Small sample size caveats aside... Arencibia looks like he may be on his way to regaining his prospect status - 309/387/527.  Perhaps more impressively is that his BB/AB ratio is at 12.7% versus 5.5% last year...

Nice to see Arhens is back and I'm intrigued to see what he can do again.

This is perhaps a make or break year for him.

Nice outing by Jenkins and Stewart, both who had been struggling so far.

Ahrens went 2-3 with 2 walks, returning to action on the day after his 21st birthday.  The Chipper Jones comparisons, which were made when he was drafted, now seem fanciful. A switch-hitting Kevin Seitzer remains a conceivable target.

Improvements in plate control seems to be prevalent among the hitters in the organization so far.  This is very encouraging. It is likely that the lineup in the big club in 3 years will include Lind, Wells, Hill, Wallace and Snider.  There should be plenty of pop, and if there are a couple of table-setters ahead of them in the batting order, that will be promising. 

I for one am getting pretty tired of John Buck. That ball 4 fastball from Gregg for the go ahead run had to be caught. It was borderline, probably would still have been a ball but Buck has to catch it and frame it. A good catcher can coax a few calls out of an umpire but if you can't even catch the ball there is no way your going to get the call. Hopefully Arencibia can keep this up and we can see what he has for the Jays in a month or so. Not saying Arencibia's defence will be better than Buck (I'd say marginally at best) but hopefully his bat will make up for it.

I for one am getting pretty tired of John Buck.

His receiving skills have given me the yips all year. Everything he does just looks so... stabby. Also, it strikes me as odd that they started Lowell with two sliders with the bases loaded, and thought it was such a good idea that they tried another to start Beltre. I mean, they're the ones with the scouting reports but, huh... Odd.

I wasn't expecting much from Buck when he was signed, but he's managed to underperform his placeholder status to date. I'm with you in hoping Arencibia's performance represents even a bit of an improved approach. I can handle the placeholderishness better if the future offers hope.

I really have to agree with the disliking of Buck.. On a few occasions this year I have thought, "that looked like it could have been called a strike if Buck framed it".

I was glad to see Molina's defence questioned as well, as his work(minus the throwing) behind the plate has seemed lazy.  Arencibia can't come fast enough.

With Arencibia hitting 309/387/527 it seems like he is finally perhaps learning how to walk.  I don't think he will keep this up that good, but I think its realistic to expect 290/350/500.

Now, who will get a shot at the majors first, Arencibia or Wallace?

The Jays have released Christian Colonel who they signed at the end of spring training.  Colonel hit OK but made a lot of errors.  Luis Figueroa and Kyle Phillips can handle third for now.  Shawn Bowman might get the job longer term.

but I think its realistic to expect 290/350/500

That's the start of a Hall of Fame career for a catcher.  If a young catcher like Arencibia could come up and hit .270/.320/.420 and throw out 25% of prospective thieves and otherwise play acceptable defence, I would consider that a great success. 

For his minor league career to date, Arencibia has hit .266/.305/.467.  We can all hope that he has benefited from the off-season eye surgery, and there is some evidence to support that, but I wouldn't get too carried away with it.

I mean AAA, not some MLB first year callup.

What's up with Jesse Carlson anyway?  I would have expected him to be fully recovered by now, but he's still struggling.  Anyone know the explanation? Is it injury-related or is it long-term-decline-related?    A fully-restored Carlson at the peak of 2008-type performance would be an extremely useful addition to today's Jays bullpen.

The corrective corneal surgery in general is probably a win for hitters and I think if there were better public data out there it would be easy to demonstrate, that this is true. However it is unlikely that data will ever be available. Specifically: what the hitters previous correction was and how good it was, whether an astigmatism was present, and how successful their procedure was a correcting the to normal.

As an aside, some ophthalmologists/vision scientists believe that super-correcting vision in the normal range will soon be possible (i.e., using surgery to give people Ted Williams' famed 20/10 vision). This is will present an interesting ethical dilemma... could MLB teams contractually require that a new 18 year old prospect super-correct his eyesight once signed, much like one is required to wear CSA approved safety boots on a construction site?

However, from the sounds of the public medical reports the kidney procedure seemed much more extensive and perhaps more significant, especially for someone who makes their living in a position that is very often a pain in the back.

Fair enough, tercet.  Arencibia does have the ability to hit .290/.350/.500 in Las Vegas. 

Re: Colonel - his attrocious defense notwithstanding (.735 so far in 2010), one would have thought that his.368/.429/.395 would atleast get him a back up job in AAA.

I'm not saddened by the move, however, as I'd like to see what Bowman can do. He was promoted to AA this week.

First off regarding Ted Williams 20/10 vision - Apparently Adeiny Hechavarria has 20/8 vision.  Perhaps a good sign for his future?

And in case you didn't know - "Super correcting" vision is already possible through Lasik surgery.  There is even a 2005 article about it.

Some interesting points for those that don't want to read the article:

Since then, scores of pro athletes have had laser eye surgery, known as LASIK (Laser-Assisted In Situ Keratomileusis). Many, like Woods, have upgraded their vision to 20/15 or better. Golfers Scott Hoch, Hale Irwin, Tom Kite, and Mike Weir have hit the 20/15 mark. So have baseball players Jeff Bagwell, Jeff Cirillo, Jeff Conine, Jose Cruz Jr., Wally Joyner, Greg Maddux, Mark Redman, and Larry Walker. Amare Stoudemire and Rip Hamilton of the NBA have done it, along with NFL players Troy Aikman, Ray Buchanan, Tiki Barber, Wayne Chrebet, and Danny Kanell. These are just some of the athletes who have disclosed their results in the last five years. Nobody knows how many others have gotten the same result.

Does the upgrade help? Looks that way. Maddux, a pitcher for the Atlanta Braves, was 0-3 in six starts before his surgery. He won nine of his next 10 games.

According to Golf Digest, Woods aimed for 20/15 when he signed up for LASIK. This probably didn't strike Woods as enhancement, since he was already using contacts that put him at 20/15. Now ads and quotes offering 20/15 are everywhere.

How important is vision for a pitcher?

It's probably more a matter of comfort than improved vision anyway. Take it from a guy who kickboxed a few rounds with contact lenses.

What happened to D'Arnaud...he hasn't been in the lineup the last coule of games.

What happened to D'Arnaud...he hasn't been in the lineup the last coule of games.

My thoughts exactly?! Cue PANIC!

Jeroloman was 2 for 3 with a walk. He is having a good season so far in his 53 at bats. in his 36 at bats v. RHP he is 417/523/611/1134 > did he have any surgery in the off season?

Alvarez allowed 6H and 1BB in 5.2INN against 5K and 8GBO. After 4 starts his ERA is 0.37.

Fun fact: Brad Emaus has 9 walks and only one strikeout in 9 games.

He also played third tonight while Bowman DH'ed so that's a good sign (IMO) - hopefully Bowman moves up to Vegas soon (or, even better, Emaus does)

Also, Bobby Bell had another effective outing;

Magnuson has 12 strikeout and one walk;

Even though Jeroloman's OPS is up over 1.000, he hasn't returned to the patter of having as many walks as strikeouts. His walk rate is back to a good range but he has a lot of K's. Still, gotta like the results so far;

Thames has an .873 OPS in the last 10 games;

Yan Gomes is hitting .441 in 34 at bats in Dunedin;

D'arnoud actually hasn't played in the last three Dunedin games now

My bad for forgetting how sharp the folks on da box are... there are still unresolved issues with LASIK correction that go beyond simple measures of acuity (the only measure I typed about):

http://www.2020eyesite.com/pdf/schallhorn-pupil-article-in-ophth.pdf

A summary of the conclusions from the article:

"Patients with large pupils had more quality of vision symptoms in the early postoperative period, but no correlation was observed 6 months after surgery. Factors related to long-term symptoms include the level of treatment (preoperative myopia), preoperative contrast acuity, postoperative UCVA, and residual cylinder. Most of the variability in visual quality could not be explained by preoperative or clinical outcome measures, including pupil size."

...basically, there's more going on that what one might otherwise think from acuity measures and not everyone benefits from LASIK in the same way... as every scientist always tends to say, "More data is needed".

I hope for the Jays and JPA's sake that his surgery was a success. Also if Hechavarria (damn am I going to have to learn how to spell that?) has very good acuity... that's one of the first steps in having a visual system that is highly efficient in processing visual information (important for baseball to be sure)... so, good sign for Jays fans.

I believe I heard that Jeroloman tore his labrum in his hip in the middle of last season...he had surgery to repair this in the off season