Batter's Box Interactive Magazine Batter's Box Interactive Magazine Batter's Box Interactive Magazine
It's your abbreviated, long weekend, minor league update. Enjoy the weather and don't pay much attention to the Jays or their farm teams. Not only are the Jays not winning, neither are the top two farm teams. In case you missed it as you enjoyed the weekend, Lane Thomas is no longer a Blue Jay. He was traded to St. Louis for international cap room. It might be a fair trade but it sets back the timetable to help the major league team by four years. The Jays traded a 21 year old for a 16 year old. The Jays replaced Thomas with Eduard Pinto who they picked up for Jason Grilli. Pinto is a year older than Thomas. Thomas has shown flashes of potential this year but probably not enough to have made the Jays top 30 list. However if he continues to improve he could get to the major leagues.

Buffalo scored three runs in three games over the weekend and lost all three. TJ House, Cesar Valdez and Aaron Sanchez all started and all three took the loss. On the hitting side batting averages are taking a dive. The Bisons had 13 hits in three games and the bottom third of the order had ten of them. Michael Saunders is off to a slow start, just one hit so far, and he is hitting .067, Rowdy Tellez is at .204, Jason Leblebijian and Dwight Smith Jr are down to .282. Roemon Fields is hanging in with three weekend hits to keep his average at .327.


New Hampshire gave up 13, 14 and 6 runs and lost all three, just like Buffalo. Conner Greene and Francisco Rios were both hit around the park. Ryan McBroom's five hits led the offense. Danny Jansen had three hits in two games.


Dunedin won all three games, scoring 25 runs. Josh Almonte was 5-10 to push his average up to .242. Juan Kelly was 6-9 with a home run, he is hitting .254. Cavan Biggio had six hits and is hitting .264. Lourdes Gurriel was 2-11. In case you missed it Dalton Pompey is playing for Dunedin as he returns from a leg injury. Ryan Borucki had a good start on Sunday.


Lansing won one of three. Andy Ravel was the best of the starters. Yenssy Diaz, who has been Lansing's best starter, only went three innings but surrendered five runs. The short start was due to a lengthy rain delay. Bo Bichette had one hit on Friday, sat out Saturday and took a very rare 0-5 on Sunday. According to the Lugnuts radio guy, Jesse G-S, three of the outs were "laser lineouts". So no worries there. Vlad Jr. also played two games, going 4-7. Mitch Nay had four hits in Saturdays game, including a home run, while Josh Palacios had four hits on Sunday. Ridge Smith and Andres Sotillo had three hit games.


Vancouver had to come from behind to win on Sunday and salvage a game in the weekend series. Wilfri Aleton pitched well on Friday, five shutout innings. Dany Jimenez pitched OK on Saturday but left with an injury. Jose Espada struck out seven in 4.2 innings on Sunday. He did have seven base runners. On Friday the Canadians had only two hits, both by Riley Adams. Matt Morgan hit his first home run but is still hitting just .136. Brock Lundquist and Kacy Clemens each had a couple of hits on Sunday to keep their averages over .350. As usal our #2 JBrumfield has all the details at C's Plus baseball.


Bluefield won all three games by 2-0; 2-1; and 2-0. That suggests good pitching. Maximo Castillo pitched five shutout innings with four K's. Elio Silva also pitched five, one run, five K's. Alvaro Galindo fell short of five, 4.2 shutout innings, four K's. Ryan Noda was 5-9 with a triple and a home run. Kevin Smith was 3-8 and Yorman Rodriguez 3-12.


The GCL Jays played one game plus three innings of a second that was stopped by rain. The one standout was Jol Concepcion who was the starting pitcher in the completed game. He pitched five shutout innings with five K's.



Three Stars

Third Star - Alvaro Galindo

Second Star - Josh Almonte

First Star - Matt Morgan


Boxes

Adios Lane Thomas | 9 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.
85bluejay - Monday, July 03 2017 @ 11:36 AM EDT (#344761) #
I always like to see how guys perform after a hot streak - so I'm happy to see Roemon Fields holding his own since his return to the lineup & end of his hot streak - maybe Devo has helped him - he would be a good candidate to lead off & improve the outfield defence - even though he's 26, he only signed with the Jays in 2014 & I think was out of baseball for some time, so he may now be emerging. Hope he keeps it up & gets a September audition.
jerjapan - Monday, July 03 2017 @ 11:57 AM EDT (#344762) #
Fields age doesn't matter the way it typically would, and the whole 'mailman out of baseball' story is awesome, but his minor league career slash line is just .258 / .319 / . 330.  He's a 4th OF all the way, but I'd certainly like to see the team give him an audition.  He could be a good 4th OF with that speed. 
Nigel - Monday, July 03 2017 @ 12:55 PM EDT (#344768) #
Thomas obviously has some strike zone control issues that may have been prevalent regardless of his development path; however, I don't think the Jays' minor league player development team did Thomas any favours.
hypobole - Monday, July 03 2017 @ 01:17 PM EDT (#344769) #
What exactly did minor league development do or not do?
Nigel - Monday, July 03 2017 @ 01:23 PM EDT (#344770) #
They tried to make him a second baseman for a whole season in Vancouver. It was painful to watch and, I'm sure, painful for Thomas. After 15-20 games, it was obviously a bad idea, but they kept at it. They also promoted him quickly when his performance, especially his strike zone control, didn't warrant it.
bpoz - Monday, July 03 2017 @ 01:41 PM EDT (#344771) #
Thomas is young, has size, speed and can take a walk. His strikeouts are down this year, power is the last to develop. He had some injury issues. This year he is on pace for 450 PAs.

The 2B experiment was definitely a negative effect. It also robbed him of CF development.
pooks137 - Monday, July 03 2017 @ 02:33 PM EDT (#344772) #

I don't know how much International Cap room the Jays got from STL, but I have no problem trading Lane Thomas in for a future lottery ticket

Thomas is still young, but I don't see much in his stat line to get excited about except a little bit of speed and an ability to play CF

uglyone - Monday, July 03 2017 @ 04:35 PM EDT (#344781) #
Thomas got off to an encouraging start this year but then fell back. He's got a decent league average line butbthe strikeouts are just plain too high. If he has plus D in CF then he has a chance but if he doesn't i'm not sure he's a real prospect.
hypobole - Monday, July 03 2017 @ 08:30 PM EDT (#344791) #
No Pompey tonight after he was removed early yesterday.
Pinto is in the Dunedin lineup.
Gurriel with his first HR.
Adios Lane Thomas | 9 comments | Create New Account
The following comments are owned by whomever posted them. This site is not responsible for what they say.