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Minor League Update Baseball America Top 20's
Baseball America will announce their top 20 prospects in each minor league over the next couple of weeks.  The top 20's start Thursday with the Gulf Coast League.  Two Blue Jays are featured, John Tolisano and Kevin Ahrens.  As BA moves through the minor leagues players like Brett Cecil, JP Arencibia, Travis Snider and Kyle Ginley will be looking to make the lists.  Snider will likely be the #1 prospect in the Midwest League.  Robinzon Diaz and Brian Jeroloman have outside chances of being named in the Eastern League and the Florida State League respectively, perhaps Adam Lind in the International League if enough managers saw him play.

Gulf Coast League

#5 - John Tolisano

# 12 - Kevin Ahrens

New York-Penn League

#1 - Brett Cecil

#7 - JP Arencibia

Midwest League

#2 - Travis Snider

Posted by Gerry on Thursday, September 20 2007 @ 10:53 AM EDT.
Baseball America Top 20's | 11 comments | Create New Account
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ayjackson - Thursday, September 20 2007 @ 12:22 PM EDT (#174540) #
Cecil was the #30 ranked prospect by BA heading into the draft.  With the season he had, could he be in line for top billing in the NYPL?
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Gerry - Thursday, September 20 2007 @ 02:28 PM EDT (#174547) #
There were a few Blue Jay questions answered in today's chat.  Yohermyn Chavez is a good prospect, needs to use the whole field; Justin Jackson has good defense but is too pull happy right now; Balbino Fuenmayor did not get a good report, poor pitch recognition, not making adjustments.  Blue Jays were ranked as the second best group of prospects, after the Yankees who won the League title.
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ayjackson - Thursday, September 20 2007 @ 05:50 PM EDT (#174574) #
Does BA have an innocent bias toward American born players because of familiarity with their development through high school?
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kwizd94 - Friday, September 21 2007 @ 07:41 AM EDT (#174592) #
Could you please explain the criteria BA uses to compile this list when players like Brian Letko (1.50 ERA) or Jimmy Dougher (1.56) didn't make this list.  They were 1&2 in the Gulf Coast League with the lowest ERA's.  When I checked the ERA's of all the pitchers listed on the top 20 list, none of them even came close to having that low of an ERA. 
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Gerry - Friday, September 21 2007 @ 09:17 AM EDT (#174595) #

BA uses future potential as the basis for the list, that means players with "tools" get rated high.  For a position player BA will rate you highly if you can run fast, and hit it far, even if you only hit say .200.  For pitchers BA will look at "stuff", how good is the fastball or the breaking ball.  Age relative to competition is also a factor, all of BA's top 20 are under 20 years old.  If you are older than that you are expected to be competing in the higher level leagues.

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Marc Hulet - Friday, September 21 2007 @ 09:20 AM EDT (#174596) #

Honestly, no one would ranked Dougher or Letko among the top 20 prospects in the GCL. Both were over-aged college pitchers playing in league filled with high school players three to four years younger. And neither Dougher or Letko even break 90 mph consistently. Dougher is a right-hander who, although he is 6-7, pitches 86-88 as a right-handed pitcher and has only two usable pitches at this point (fastball, curve). He also has a fringe slider and change. As a lefty, Letko has a slightly larger margin for error despite less-than-stellar stuff. Both have OK command/control, which is one of the reasons they were so successful.

That said, I think they deserve consideration for the bullpen in Lansing next season.
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jgadfly - Tuesday, September 25 2007 @ 12:40 AM EDT (#174691) #
an updated discussion on "Snider vs Rowell vs Marrero" at John Siskel's www.minorleagueball.com where several people offer their opinion on their futures
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ayjackson - Tuesday, September 25 2007 @ 02:03 PM EDT (#174709) #

The discussion at Sickels' site makes the comparison of Jay Bruce's age19 season in the Midwest League to Travis Snider's age19 season in the Midwest League.  The comparison is really close (if I new how to format an Excel file here, I'd post it), with Snider perhaps having a slight edge.

Jay Bruce went on to hit .319/.375/.587 in three levels of minor league ball this year (Age 20), including .305/.358/.567 in 187 ABs at AAA.

If Snider were to progress like that, we could see him earlier in 2009 than originally thought.  I can't help but think his assignment to AFL was to guage his preparedness for skipping levels next year.

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Gerry - Tuesday, September 25 2007 @ 07:55 PM EDT (#174723) #

The Jays Webster Award winners have been announced.  The winners are: Josh Banks, David Smith, Josh Kreuzer, Travis Snider, Brett Cecil, Johermyn Chavez, Welington Ramirez and Yensy Perez.

I don't think any of these are controversial.  Banks and Smith didn't have much competition but the other four North American winners were easy picks.  Assuming the Jays follow their usual pattern these players will receive their awards on Saturday at the Rogers Centre.

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Mike Green - Wednesday, September 26 2007 @ 12:11 PM EDT (#174739) #
With the season he had, could he [Cecil] be in line for top billing in the NYPL?

I guess so. 
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Gerry - Friday, September 28 2007 @ 11:41 AM EDT (#174850) #
Travis Snider gets pipped by Clayton Kershaw for top spot in the Midwest League, no other Jay made the list.
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Baseball America Top 20's | 11 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.