I have talked with some of my minor league contacts over the last few days to get updated on winter news before they head to Florida at the end of this week for spring training.  Here are some notes from those conversations.

The three-time Northwest League champion Vancouver Canadians will have a different look when they take to the field in 2014.

The Canadians - with the help of members from the UBC Thunderbirds baseball club - unveiled their new uniforms during its 4th annual luncheon at the Fairmont Hotel Vancouver. The big changes are a new font, a new Mountie logo on the black jersey and the addition of a uniform number on the front of the jersey. The Blue Jays cap logo is now on the sleeves instead of the circular word logo that was used over the last two seasons. The C's had used the 1977 logo on the sleeves to mark its first year of affiliation with Toronto back in 2011.

Baseball America released their annual Blue Jays Top 10 prospect list today.   

Today marked the end of the line for several Jays MILB Players including 2007 Draft Picks Kevin Ahrens, and John Tolisano.  As well Alan Farina, and Joel Carreno were let go, which might be somewhat suprising.

Last week the Batters Box top 30 prospects for 2013 were revealed. Even though the Jays no longer have a top rated system there are a lot of players who could develop into prospects. For example last season Andy Burns was not on the top 30 list, he missed more than half of 2012 with an injury in the year after he was drafted. So here are some names to remember.

The Toronto Blue Jays and New Hampshire Fisher Cats have agreed to extend its Player Development Contract through the 2016 season. That makes it three affiliates that have deals in place for 2016 after Buffalo and Vancouver signed two-year extensions.



The Fisher Cats have won two Eastern League titles since becoming a Blue Jays affiliate in 2004.

Welcome to the creme de la creme, the number one through ten prospects.  In case you missed it number 11 through 20 are here, and number 21 to 30 are here.

We hope you enjoyed this top 30 and the hope it brings to the future of the Blue Jays organization. 

Today we look at the prospects rated 20 though 11. For prospects 30-21, click here.

Welcome to the Batters Box top 30 Blue Jay prospects for 2013. Five of your trusted minor league correspondents pooled their votes to come up with the list. The same trusty five shared the task of writing the prospect descriptions you see below.

The system has seen a lot of movement since 2012.  Travis d'Arnuad, Noah Syndergaard, Jake Marisnick, Adeiny Hechavarria, Justin Nicolino and Sam Dyson were traded.  Five of last years top six prospects were moved to get that extra win from the major league team.

In total, forty prospects received at least one vote.  Twenty three of the top thirty were named on all five ballots.  There was plenty of agreement over who the top twenty prospects were, in name at least.  After those top 20 there are a mixture of players at AAA who might or might not get more than a cup of coffee in the major leagues and on the other side there are a ton of kids in the lower levels who haven't shown much yet.  Do you value Deck McGuire or Ryan Goins higher than Jacob Brentz or LB Dantzler?  The former will probably play a limited role in the major leagues, the latter could develop into all-stars or they could flame out.  

As usual we have split the top 30 into three installments, running Monday through Wednesday. 

We hope you enjoy the list and the discussion.

The annual Batters Box top 30 prospects will go live tomorrow with prospects 30 to 21 in the spotlight.  Who will be #1?  Will it be Aaron Sanchez or has his prospect status dimmed?  Will it be Marcus Stroman, the new kid on the block?  Roberto Osuna and Daniel Norris improved their ranking this season as did Sean Nolin.  Or could it be a surprise #1, maybe Franklin Barreto who has shown the ability to hit at a very young age?

Baseball America started rolling out their league top 20's yesterday, the first Blue Jay relevant list comes out today with the GCL.

The Vancouver Canadians are the back-to-back-to-back champions of the Northwest League.

Still batting 1.000! The Canadians have won three straight league titles since leaving the Oakland A's and joining the Toronto Blue Jays as an affiliate in 2011.

Vancouver tied up the series with Boise 1-1 in front of a packed Nat Bailey Stadium.  Andy Fermin had a strong game scoring a run, and with a 2 RBI triple in the 7th inning.

The Vancouver Canadians were able to advance to the Northwest League final thanks in part to a Game 1 victory against Everett at Nat Bailey Stadium Tuesday. The C's hope to replicate that home magic today and tomorrow in the best-of-three championship against Boise.

Game 1 starter Tom Robson warms up in the bullpen.

Vancouver lose game one and now need to win both game two and three at home. Jairo Labourt pitched well until he tired in the sixth, the bullpen inflicted most of the damage. The hitters had a few early chances but they didn't score and didn't have much else to be happy with for the rest of the game.

Vancouver now make the long bus ride back to Canada. Because of that, game two is not until Sunday.