The minor leagues get going today on four fronts. Buffalo, New Hampshire and Dunedin start at home, while Lansing start on the road. Dunedin's home game is asterisk worthy as Dunedin stadium is being renovated so the Jays will play their home games at the Phillies old home in Clearwater. Because of conflicts at the "new" stadium, with other college and HS teams, the D-Jays will play a handful of their home games on the road this year. Buffalo play this afternoon, all others tonight.

The Blue Jays are assigning minor league players to their teams this weekend. The teams will travel to their home cities on Monday or Tuesday with the local teams announcing the rosters soon thereafter. Today I will look at where the top 30 prospects will be assigned and take my best guess. These guesses are not exhaustive, I am mainly looking to place the names you know who are prospects.

Seems I've found as many top 30 lists as I'm going to at this point without subscribing to a dozen services. Time to summarize them before the season gets going.

The Bauxites have spoken. I received eight top 30 prospect lists and I have compiled them into a combined top 30. The resulting top 30 is similar in many ways to the Top 30 posted last week but there are a few key differences. The top nine on both lists have the same names with small changes in the order. Further down, the differences are bigger.

For the purposes of explaining the two top 30 lists, I will refer to last weeks list as the “official” list and this one as the “Bauxite” list.

Now that you have reviewed the top 30, it’s time to consider those who did not make it.

The top ten features five returnees from 2016, three newly drafted players and two prospects who had big years to move up the list into the top 10.

The middle 10 of our top 30 prospects is a real melting pot. You have players from last year's top 10 who are dropping on account of underwhelming performance. You have the players with average years who remained in the middle. You have a rising star who had a great season to put himself on the map, as well as a new draftee and a player who arrived through a trade.

It's time for the newest edition of the Batter's Box Blue Jays Top 30 prospects. This marks the fifteenth year of the top 30 here on Da Box.

As we remind readers each year, the expectation of the top 30 prospects for any team is that one third will improve, one third will regress and one third will stay as they were. The Jays front office added a lot of pieces to the system this year as part of the mid-season clear-out. Not all of the prospects added via trades have made this list. As has been discussed on Da Box, the Jays system includes a lot of players who are possible prospects. Some people see them as prospects, some as longshots and some as not a prospect. As a result there are many players who Blue Jay fans consider to be prospects who did not make it onto our top 30. In another season, or if they were on a different team, they would be on a top 30 list.

Two of last year's top 30 were traded, Conner Greene and Edward Olivares were dispatched in the off-season. Three players "graduated", Richard Urena , Ryan Borucki and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. The remaining 25 players from last year's top 30 go into Da Box's mixer with the newly drafted players, the international signings, the traded-for players and those whose performance took a step forward in 2018. The mixer goes to work, powered by the votes of our minor league team, and kicks out the definitive list of the Blue Jays top 30 prospects. Eighteen of last year's top 30 are back. As mentioned, five no longer qualify so seven have dropped off. Not all of the seven who dropped had bad years, some were injured and some just had average years and dropped off due to more competition in a stronger system.

As usual the first 10 are published today, the next 10 tomorrow, and the top 10 on the day after. Let the discussion begin!

Ask and ye shall receive.....ayjackson asked for a minor league thread to discuss BA's top 20's by league lists. I have been away so I am playing catch-up here. One thing to note about these lists is league size. For example the Midwest League had 16 teams, the GCL 18. So there is just over one top 20 spot per team. The Northwest League has 8 teams, the Appy League ten. If you play in those two leagues you have almost double the chance to make a top 20 list. Through four affiliates, the full season teams, the Jays have just five players make the lists.

With Lansing losing last night there is just one Blue Jay minor league team still in action. Your Fisher Cats take a 2-0 series lead into Trenton tonight for game three. Jordan Romano takes the mound for the Cats.

New Hampshire and Lansing resume their series tonight. Lansing must win to get to a decisive game three, lose and they go home. New Hampshire hope to build a 2-0 lead in a five game series.

The two remaining Blue Jay farm teams begin their playoff push tonight. The New Hampshire Fisher Cats and the Lansing Lugnuts both start at home in their series.

New Hampshire and Lansing are headed to the playoffs and both won. Vancouver lost and their playoff spot is up for grabs. Dunedin split a doubleheader while Buffalo are not going to the playoffs and seem to be ready for the off-season.

The minor league season is grinding towards the end. The Bluefield Jays finished their regular season on Wednesday, they start their playoff run on Friday. Max Pentecost hit his tenth home run, his teammate Santiago Espinal hit his first, just in time before the season ends. New Hampshire lost despite the power. Buffalo lost. Ryan Noda carried Lansing to a win. Vancouver and Bluefield also won. Vancouver are closing in on a playoff spot. Assuming they make it the Jays would have four teams in the playoffs, New Hampshire, Lansing, Vancouver and Bluefield. Dunedin were rained out.