Hold the phone, what’s this? Mike Puma of the New York Post has some juicy details about the R.A. Dickey trade talks, and a deal that was “on the table” this morning, which… well, let’s just see what he’s saying before we go calling it nuts, OK?
Except… before that even, let’s all take a deep damn breath and think for a second about what “on the table” means.
No, I mean it. Think about what it means, please.
Ready?
Hentgen always had a keen eye for young talent.
As an employee of the club, it’s hard not to take anything Pat Hentgen– who filled in as bullpen coach last night for Pete Walker, who is home in Connecticut due to a family medical issue– without a mammoth grain of salt, but according to the latest from Richard Griffin’s Jays blog at the Toronto Star, the 1996 Cy Young winner really– really– likes what he sees in Lansing pitchers Aaron Sanchez and Noah Syndergaard.
You should really read Griff’s whole piece for a lot more background and extra quotes, but here’s the money shot:
“When I saw Syndergaard first, I came back and said, ‘Wow, that’s the best pitching prospect I’ve seen here since ’04-’05,’ Then when I saw Sanchez from behind the rubber, I thought, ‘Wow, now we’ve got 1 and 1-A. You know, they’re Carpenter and Halladay. That’s my best analogy. That’s what I’m thinking right there, if they develop. They’re both hard workers. They just remind me a lot of Carp and Doc. They’re big-bodied kids that haven’t even filled out yet.”
Welcome back to your weekly fix of Blue Jays prospecty goodness. I decided to try something new this week: if you scroll down to the end of this article, you’ll see organization leaders in several hitting and pitching categories (current through games of April 17). If you like seeing them every week, let me know. If enough people are interested in them, I’ll work on a better way of displaying the leaderboard tables.
Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that you’re now able to follow the statistics of Toronto’s top 20 prospects (as ranked by Kevin Goldstein) over at Baseball Prospectus’ new Top 11 Prospects Tracker.
(Note: to conserve pixels, I won’t be running the Top 30 Prospects list every week, but I will include a link to the list in each post) Read the rest of this entry »
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 20th, 24th, 10th, and 22nd 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.
Here’s a small morsel of food for thought to start your Tuesday, as Jeff Blair looks at the Jays’ stockpile of prospects in this morning’s Globe and Mail, among them Noah Syndergaard, pictured above.
“When the Oakland Athletics spoke to the Blue Jays about a trade for Gio Gonzalez,” he writes, “they had Syndergaard at the top of their list.”
Syndergaard, of course, wasn’t moved in the off-season. Nor would he alone have been enough to pry Gonzalez from Oakland, who eventually ended up flipping the innings-eater to the Nationals for four minor leaguers, including three of the their top ten prospects, per Baseball America (as relayed by MLBTR)– right-handers Brad Peacock (#3), AJ Cole (#4) and catcher Derek Norris (#9).
It speaks once again to the depth of the club’s system, therefore, that Syndergaard ranked eighth in the Jays system, according to BA, behind catcher Travis d’Arnaud, outfielders Anthony Gose and Jake Marisnick, and pitchers Dan Norris, Justin Nicolino and Aaron Sanchez. And that depth, according to Blair’s piece, is in good hands, as he writes about the “two years of compiling what assistant general manager Tony LaCava describes as being ‘bits and pieces’ of wisdom and analysis to finally put together the Toronto Blue Jays’ player development manual.”
The entire article is worth a read, especially if you want to get back into a warm safe place after yesterday’s descent into nitpicking madness over the McGowan extension– and believe me, I do– but I think it’s the nugget about Syndergaard and the A’s that really stands out as newsworthy. Assuming, y’know, that we didn’t already know this and I’d just forgot.
