The Buffalo Bisons played their first game ever in March to kick off the 2023 minor league season. Unfortunately there was not much to remember from the game.

Daily minor league updates have been a feature on Batters Box since 2004. A lot has changed in the baseball world over the last twenty years and now the daily MLU is changing too.

The minor league season starts next week, in Buffalo. The other teams wait a week. We will all be looking at who hits the ground running in 2023. Who pitches or hits well in April. But there are some other things that I will be looking at.

Keith Law published his top 100 prospects and his top 20 prospects by organization over the last two weeks in The Athletic.

I didn't want to ask questions about the rankings, it doesn't matter that player X is four or five spots above where Batters Box ranked him. So I asked questions that were more general. If you haven't read Keith's rankings they are substantially similar to those on Batters Box. Keith is not as high on Addison Barger, he has concerns about his ability to hit left handed pitching. He has similar concerns with Spencer Horwitz. Keith includes Manuel Beltre and Alex De Jesus in his top 20, so I asked about them, in general terms.

The Blue Jays have a lot of players who could have made the back end of the top 30 list. It was hard to pick who should be in the 27 to 30 range and who just missed. I mentioned at the start that eleven players were dropped from the top 30. They are Adam Kloffenstein, Manuel Beltre, Miguel Hiraldo, Rikelbin De Castro, Victor Mesia, Chad Dallas, Joey Murray, Eric Pardinho, Chavez Young, Luis Quinones and Trent Palmer. Some of the pitchers dropped off due to injuries, they have a chance to rebound. There are a number of international signees on this list who didn't progress in 2022 but many of them are still young and will be hoping for a rebound in 2023.

On to the top 10.

The middle 10 of our top 30 prospects have a lot of players who have been in the system for a few years and whose prospect status is now on the bubble. Six of them have reached AA and four have reached Vancouver so their time to put up or show up is now.

Welcome to the Blue Jays top 30 list for another year. There has been a lot of turnover from last year to this year's list. There are just 12 players who are repeating on the list. Seven players were traded, Gabriel Moreno, Gunnar Hoglund, Kevin Smith, Zach Logue, Jordan Groshans, Samad Taylor and Josh Palacios. That means eleven players were dropped. That is a lot of poor performances. Hope remains for many of those who have been dropped, they just need to find something in their game, just like Davis Schneider did this year. Speaking of Davis Schneider.....

Buffalo ended its 2022 season on a losing note.

Buffalo won big in its penultimate game of 2022.

The Jays have said recently that Nate Pearson needs to pitch multiple innings before being considered for a call-up. He did that on Saturday but it didn't go well. He came into the game in the seventh inning with one out. He walked the lead off hitter who promptly stole second base. Pearson then spotted the runner looking to third and picked him off. He then got the third out.

Buffalo lost 5-2 with Adrian Hernandez giving up four runs. Hernandez gave up four runs while only getting one out. Hernandez had a 9.00 ERA in September before this game.

Buffalo started their last week of the season with as nice win. Addison Barger hit two home runs, his first two in AAA, and drove in four runs.

Sorry! Another late MLU. Just one game and it was not a good one. It could have been two games if Dunedin had forced the Florida State League final to a third and deciding game but that did not happen.

Buffalo won. Dunedin did not.