Editorial Note: We’re pumped to bring you the first of a season’s full of weekly prospect-y dispatches from Dunedin, FL, home of the Jays’ FSL High-A affiliate, and some of their best prospects, courtesy of the awesome Bradley Ankrom (@BradleyAnkrom) of Baseball Prospectus. Awesomeness awaits!

It’s an exciting time to be a Toronto Blue Jays fan. Despite their competing in baseball’s toughest division, many pundits have embraced Canada’s Team as their “dark horse” or “sleeper” or “ballsy pick” of 2012, and for good reason. The Blue Jays scored the sixth-most runs in all of baseball last year, and project to do even more damage with third baseman Brett Lawrie in the lineup all year. Rotation anchor Ricky Romero has established himself as one of the league’s best starting pitchers, earning AL Cy Young votes for the first time in his career after going 15-11 with a 2.92 ERA and 178 strikeouts last year.

The big-league roster is undoubtedly shaping up nicely, but it’s what Alex Anthopoulos & Co. have done on the farm that should tickle Jays fans about the future. In his annual review of organization depth, Baseball Prospectus’ Kevin Goldstein ranked the Blue Jays 20^th, 24^th, 10^th, and 22^nd between 2007-10. A bumper draft in 2010 revitalized the farm system, and players taken that year account for nearly one-third of the team’s top 30 prospects listed below and, more importantly, five of the top 11. In his first winter as Blue Jays general manager, Anthopoulos traded franchise icon Roy Halladay to Philadelphia in a deal that netted the organization’s current top prospect, catcher Travis d’Arnaud, as well as right-hander Kyle Drabek and outfielder Michael Taylor, who was flipped to Oakland for Brett Wallace, who was subsequently traded to Houston for Anthony Gose, Toronto’s third-best prospect.

I haven’t personally seen the majority of players in the Blue Jays organization, therefore I’m uncomfortable throwing together what would ultimately be an arbitrary and derivative ranking of Jays prospects. Instead, I’ll average the rankings of five talent evaluators whose opinions I respect and value, and who are much, much smarter than I am: Nathan Rode at Baseball America (BA), Kevin Goldstein at Baseball Prospectus (KG), Keith Law at ESPN (KL), Jonathan Mayo at MLB.com (JM), and John Sickels at MinorLeagueBall.com (JS).

Toronto Blue Jays Aggregate Top 30 Prospects

Others Following
Pitchers: RHP-Danny Barnes, RHP-Chad Beck, RHP-Mark Biggs, RHP-Drew Carpenter, RHP-Manuel Cordoba, RHP-Taylor Cole, RHP-Matt Daly, RHP-Anthony DeSclafani, RHP-Misaul Diaz, RHP-Brady Dragmore, RHP-Sam Dyson, RHP-Alan Farina, RHP-Danny Farquhar, RHP-Jeremy Gabryszwski, RHP-Myles Jaye, RHP-Trystan Magnuson, RHP-Roberto Osuna, RHP-Tom Robson, RHP-Milciades Santana, RHP-Jesus Tinoco, RHP-Ronald Uviedo, LHP-Evan Crawford, LHP-Frank Gailey, LHP-Aaron Loup, LHP-Griffin Murphy, LHP-Sean Nolin, LHP-David Rollins. Catchers: C-Brian Jeroloman, C-Santiago Nessy, C-Sean Ochinko. Infielders: 1B-Art Charles, 1B-K.C. Hobson, 1B-Mike McDade, 1B-Kevin Patterson, 1B-Jon Talley, 2B-Jon Berti, 2B-Ryan Goins, 2B-Ryan Schimpf, 3B-Kevin Ahrens, 3B-Justin Atkinson, 3B-Gabriel Cenas, SS-Andy Burns, SS-Christian Lopes, SS-Dawel Lugo, SS-Brandon Mims, SS-Peter Mooney, SS-Gary Pena, SS-Gustavo Pierre, SS-Chino Vega. Outfielders: LF-Eric Arce, LF-Wilmer Becerra, CF-Derrick Loveless, CF-Darin Mastroianni, RF-Markus Brisker, RF-Brad Glenn, RF-Jonathan Jones, RF-Dalton Pompey.

A quick way to gauge the prospecty goodness of each affiliate is to assign points to each ranking, e.g. 30 points for 1, 29 points for 2, etc. Using that method, the strongest Jays affiliate to open the season is… extended spring training (121 points). Among the full-season clubs, Class-A Lansing leads the way with 102 points, followed by Triple-A Las Vegas (82), Double-A New Hampshire 62, and finally Advanced Class-A Dunedin (62).

* * *

Before we dig in to individual player performances, I want to address sample size. I realize the 2012 season is still very much in its infancy, and that stats accrued over a few innings or a couple of dozen at-bats are relatively meaningless. That said, I doubt Stoeten would pay me if I didn’t say something about the numbers that follow, so when you see me write something like, “Adeiny Hechavarria is off to a hot start,” please remember that I’m only doing it for the money. Let’s begin.

It isn’t much of a surprise that the hottest bat in the organization belongs to a player that calls Las Vegas’ Cashman Field home, but it probably would have taken a few guesses to get to Adeiny Hechavarria. After a disappointing (.235/.275/.347) four months at Double-A last year, the 22-year-old shortstop has torn up the Pacific Coast League since being promoted in August, hitting .397/.436/.550 in 140 plate appearances. Has he figured something out or is this just another altitude-driven aberration? Put your money on the latter. Hechavarria has taken a few more walks, but his strikeout percentage has also risen by nearly 30 percent.

Despite opening the season at home, a few Hechavarria’s Las Vegas teammates are off to slow starts. Travis d’Arnaud, Toronto’s top prospect, began the year in a 1-for-15 slump, but collected a pair of hits, including his first double of the season, last night.

It took 30 games for Anthony Gose to be caught stealing for the third time last year, but he’s already 0-for-3 in stolen base attempts this season. While he’s only gone hitless twice, he’s also yet to record an extra-base hit or multi-hit game.

Outfielder Moises Sierra has clubbed two of Las Vegas’ three home runs and places second on the team, behind Hechavarria, with 12 total bases. After drawing only 37 unintentional walks in 551 plate appearances last year, Sierra has coaxed four free passes in six games.

New Hampshire right fielder Brad Glenn hit the Fisher Cats’ first home run of the season off of Jonathan Pettibone in the second inning of last night’s 3-2 win at Reading. He’s tied with first baseman Mike McDade for the club lead with nine total bases.

The three primary outfielders in Dunedin have each had their ups and downs in the early going, but Michael Crouse, Marcus Knecht, and Jake Marisnick still make up the most athletic outfield trio in the organization. Despite playing together in Lansing last year, Crouse and Marisnick have struggled with communication in right-center field at times, and Knecht appears to have trouble reading balls off of the bat. Offensively, Marisnick has been the star, but Knecht has the Blue Jays’ only home run and leads the team with five walks, while Crouse’s three steals are as many as the rest of the squad combined.

Lansing’s Chris Hawkins went 3-for-4 with a home run and a walk against Dayton on Monday night, raising his slash line to .357/.400/.714. The 20-year-old left fielder has gone hitless with a pair of strikeouts in four plate appearances against left-handed pitchers. A disappointing .256/.320/.355 season earned catcher Carlos Perez a return ticket to Lansing to start the year, but he could find his way to Dunedin if and when his bat picks up.

Joel Carreno was called up to take Brett Cecil’s rotation spot after the latter was demoted to New Hampshire. Carreno made his first major-league start at Cleveland on Easter Sunday, taking the loss after giving up four runs on six hits, including a pair of home runs to Carlos Santana, in six innings. Toronto optioned Carreno to Las Vegas after the game, replacing him in the rotation with Aaron Laffey.

New Hampshire’s Drew Hutchison struck out six Trenton batters in his first start of the year, but fanned zero in six innings at Reading last night. The 21-year-old righty earned wins in both outings, and has allowed only 13 base runners in 11 innings.

Deck McGuire, the Blue Jays’ first pick in the 2010 draft out of Georgia Tech, had a tough start on April 7, surrendering eight runs on 11 hits, five of which left the park. McGuire averaged less than a home run per nine innings last year, but fell victim to strong winds blowing out to center field in Trenton. He’ll look to rebound Thursday night when he squares off at home against New Britain.

Asher Wojciechowski drew a somewhat-surprising repeat assignment to the Florida State League to open the year. His 11.12 hits-per-nine-innings was the worst in the FSL among pitchers with at least 130 innings pitched last year, and was a partly a consequence of diminished velocity in his first full season after signing as a supplemental first-rounder in 2010.

His velocity remained mediocre against Clearwater in his 2012 debut, and the Threshers roughed him up for nine hits and seven runs in four innings. Wojciechowski touched 93 once in the first inning, but sat at 90-91 for most of the game and didn’t hit 92 after second inning. His slider sat between 82-85 but still lacked the break it had in college. With two strikes, Wojciechowski typically went with his fastball, which Clearwater hitters had little trouble handling.

In an effort to limit the number of innings their promising young arms throw this year, a number of Lansing pitchers are beginning the season in tandems. Justin Nicolino and Aaron Sanchez combined to strike out nine batters over six innings in the Lugnuts’ 8-0 win at Dayton on April 9. Teammate Noah Syndergaard and tandem partner Anthony DeSclafani experienced similar success in their debuts, striking out 10 over six innings.