Friday at minor league camp saw Henderson Alvarez starting for Dunedin and Gustavo Pierre hitting a home run. The Jays also started laying out their rosters and Chad Jenkins goes to Lansing and Zach Stewart to New Hampshire.
It was A game day in Dunedin. The Dunedin and Lansing teams played their Yankee equivalents. Henderson Alvarez started for Dunedin and GM Alex Anthopoulos came by for a look. Alvarez continued to look good, his fastball was consisently in the 93-94 range and his curve has a hard nasty break, Alvarez is trying to get more consistent with it. Alvarez was followed by Chad Beck; Steven Turnbull and Alan Farina. John Tolisano played second base, Tyler Pastornicky played short; Justin Jackson started at DH and moved to third base later in the game. It is hard to scout a hitter from one game (while you are actually watching two games) but I did see Jackson hit one ball over the centre fielders head for a double and in another at-bat he showed his weakness by swinging at a ball in the dirt.
It appears that Kevin Ahrens will start the season on the DL with a minor injury and Jackson; Pastornicky and Tolisano will share playing time at their positions. Tolisano will play some third base this year. Otherwise Jackson and Pastornicky will both be in Dunedin and will split playing time at shortstop.
Joel Carreno started the Lansing game. He was followed by Scott Gracey and Casey Beck. Ryan Goins started at shortstop and mid-game Gustavo Pierre came on as a defensive replacement. I was watching his first at-bat and on the first pitch he hit a home run over the left field fence. I have video of the home run that I will post next week. There was another Lansing home run in the game hit by Oliver Dominguez.
In the Lansing game Sean Ochinko and Kenny Wilson also appeared to be hitting well.
Rosters
The AAA starting rotation is Mills; Cecil; Ray; Gonzalez and Lance Broadway. The starter who got bumped to AA is Zach Stewart. I was told that Stewart going down was expected by the Jays due to his young age and his need to develop his off-speed pitches.
Joining Stewart in AA are Randy Boone; Kyle Drabek; Luis Perez and Bobby Bell. Andrew Liebel was expected to be in AA but he was injured at the start of spring training and will start the year in the warmer weather in Dunedin. He is behind on building up his pitch counts so look for some shorter outings to start the season.
The Dunedin rotation will be Liebel; Ryan Page; Chuck Huggins; Henderson Alvarez and Joel Carreno.
The Lansing rotation will be Chad Jenkins; Ryan Shopshire; Dennis Tepera; Dave Sever and I am not sure of the fifth.
There were some releases today. The two I know were Jonah Bayliss and Sean Stidfole. Stidfole was a bit of a surprise, he has been with the Jays for six years but the Jays have too many pitchers.
As far as I know Tim Collins; Zach Dials and Trystan Magnuson will all be in AA.
I heard, but it is not verified, that Eric Thames will be in AA.
https://www.battersbox.ca/article.php?story=20100402213702353