, maybe it's possible that he spends close to a full year with us, maybe even a full season with us this year. But you definitely would like to see him turn a corner in the second half and find his way back to his old self. I'm not a pitching coach by any means, so I don't know exactly what it is, whether it's something mechanical, whether it’s something stuff wise, maybe it's something physical too, or a mix of both, but he looks like a much different pitcher this year compared to last year.

Sem’s kind of middle of the road. He just had an outstanding year last year, one of the better years of his career and finished alright with us, too. I wouldn't say there’s really any cause for concern with him. He’s much younger than Jimmy, just being 21 and basically in his first full season at AA, for the most part, I wouldn't say anything to him is really like glaring or cause for concern. He had a couple of outings that were really sharp, a couple looked so-so, but strikeout totals have been up overall for him.

Yes, Sem is still so young, and he’s come so far once you consider his baseball background.

….and also the guy signed for next to nothing. You know, the Blue Jays are pretty much playing with house money with Sem. Is he really at the end of the day a top 10 prospect right now today as it stands? I'm not convinced that's really true. But, you know, if he's, top 20 or top 30 in the system, honestly, by the time he's potentially big league ready, it's not going to matter whether he was a top 10 prospect today or, really a guy who was just kind of fringe top 30 or something right now. You know, maybe one of your top 10 or top 12 pitching prospects…is he up there in the same breath as Tiedemman or Zulueta? I personally I don't think so yet given where he is in his development, but I think down the line, he certainly has a lot of potential and again, he's the guy the Blue Jays got for almost nothing.

I wasn’t going to ask you for a Tiedemann update, because I know you don’t tend to hear things much in advance of the rest of us. But given the vague comments Ross Atkins made last week about his progress, have you anything to add?

 I've read the same reports that you've been reading and they've kind of been, close lipped with that, and we don't we don't push too, too much especially if player is not around here, and we're not seeing them on a day to day basis. So, it's kind of hard to monitor, exactly what's going on with that. But, I did read something that he was supposed to start some kind of a throwing program this past week, which, if he did, if he's still on schedule with that, that's kind of an encouraging sign that hopefully they're expecting him to come back at some point later in the year this year. But we really don't know much as far as that goes.

If you don't handle the young pitcher carefully, he's not going to be an old pitcher.

Right. And that's something that we were seeing coming into this year. I mean, I know a lot of people were talking about Ricky having a chance to make it to the big leagues this year. I just said listen, like for a guy with that much talent at this age, you just want them to stay healthy. And you do need to manage that arm and it's kind of like a balancing act of how fast you want to push him versus, when the injury bug ultimately hits. Sure enough at the end of spring training, we saw some arm soreness, which you don't really want to see, and he made it back to us relatively quickly, but, just going back to that last outing, you know, general comments on that…..there wasn't any like grimacing or any, you know, insane pain, he just threw that pitch. A couple of pitches before that, too, we noticed that the velo was down on him a little bit. I think a slider was like, 83 or 84, which was like a little bit lower than he'd been throwing before, he just kind of looked a little bit wonky and then he threw the one at around 78 and then just walked off the mound holding the arm.

Having watched a fair amount of your games, I think it’s fair to say that Damiano Palmegiani has been the Fisher Cats most consistent hitter?

 He's been been getting on base, walked a ton in April. He’s just a guy who's consistently getting on, and racking up the multi hit games. And there’s been some power too, seven homers, especially in a couple of the colder months of the year. It's certainly it's going to be his bat that carries him up to higher levels. Coming into the year, defensively he's so-so… he's a guy who definitely needs to hit for power and in addition to that, and rack up some extra base hits, drive in runs, and so far, he's done that, to his credit. He's been a nice consistent piece in the middle of our order, down the line when he's ultimately tested at higher levels, sees better pitching, I'm not sure exactly how it's going to translate. But for right now, I've been impressed with what I've seen at this level.

 Leo Jimenez is a guy who I’ve been waiting to break out for some time. Andrew Tinnish told me shortly after they signed him at 16 that he was as solid a bet to play big league short stop as anyone he’s been involved with. Joe Sclafani told me a year and a half ago how Leo was putting up personal best exit velos at Instructs. It just seems like he hasn’t been healthy enough to put together a consistent stretch of performance, and now it looks like we’re finally seeing that.

 It just seems like he's consistently getting on base and hitting for average. You definitely would like to see a little bit more power out of him down the line in the next couple of years….. certainly if he's ultimately going to be a guy at the major league level, you'd like to see shortstop hit for some more power, driving some more runs, even if he’s on the right side of the infield, you would like a little bit of pop…he really hasn't been that productive as far as that goes, but he's consistently getting on base, and and part of that's where he bats in the order, situations that he's been up in. You know, that could totally change if he’s bumped up a level and now you're batting seven instead of batting leadoff, but he's been really solid with the bat, solid with the glove…..So, definitely the power tool I don't think is quite there yet, but you know, he's been great with the bat for us this year, which is kind of one of the bigger question marks around him, and just reading about him coming into this year we wondered how does that that translate at higher levels in the minors and, if anything, he's been having a better season at the plate or better start to the season plate than years past.

That power tool is always the last one to develop. How about his defence? I would call him more solid than spectacular, but I’d be interested in your take.

  I've seen guys over the years with flashier tools than him, guys that truly stand out. He's not a guy that, if you if you go to a random game or two random games, maybe you notice and maybe you don't, he's not making the web gem type of plays on nightly basis. But, he does the little things. He gets good reads on balls, quick getting the ball out of his glove too, things that are definitely going to translate at higher levels.

You’ve got some guys in your bullpen who can throw hard. You have Luis Quinones, who I know is not completely comfortable with the bullpen role but he accepts it. But you had Jimmy Burnette who's now moved up. You’ve got Troy Watson who can hit 100, there’s Jose Nunez who doesn't always know where it's going but can hit 100, and then you added Conner Cooke, Mason Fluharty, and and T.J. Brock. That’s quite a collection of guys who can throw hard.

 Yes, we've definitely got some heat. I mean, we've had a couple of nights where it's like, you go to the bullpen, you see a 97-98 from one guy, next guy comes in, maybe it's Watson, he’s at 99, and like you said, Nunez has no idea where it's going but he's throwing hard too, and Conner Cooke in addition to that so far, he's had a pretty good start, Fluharty, he's been solid, picked up a Save last series and overall, he's been effective. Burnette I saw has been struggling up in Buffalo. That's kind of unfortunate, but overall the bullpen and pitching staff have been solid overall as a whole, it's been much better this year to compared to last year. The walks is still a little bit higher than we’d like, but when you have a lot of high strikeout guys, you know, chances are you're going to walk a lot of guys too. And that's just kind of the nature of our staff, and the nature of this group that we have, but last year we were giving up a ton of runs. Both the starters and relievers this year have been much better.

 And your rotation is decent, the struggles of of Jimmy and Sem aside, and then you've added Chad Dallas, and you're going to love Trenton Wallace. I saw him live in Vancouver, sat two rows behind home plate with my son. And I just thought how do left handed hitters hit this guy with that arm angle? What’s your impression of Dallas in the in the short time you've had him?

  I've only I've only seen him personally in two starts, and the first one was much much better than start number two. This past outing, there were just too many walks, he just didn't have this stuff. And you know, maybe it was a flash in the pan. Maybe it's, ‘all right now he's coming back down to Earth after a hot start,’ and you know, only time will tell on that, give it another six weeks, see him pitch a little bit more and see how he works out of some jams or whatnot. But you know that first outing was definitely incredible, going seven innings, racking up strikeout, he only gave up a couple of hits in that game too. And really no hard contact, like I think there was also there was like one fly ball out. So, it's kind of a ton of balls on the ground and just throwing strikes. The last outing was shaky, but we'll see how it bounces back (he did!)

Links and other stuff

-yours truly was a guest on Blake Murphy’s Jays Talk Plus last Monday morning. I come in at about the half hour mark for a 20-minute update about the Jays’ system: https://www.sportsnet.ca/590/blue-jays-this-week/

-Addison Barger is on a rehab stint with the FCL Jays

-Brandon Barriera hit the IL this past week. He lasted only two innings in his May 25th start, and his velo was ‘down’ to 95. This could be a dead arm period that would be very normal for him to go through. Barriera shut things down in his final high school season over a year ago in advance of the draft, and outside of some innings at Instructs, he hasn’t pitched all that much. Just imagine the FCL Jays piggybacking Barriera, Alek Manoah, and Ricky Tiedemann. It’s highly unlikely to happen of course.

-Vancouver OF Garrett Spain has been the hottest hitter in the system over the past month. Sent back to High A to start the season, he’s posted a 1.266 OPS. The Nashville native is a two-sport player, donning the blades in the off season when he was growing up, as our good friend Niall at Cs+ tells us.

-I didn’t have time this week to profile the DSL Jays roster, but the crew at MLB pipeline took a quick peek.

-Brian Crawford over at Jays Prospects did a quick hit on Mason Fluharty and the two-seamer he’s added to his arsenal.

-U of Windsor prof Heidi Jacobs has done incredible work in telling the story of the 1934 Chatham Coloured All Stars, the team that broke the colour barrier in Ontario over a decade before Jackie Robinson. Heidi inspired me to dive deep into the story, given my connection to the community of Penetanguishene (Chatham’s opponent in their historic final series), and then to write a book about that season. Heidi now has published her own book about that team. I’m looking forward to reading it.

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