Mid-season Farm Report

With the major league team back in contention (despite a less than pleasing 7 game road trip this week) and the All Star game approaching, to be followed by the trade deadline - let's take time out to look at the Farm and see how it's going.

And the truth is, it's not been great so far. Part of that is that the preponderance of the Jays more interesting players are young enough to be on the short-season teams who've only been playing for, at most, a couple of weeks. The sample size is just not there to get real excited (or disappointed) about anyone, although I am going to note some interesting early trends. also, a few of the higher profile guys have lost significant time to injury.

But among the players at the upper levels who have accumulated significant work, the list of guys who've advanced their status is pretty short. There's another group who should be doing better but are not sucking, and then there are guys who are gambling with their right to even be called "prospect" (I'm looking at you, Deck).

Reviewing my Top 50 list from January, I find that...

• 19 of them are assigned to short season teams
• 10 missed significant time to injury or suspension
• 1 is out of the organization (and another has probably lost his rookie status but I included him anyway, one last time)
• 7 have been significant disappointments
• Of those not counted above, only 3 have significantly boosted their status

Here's the mid season revision, with very brief notations:
(previous ranking in Parenthesis)

1. Aaron Sanchez [SP] (1)  - lost some time to DL, shows improved control
2. Roberto Osuna [SP] (2) - ditto, continues to impress, injury is concerning
3. Marcus Stroman [SP] (3) - as advertised. 13 ER in 8 outings, 7 of them in one game. Expect to see him in Buffalo before August.
4. DJ Davis [CF] (4) - Raw, 4 triples in first 10 games, good start in small sample
5. Daniel Norris [SP] (5) - was sinking but found aggressiveness; 1.59 ERA in last six appearances, then injured.
6. AJ Jimenez [C] (8) - Some injury trouble but has absolutely RAKED when healthy. Currently sporting a .400 BA in NH  in 75 AB
7. Sean Nolin [SP] (5) - started on DL, has been fine since, save for one very bad start for Toronto. 
 8. Matt Smoral [SP] (7) - injury hampered, only one appearance so far.
9. Alberto Tirado [SP] (9) - insignificant sample
10. Anthony Alford [CF] (10) - insignificant sample, BUT, 6 walks in first 6 games in noticeable
11. John Stilson [RHRP] (11) - still need the walks to go down, but at his age in AAA...
12. Franklin Barreto [SS] (14) - insignificant sample, good early returns
13. Santiago Nessy [C] (13) - too many injuries for fair eval.
14. Christian Lopes [2B] (12) - good average, lacking some in OBP; advanced level for age
15. Kevin Pillar [CF] (21) -the most productive hitting prospect in the system this year, beating out AJJ only because of the latter's injuries. Since moving up to Buffalo (10 games) Pillar's stepped up his game sporting a 1.156 OPS
16. Chase DeJong [SP] (16)- off to a very nice start; Insignificant sample size (ISS)
17. Mitch Nay [3B] (20) - ISS, but nice start while others fell short.
18. Dewal Lugo [SS] (19) - ditto
19. Andrew Burns [3B] (44) - the third member of the club (with Pillar and Jimenez). Struggled in tiny sample since being promoted to AA. But has made a LOT of progress
20. Matt Dean [1B] (18) - slow start again, ISS
21. Dwight Smith [CF] (17) - good but not great so far.
22. Yefry Del Rosario [SP] (23) - ISS
23. Chad Jenkins [RHP] (25) - one for the road, Chad. I choose to ignore the suckage since his demotion for now. He did okay in Toronto.
24. Dalton Pompey [CF](27) - didn't earn the climb, but others slipped further
25. Adonys Cardona [SP] (15) - has really struggled so far.

Others of note not on the list:

* Joel Carreno [RHRP]- somewhat the pitching equivalent of Pillar, except he's back from flirting with obscurity. Has taken his results to the next level.
* Tyler Ybarra [LHRP]- well overdue for promotion from Dunedin
* Gustovo Pierre [3B] - like burns, he has struggleds for footing since promotion, unlike Burns he wasn't unstoppable before the promotion, but he did everything well on offense except take a walk (he had but 2 in 61 games, against 62 K's)
* Shane Dawson [SP]- Paired with the more heralded DeJong in Bluefield, he's matched him pitch for pitch.
* DJ Thon [SS] - started slow again, but has caught fire the last 10 games in a way he hasn't before as a pro. might yet be something there.
* More relievers making waves: Tony Davis and Ajay Meyers dominating in Dunedin; Will Browning and Ian Kadish owning the Midwest League for Lansing, with Kramer Champlin and Arik Sikula a mere half-step behind.

Finally, in non-prospect news:
* Buffalo 1B Mauro Gomez is hammering the IL, he has 24 homers so far.
* Sentimental favorite Adam Loewen has a 1.072 OPS for June
* Former SS Justin Jackson may yet turn into a reliever prospect, he lades the impressive Lansing 'pen with a 1.21 ERA in 22.1 innings.
* Eric Brown has dominated atthe front of the Vancouver rotation so far


We'll know more a couple of months from now.

Go Jays.