Today we take our final look at the position players by predicting where the outfielders will land.  The outfield projections vary from simple to complex by team.

We finish our tour of the infield minor league assignments with a look at third base. This is not a position of strength in the Jays minor league system and you could see the same players in the same spots to start 2012 as played in 2011.

We started this series by looking at catchers and first basemen, today it's the middle infielders who we review.  Because of the interchangability of shortstops and second basemen we will look at them together making it a double position look.

 

John Sickels has done a farm system ranking for the first time - and guess who's top?

1) Toronto Blue Jays: Eight B+ prospects with ridiculous depth behind them.
2) San Diego Padres: Incredible depth after the winter trades pushes this system almost to the top.
3) Texas Rangers: Continues to churn out talent, with much more percolating at the lower levels. I do not give the Rangers farm system credit for Yu Darvish. They would rank number one if I gave them credit for Darvish, but in my mind that is unfair to the other teams: I see him as a major league free agent, not a prospect.
4) Seattle Mariners: Jesus Montero plus three elite pitching prospects and others who can improve.

Yesterday we looked at the placement of minor league catchers for 2012 and it was relatively straightforward.  Today we look at first basemen and the picture is much more muddled.

 

We are in the depths of a baseball-less winter but pitchers and catchers will be reporting to camp in less than 30 days.  The minor league camp won't start until March but let's start thinking about the lineups for the 2012 season.  There is no hurry so we will do this over the next week or so.  Today I will look at the catchers.  Infielders, outfielders and starting pitchers will follow over the next few weekdays.

Yu need to forget the other distractions today and Yu need to consider Baseball America's top ten, released today. The top ten isn't very surprising, except for Asher Wojciechowski who sneaks in at number ten.

The Dunedin Blue Jays followed suit with the parent club and unveiled its new look for 2012 on Frday.

The new logos for the Dunedin Blue Jays of the Florida State League.

Update @ 11:10am - The Bluefield Blue Jays have done likewise.

The primary logo for the Bluefield Blue Jays of the Appalachian League.  The National Post's John Lott has a photo of Dunedin's and Bluefield's new designs.

We haven't had a minor league thread in a while, now seems like a good time to get one going.  I received some updates from the instructional league last week and I thought I would share those.  In addition I have a look back at the 2011 season and we will catch up on the AFL.

Many are called but few are chosen. The Jays have approximately two hundred and fifty players under contract at the end of a season when the newly drafted players mix with the no longer rookies. Out of that number only thirty can be chosen to be on the Batters Box Top 30 list. There are many other worthy candidates who just didn't play enough to be recognized or who haven't really matured yet and as a result haven't shown their true potential. 

Last year Justin Nicolino didn't make our top 30, he was too new to the system.  Luis Perez looked to have topped out as a AAA reliever.  Both of those were able to shake-off the disappointment of not making the Batters Box top 30 to shine in 2011. Who will surprise with a break-out in 2012?  Most likely it will be one of the players listed below. If you doubt that, consider that two of the prospects included in last year's feature were Adonis Cardona and Michael Crouse. Following a list of the prospects to watch, this article will conclude with a brief blurb on every player to receive a vote on any of the eight Top 30 lists.

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.   Check back tomorrow for a few who missed the top 30.

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 2011. Eight of your trusted minor league correspondents pooled their votes to come up with the list. The same trusty eight shared the task of writing the prospect descriptions you see below.

In total, forty-two prospects received at least one vote.  Twenty of the top thirty were named on all eight ballots.  There can be plenty of debate as to who should have made it, particularly here, in the bottom 10.  We hope the wisdom of our crowd has delivered a great top thirty.

As usual we have split the top 30 into three installments, running Monday through Wednesday. On Thursday we will look at some prospects that did not make the list but are favourites of one of our writers.

We hope you enjoy the list and the discussion.

With the absence of minor league updates I am having withdrawal symptoms, so I decided to look at some minor league hitters stats.  I read an article around a month ago that looked at numbers in the lower minors and calculated which numbers mean something in predicting future success.  I cannot find the story now, but as I remember it the two main numbers with meaning were age relative to league and strikeout rate.  Or to put it another way, if a player is young for the league, and if he can put the bat on the ball, that is a sign of future success.  I looked at those numbers for all of the Jays minor league teams and the results are below.

Hitters are evaluated based on five tools, but one tool is the most important, the hit for average tool.  Some players can fill a utility role as a great defender, some can find a role as a power bat with a low average, but most players in the majors can hit for average.  A minor league players batting average might not be a true indicator of future success in the majors.  Particularly in the lower minors hitters can take advantage of weak fielders, inconsistent pitchers, and bad fields.  But ultimately if you can put the bat on the ball, you have a better chance of success at higher levels.

The Baseball America league top 20's started last week.  This thread will capture all the relevant Blue Jay rankings and comments.  Blue Jays listed so far:

GCL - Adonys Cardona #8

GCL - Joe Musgrove #13

Appy - Noah Syndergaard #4

Appy - Chris Hawkins #11

Appy - Aaron Sanchez #12

Northwest - Justin Nicolino #1

Midwest - Jake Marisnick #3

Midwest - Drew Hutchison #14

FSL - AJ Jimenez #10

FSL - Drew Hutchison #13

FSL - Deck McGuire #17

Eastern - Travis d'Arnaud #2

Eastern - Anthony Gose #3

Eastern - Henderson Alvarez #10

Eastern - Adeiny Hechavarria #19

PCL - Brett Lawrie #1

PCL - Eric Thames #15

That is 17 total Blue Jay prospects on the league top 20's. 18 seems to be the highest number.