The Bisons and Fisher Cats dropped their first games of 2018. Lansing prevented a shutout on the farm. Dunedin was rained out in Palm Beach. They are scheduled to play two today.

Vladimir Guerrero Jr. put on a show for New Hampshire FC in Hartford. That's among the many highlights that saw the affiliates win three out of four Monday night.

Three of the affiliates have played four games, the Bisons have been rained and/or snowed out so far. In general it has been a good start for the affiliates but as usual we have to say it's early. Buffalo, Lansing and New Hampshire are all northern teams but Buffalo have been the unluckiest with the weather so far. Although the Lugnuts played with the temperature below zero so its not exactly baseball weather.

Three affiliates started their seasons last night, all of the them on the road, and they all won. It was a fine night on the farm. It is easy to overreact to one game at the start of the season so we will try not to do that but there were some performances that caught the eye.

Today is opening day for the minor leagues. Starting today, there will be almost daily minor league ball until early September. With the stronger Blue Jays system, interest in the minor leagues should be higher this year so it is an exciting day.

The Jays will inform the minor league players of their assignments today. They generally ask the players to keep it quiet but some players will post on twitter where they are headed.

The minor league season is just over two weeks away. On April 4th and 5th the rosters for the minor league teams will become available. Today I wanted to review some of the areas with uncertainty, where the Jays may have too many players for the positions available.

The Toronto Blue Jays have signed two-year Player Development Contracts with the Lansing Lugnuts and the New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

Now that the last of the major lists has come out here are 10 of them summarized (not necessarily the best 10, just 10 I found and felt were reasonable). From big ones like MLB, FanGraphs, Baseball America, etc. down to blogs like Jays Journal and some weird place called Batters Box. I figured merging the results would provide a good summary of who is solid and who is weak in the system and find some oddball prospects.

Here's a rundown of the Top 30 prospects in the Toronto Blue Jays system according to Baseball America.


2017 first round picks Logan Warmoth and Nate Pearson are two of the three highest-ranked newcomers on Baseball America's Top 30 Blue Jays prospects list.

Happy belated New Year, Bauxites! Here's a quick look at what's going on with the Blue Jays in the minor league scene.


More high-fives for Blue Jays prospects in Vancouver for the next five years thanks to the C's and Jays extending their partnership.
Image from Sportsnet.ca.

Now that the top 30 is on the record for another year, I thought I would give you some more stats and details on the list.

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 fourteenth iteration 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 does not like to deal prospects so almost all of last year's top 30 are still eligible for this years list. There are just two exceptions, Danny Barnes who played a lot for the Blue Jays in the big leagues and Ryan McBroom who was traded. The other 28 players go into the box's mixer with the newly drafted players, the international signings, the traded-for players and those whose performance took a step forward in 2017. 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. Twenty of last year's top 30 are back. As mentioned, two no longer qualify so eight have dropped off. Not all of the eight 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!