The Jays ran into the good Zack Greinke and lost their series with the Royals.

We all know that prospect development in baseball is an uncertain and rocky process.  First round picks flame out and never make it to the major leagues.  Twentieth round picks or similar undrafted longshots do make it from time to time.  There is a saying in baseball development that in any year one third of your prospects will improve, one third will fall back and one third will stagnate. 

Last year was not a good one for the Blue Jays under this measure.  Approx one half of Jays prospects fell back last season while only about one sixth jumped ahead.  That might be why the Jays now have a new farm director and a new scouting director, not to mention a new GM.

So how are the Jays prospects doing in 2010?  Let's start with the Jays top 30 prospects for 2009, as selected by Batters Box.  We will also include the players obtained in the Halladay trade. 

The bats got the job done for three wins south of the border while the pitching down in the Dominican led to another victory on a 4-2 night for the affiliates.

Do you know what today is? Besides two days before the always highly-anticipated Pi Approximation Day (22/7)? Well, the trade deadline is coming up soon, but most of the Jays' trade assets are still with the team. Therefore, I declare today Wild Trade Speculation Day!!!!

Ooh, "The Emausculator". Can we start using that? (Sorry, I'm just feeling a little left out after Jordan Bastian came up with the Yunel Bomber tonight on Twitter. Genius.) Anyway, Monday night's games featured some bottom-of-the-ninth drama, and the affiliates came out with a 3-3 night, though if you count the DSL things tip in our favour.

In case you missed it on Facebook today. intrepid Bauxite Mike Moffatt reports, using Extremely Professional Journalist third-person language ...

"Mike Moffatt just hit his first home run -- at age 33. His 25-year plan of lulling the opposition into a false sense of security just paid off." Another Bauxite quickly posed the undying journalistic snideness, "Quick math tells me you will catch Aaron (the real leader) in AD 20,885. Bring it on!" Moffatt modestly responded, "Nope, that's it for me. I'll be forever tied with Duane Kuiper."

So in this the year of the Blue Jay Roundtripper, congratulations to our own Mike Moffatt, who now owns as many 2010 home runs as Yunel Escobar (TOR edition), Nick Green, Jarrett Hoffpauir and Mike McCoy combined. Hoo-rah!

The Jays have 35 home games remaining and 35 road games. Their future looks like this:

Well, there he goes again.  Love him or hate him, JP Ricciardi was always a good quote.  Wednesdays with JP on the Fan 590 were interesting because JP would speak his mind.  Sometimes that was good and sometimes it got him into trouble.  On Friday last JP spoke with WEEI in Boston and he had some things to say about three of the Jays top relievers.   He had praise for one and he slammed another.  And he also had a couple of teasers of trades not made.  Can you figure out who he is talking about?

I remembered that when I was in Dunedin this spring I had taken pictures of some the kids who ended up in Auburn or in the GCL.  Here are those pictures.

The affiliates won two out of five on a day when most of the pitchers left their best stuff at home.

Saturday both day and night on farm was a disappointment with only teams from towns starting with an “L” getting the "W's". Overall our minor league teams were 2 and 4.  Las Vegas took advantage of the longball and Lansing dominated with 1 hit pitching.  The rest of the farm suffered from either weak hitting or weak pitching or both.

Jo-Jo Ryes made a good first impression by throwing a one hitter over eight innings to lead the Fisher Cats to victory.  Reyes had been pitching in AAA for the Braves so a step down to AA should see him pitching well.  Joel Carreno had another eight K's and Chris Hopkins hit a grand slam as Dunedin won easily.  Lansing came from behind for a narrow win.  The Auburn bullpen held up as Carlos Perez went 3-3.  The GCL Jays and the Las Vegas 51's lost.

Ok that title makes no sense, but the Rookie League and above affiliates went 2-4 and weren't particularly sharp about it. Eric Thames went 4-4 but lost the first star to a hitter who put up 10 total bases. I'll give you a hint, his name rhymes with Bludelmis Fernandez.

It was also the All-Star break in the minors and yesterday saw the Triple-A and Double-A All-Star Games, with several Las Vegas and Fisher Cats players in action. They all went home losers, but that’s not what’s important now, is it? Meanwhile, Auburn got blown out and a ninth inning error cost Dunedin. The only victory was in the Gulf Coast League, where one man’s long journey back began to the majors began successfully.

MLB Trade Rumors is reporting that the Jays have acquired Yunel Escobar and Jo-Jo Reyes for Alex Gonzalez, Tim Collins and Tyler Pastornicky.  This is a high risk trade for the new GM as Escobar is very talented but suggestions of attitude and effort problems have dogged him.  Plus there is this question, why would the Braves give up on a young premium position player for a rental and prospects?