Extra-inning heartbreak at two levels as a couple high-end prospects stay hot.

All of the affiliates won on Wednesday with Lansing also suffering a loss in a doubleheader. Standout performers include Gunnar Heidt who hit a three run home run for New Hampshire; Matt Dermody, who struck out all five hitters he faced; and Andy Ravel who pitched five shutout innings. DJ Davis also had a good day. Sean Reid-Foley was disappointing.

The affiliates went 0-for-3 Tuesday.

The affiliates went 1-3 on Monday with the lone win coming from the Buffalo Bisons.

The most tempting thing, early in the season, is to over-react to small sample sizes. The Blue Jays are 1-5, panic! Similarly the minor leagues have many players hitting over .500, or zero, and pitchers with good or bad starts. I am going to ignore those for now. Buffalo and Lansing have started with three and four wins respectively. Dunedin are 2-2 and New Hampshire 1-2.

Dunedin was the only affiliate who showed up on the first day of class. The rest of our affiliates skipped out due to "weather." Nonetheless, our revamped MLU is up and running.

Its opening day in the minor leagues. Buffalo's game has already been rained out with the games in New Hampshire and Michigan in doubt too. Dunedin could be our only hope for a game. But before the games begin it's time to talk about the minor league updates. The first MLU on Da Box was published on April 10, 2004. Alex Rios was in AAA, Aaron Hill in AA and a host of players who we had high hopes for were scattered through the system. Those of you with long memories might remember Vito Chiarravalotti, who we got excited about for a while before we learned that first basemen who mash in short season ball don't always make it to the big leagues.

I wrote my first MLU on April 12th, 2004. The Jays had a minor league team in Charleston and Greg Zaun was playing for the Jays AAA team in Syracuse. 2017 will be the 14th year of minor league coverage on Da Box, the longest continuous coverage of the Blue Jays minor leagues on the internet.

Minor league rosters will be announced this week. The Blue Jays do not release rosters until the home town teams have their chance to announce their teams first. Most of those announcements will come today and tomorrow. Some of the reporters covering the major league team will have some news sooner, and as I type this the Fisher Cats have released their roster.

It will take you a little bit longer for you to get inside Coca-Cola Field in Buffalo from now on. The team recently announced it will have metal detectors at the ballpark entrances in place for the 2017 season.


Metal detectors will greet fans heading to Bisons games starting Opening Day April 6. (Image from BallparkReviews.com)

Steve Ewen of The Vancouver Province says new turf may be installed at Nat Bailey Stadium in 2017 due to some bad hops in the infield.


The infield may have a different look at Nat Bailey Stadium this upcoming season.

The Toronto Blue Jays have rounded out its minor league managing and coaching staffs for the 2017 season. The most notable move sees Blue Jays legend Devon White (or Whyte) becoming the new hitting coach of the Buffalo Bisons.


Devon White will be in charge of the Blue Jays Triple-A hitters in 2017.

A few things of note in the Blue Jays minor league system. The Bluefield Blue Jays will continue to play ball at Bowen Field in 2017 and 2018 after the club agreed to a two-year extension of its Player Development Contract with Toronto. Bluefield joins Buffalo, New Hampshire, Lansing and Vancouver in having their stays extended for the next two seasons.


The Bluefield Blue Jays have been affiliated with Toronto since the 2011 campaign.

The final reveal! We have a top 10 list that looks a lot like last year's edition. Eight players return along with two new draftees. Max Pentecost and D.J. Davis hightail it out of the top 10.

We hope you enjoyed this year's list. A big thank you goes out to #2JBrumfield, sam and Thomas for helping select the top 30 and preparing the player stats and descriptions.

Day two of prospecting takes us to the numbers 11 through 20 prospects.

The new administration is very protective of prospects and draft picks. One piece of evidence supporting this assertion is that all thirty of last year's Batter's Box top 30 prospects are still with the organization. Those 30 prospects have been bolstered with the 2016 draft class plus two prospects who came over in the Liriano trade.

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. Thirteen of last year's top 30 prospects did not make it onto this year's list. Some of them have indeed regressed but the addition of this year's draftees, and the traded players, has raised the level of the top 30. A player who might have made the list last year, and who has maintained his performance level, might not make the list this year. In other words, this is a deeper system than 2015's. Baseball America has suggested that the Blue Jays now have a top 10 system, as compared to a bottom 10 system last year. On some top 30 lists the players in the 21 -30 range are barely prospects. This year's Blue Jay bottom third prospects includes some very good players. A strong top 30 needs star power at the top and depth at the bottom and this year's list has both.