Thanks.

BA have their top 10 Blue Jay prospects out today.

They have Tiedemann still at number one, followed by Yesavage, Nimmala and Orelvis. I think we will see one of these four listed as the top prospect in different lists, there is not a lot to separate them.

More All In stuff

Scott Mitchell@ScottyMitchTSN
This might percolate for a hot minute given it’ll be mid-January, but the amount I’ve heard “all-in” when it comes to #BlueJays and Roki Sasaki is prob a good thing.
They have an existing relationship via close people and it’s not crazy to think he may be intrigued by TO the city
3:23 PM · Dec 2, 2024

https://www.tsn.ca/mlb/mitchell-free-agent-pitching-targets-for-the-blue-jays-1.2213392

Teams have to use international pool money to sign Sasaki. Many teams, including the Jays, have "deals" with prospects to spend that money. If they sign Sasaki they will have to break those pre-agreements which could hurt future year signings.

Ben Badler from BA listed seven teams who he thought had the uncommitted dollars or a high pool to sign Sasaki. The Jays were not one of the teams he listed.

The Jays are lined up to sign infielders Kennew Blanco, a big dollar pick from last year who got caught lying about his age who will now get a lot less, and Cristopher Polanco, a top bat in this year's pool of players. But I'm sure they'd sacrifice them both for Sasaki.

Every team would give up their signings to get Sasaki and difference between teams is pretty marginal. He'll go where he wants which is probably LA/SD buy maybe not.

Gerry what is BA? Baseball America?

I have BP. Baseball Prospectus (BP)

another name to add is catcher Yeiser Crespo (Ven) he's on youtube and instagram

Yeicer Crespo

BA is Baseball America.

Some clips from BA chat on farm/development & draft

Gerry
The Jays picked a lot of college bats in 2024 draft. Most went to Dunedin and hit well, Keys, Micheletti, Mitchell, Tibbitts, Parker. Good news or too soon?
Geoff Pontes
Probably too soon but I thought this was one of their better classes in years. Keys can hit and has skills in the field, Micheletti is an interesting bat, Mitchell
and Tibbitts are both good athletes in different ways. Tibbetts could turn out to be a pretty legit power bat.

Anonymous
what mistakes have the jays made from a scouting/ drafting/ developmental standpoint that's kept them from having high tier talent in the farm under this FO?
Geoff Pontes
I think up until recently they've drafted a lot of safe model style players. Players with good bat-to-ball skills and approach, but at the expense of upside and
that's led to some misses on college position picks in early rounds.

Anonymous
What is the Jays player development dept doing wrong? Seems like this system hasn't been producing or hitting on 1st round picks
Geoff Pontes
I don't think I can answer that. IMO it's been more of an issue with who they draft. Nimmala was a nice development story for them. They also seem to do well
developing there hitters after day one (Schneider, Horwitz, now Roden).

Anonymous
Shane Farrell recently left as scouting director and everyone knows the Bluejays have had problems drafting and developing players. How is tramuta viewed in mlb
Geoff Pontes
I've heard very positive things about Tramuta. He's a highly decorated evaluator.

Anonymous
About the overall farm system, past drafts were pretty well regarded. Were the initial evaluations overhyped or is the problem solely on player development?
Geoff Pontes
I think the 2022 draft was a really big missed opportunity. They had four picks in the top 100 and only Kasevich and Roden rank insde the top 10 now. Even crazier
of those five players Kasevich and Roden got the 3rd and 5th highest bonuses.

Lui from Toronto
Why have the Jays seemed to backed up on their international program when it used to be a strength of the organization?
Geoff Pontes
There's been a pretty noticeable shift in how funds have been allocated over the last few classes. It does seem like they've gone away from investing as heavily.

Interesting comments. Too much safety.ism sounds like a fair criticism to me.

But good news about the latest draft.

The FO has been making a lot of changes in coaching and development. This really is a prove-it off-season for Shapiro and Atkins. Will that change their level of aggressiveness in the off-season?

The Jays have apparently signed Kevin Gowdy to a minor league deal. Former second round pick. Pretty meh numbers in the PCL last year (4.38 ERA, 57 H, 23BB, 45 K in 51 IP as a RP). Lifetime 5.18 ERA in the minors.

Good thing they locked him up early.

Agreed Ducey, Gowdy is a good signing. Minor league deal so he can go to Buffalo if needed.

I was impressed by a lot of the DSL position players. They were young (signed 2024) and performed well. Also they had good size. The pitchers that were good were few.

The FCL pitchers that were promoted to the FSL Jays in the 2nd half of 2024 performed well. They may get to Vancouver after 10 FSL starts or so in 2025. Vancouver has a lot of SPs/multi inning Ps. I only see K Rojas and possibly G Urbaez starting the season in NH.

The too safe was a very big issue in the JPR era. You need to take risks when drafting. Big ones. Go for the most talented players you can find and develop them. Sure many will flop, but when you hit on one it will be a 'wow' - see Bo for an example of a win. The most classic risk-reward situation was 2010 when the Jays played it safe and took Deck McGuire while the next 2 picks were Yasmani Grandal (20 WAR) and Chris Sale (53). Biggest recent dice roll was Austin Martin in 2020 (negative WAR so far, but was key to the trade for Berrios) - of note is that no one taken before him has even 1 bWAR yet. If you draft to not fail then you will fail. If you draft to win, then you might win or you might fail, but at least winning is an option.

I think the 2022 draft was a really big missed opportunity. They had four picks in the top 100 and only Kasevich and Roden rank insde the top 10 now.

Isn't the big issue with the 2022 draft that the two high-ceiling guys - Barriera & Toman - have thus far fizzled out? BA ranked those guys 4th & 7th in November 2022, though they're nowhere to be found now.

I agree John.  That's why I was so stoked on the Nimmala pick, as one of the youngest guys in the draft, if I recall correctly.   
Ironically, Kasevich, the 'safest' pick at the top of that 22 draft, is looking like the best prospect after Roden. 

I'm game for this overhaul of the system, and moving on from Farrell to Tramuto. 

Oakland has the luxury of being patient with G Hoglund. He pitched a total of 69 innings in his 1st 3 professional years but 130IP in his 4th year. He could be ready sometime in 2025. So I believe in patience. Toman does not look good at all. Kasevich and Roden breezed through the minors and hopefully get a fair shot in ST. Barriera has pitched 21 innings in 3 seasons but should be ready by early July 2025. If so then he has time to produce some results. Nolan Perry was also a 2022 pick. No pitching in 2022, FCL in 2023 was bad, always the 1 bad inning if I recall correctly. 2024 he had great numbers. He threw a lot of pitches to get through 3 to under 5 innings. But he got through them with no damage to his ERA. If his injury is TJ then he will miss all of 2025. C Doughty was doing fine but got injured. Don't know what his injury is.

You also have to choose round 1-10 based on your budget. Some cheap picks are necessary. Round 11 & 12 in 2024 got big bonuses. Possibly a good strategy.

I dunno.
The Groshans draft was all about upside. It didn't pan out.
In 2020 they focused on pitching, that hasn't worked too well either.
In 2022, the first pick was Barriera who was injured but has never gotten healthy.
Maybe Toman was a safe pick, but Doughty wasn't. He got drafted for his  power.

I would argue the Groshans draft was not about mitigating risk. The team sacrificed upside (and limited risk) by paying less for their first round pick to package Groshans and Kloffenstein. That really backfired.

FWIW, I had Logan Gilbert ranked 11th (the Jays slot), along with Shane McClanahan, Brady Singer and Jackson Kowar (oops) as available targets in my top 15 picks. I had Kloff at 28 and Groshans as a second round talent.

Groshans signed for 800K under slot but Kloff signed for 1.8M over slot.
That wasn't about saving money.
High schoolers are high risk compared to college players.
Those 2 guys were not safe picks. They were high risks, high upside picks.
The Marlins picked a CF who didn't make it after Groshans.

The top picks were Casey Mize, Joey Bart, Alec Bohm, Nick Madrigal, Jonathan India--all University picks.
Next was Kelenic, a high school pick who didn't quite pan out. High upside, high risk.

2018 was a horrible draft but the theory makes sense. They didn't love the guys available at 12. (Swaggerty, Gorman, etc...) anymore than they liked Groshans and got a much better# 3 pick because they went that way. For me, the thing I would have have changed the most is just how many pitchers they draft high up in the last 5 years. Since 2019, they've had 18 top-100 picks and 11 have been pitchers. In their top-2 picks, 7/10 have been pitchers. Pitching development is way more unpredictable than hitting and I'd rather get more hitters earlier. Their hitting development has been so-so. Their pitching development has been atrocious.

To be fair, some of the poor results are due to arm injuries to Tiederman, Barriera, Maroudis and Chad Dallas. Barriera shut himself down in his draft year obstensively to limit his innings but you have to wonder if he felt twinges in his arm and didn't want to blow it out before getting a big payday at the draft. It's somewhat ironic that there have been numerous pitchers injured in the minors yet the big club has had one of the most durable starting staffs, aside from Manoah, in the majors the last few years.

I'm still hopeful that some of those injured pitchers will eventually be able to contribute.
Hagen Danner is still on the roster and he's got no options left. He's not eligible for a 4th option, so he could be given a long leash this time, if he shows anything in the spring.

Trade idea if Jays can't resign Vlad and don't want to rebuild.
Jays trade: Vlad, Springer
Jays get: Tucker, Pressly

Waiting for Soto to sign is driving me crazy. Just sign already so we can move on!

The draft lottery is Tuesday. The Jays have a 7.48% chance at first overall. That would be sweet.

In the draft I believe we get the 7th pick in round 2 to round 20.

For draft quality I think it is worth checking the next 3 picks - figuring generally teams would be considering who they took and maybe 3 or 4 others who other teams would check as well. Not a perfect theory, but not crazy either. Who cares about guys taken before as those are gone, or guys taken 10+ picks later as no one thought of them when the Jays picked (with rare exceptions I'm sure). Still, I figure checking 3-5 after has value.
Round 1

• 2016: T.J. Zeuch -0.6 bWAR, next 4 picks net -0.7, takes 11 picks before a 10+ WAR guy shows up (Will Smith C), so the Jays did poor but so did everyone else after them.
• 2017: Logan Warmoth (minors only), next 3 were 2 flops and Tanner Houck (9.2 bWAR), next 5 also flops. 28th pick was Nate Pearson, next 6 flops (one did OK, but DNS Drew Rasmussen 6.6)
• 2018: #12 Jordan Groshans -0.1, 4 of next 5 flopped, but Logan Gilbert at 9.8 did well.
• 2019: #11 Alek Manoah 7.3 and holding. 3 of next 5 flopped so far, but other 2 were Bryson Stott (8.0) and Corbin Carroll (9.9). Ouch. But looked like a WOW for awhile.
• 2020: #5 Austin Martin -1.0, none of the top 9 have reached 1 WAR yet. #10 was Reid Detmers 3.3 but screwed by being an LAA.
• 2021: Gunnar Hoglund (minors), only 2 of next 7 has positive WAR (best Gavin Williams 1.7) but Colson Montgomery was as high as #9 on MLB prospect list going into 2024 (3 picks post Hoglund).
• 2022: Brandon Barriera (minors as are most so far from that draft), Spencer Jones 2 picks later (#33 BP), Noah Schultz 3 picks later (#40 BA)
• 2023: Arjun Nimmala (minors), Chase Davis next (#101 BA), Colt Emerson after him (#50 BP). But I think we all like Nimmala so far (812 OPS over 2 seasons in minors so far with 17 HR in 99 games)
• 2024: Trey Yesavage (minors only) ranked highly despite 0 games in minors so far (#94 MLB.com).

So not as ugly as we thought in the first round. Someday I'll find time to dig into other rounds, but the first is by far the most critical. This also shows how much of a crapshoot drafts can be when you look at how many after the Jays picks did nothing of note.

Marc Hulet spoke of building a pen which got me interested.

I picked Cleveland's 2024 pen and analyzed. So name, which org. Cade Smith, Minnesota. P Avila, SD. T Herrin Cleveland round 29 1018 draft. E Clase SD and H Gedids Cleveland round 5 2019 draft. These were the good ones. One bad one T Beede SF round 1 2014.

So a mix of home grown and not home grown. I don't know how expensive they were in 2024.

Most relievers are failed starters.
Like Romano.
The starters that the Jays developed have not been healthy, so moving them to the pen isn't an option.
I like Brock and Fluharty but they are not quite ready.
They signed Kevin Gowdy as NRI.
The guys they have now, Eisert, de Geus, Lucas and Petersen seem rather meh.

Green and Swanson are good.
Burr and Little are OK.
Danner is probably worth a look at this point.
Pop, Nance and Robertson are on the bubble for me.
They obviously need a closer and Yariel Rodriguez heads here if they get a starter.