Roster Speculation Too Early - Part 2

 Let's start with the bullpen because there seems less to say. There're two things here - one is that it's almost impossible to foresee a trade for a reliever coming in principle. I can't remember a trade for a pitcher that anyone rumored more than 24 hours before it happened. The other is that there's not really an obvious way to add a good reliever without losing a good reliever - barring injuries.

Eight MLB spots available. Hoffman, Garcia, Green, Rodriguez, and Swanson are effectively certain when healthy, as well-paid veterans. Likewise Little who has made himself indispensable. You're down to two spots already. If/when Sandlin recovers, he should be on the roster (though he technically has options. If Turnbull is added to the rotation (more on that in a bit) then Lauer is at last a candidate for long relief. That would be eight and yet Fluharty has earned a spot, Fisher has yet to be touched, Urena is at least present, and Burr will have to clear waivers if he's not added. They're obviously not all healthy, but even with three on the IL and Turnbull not quite here, there's really just one spot held by a dispensable guy. Of course, you don't know who will be healthy two months from now, so it could happen - but as of now it doesn't look like it HAS to happen.

The rotation though, there's a chance something big could happen depending on developing situation. Within two weeks, Turnbull will bump either Francis or Lauer but the one who survives that is not above being pushed aside for an acquisitions in a couple of months. But the complexity here comes from (again) the injury list. To be blunt, if Scherzer is still a question mark in two months then you have to treat it like he's not going to solve your need (of course if he is healthy there's much less of a problem here). Alek Manoah thinks he can get back in August some time, and if they make an acquisition they might block him (barring some newer injury on the staff) but they might well do so anyway.

But again - as it stands now, supply is an issue. There are only seven teams that have the appearance of being clear sellers at the moment. There might be as few as 10 at the deadline and the crop of good and theoretically available pitchers is even thinner than the hitters. Andrew Heaney might be the prize of the market in July. Go look at the rosters and count the number of guys that you'd trade for and expect a clear upgrade.

And the thing about both of these posts is that most of these consideration will have at least some application in free agency, If you count Manoah they'll have three rotation spots set, and if there's a big contract it would seemingly be a SP, but barring something really wild like going out and getting Tucker, there's not a buyers market in the off-season.

But off-season aside, I'll be pretty surprised if there's a game changing trade this summer and I expect considerable internet unrest even though it's largely out of their hands. 

Roster Speculation Too Early

 

 It's the time of year when you start seeing people speculate about what a contending version of the Jays might do in July to augment the roster - which has downstream implications for how the offseason would develop. What follows is loaded to the gils with assumptions that may not, in fact, manifest but it's at least one scenario that leads to a perhaps unexpected conclusion.

Let's first stipulate that the three areas of potential concern generally cited are SP upgrade, RP addition, and a RH hitter. Taking the last first, we're obliged to note that due to incumbent performance and contracts, there are two(ish) positions you can even entertain as open to upgrades. One is 3B and there's a fairly good chance that we'll be confident by July that there's no option available that promises a better outcome than we can get from Addison Barger. Yes, hot players can go cold and fail ala Davis Schneider but Barger was always a better prospect with more talent than Schneider who was a complete aberration when he was called up. 

The other is left field, more or less. For the sake of this exercise I'll call Santander our regular DH. When he's not Springer will be for the most part so either way, on opening in the outfield IF you operate from the premise that they dare not trust Lukes and the kids as they good into a playoff drive. That's NOT my position but if you assume that's a problem best solved internally then there's no real way to augment the batting order without something way more radical than this team is willing to do. Here's the thing though: go to FanGraphs and filter for RH hitting OF, ignore the players who are obviously not available, and look for players (theoretically) certain to be better down the stretch than Lukes/Roden/Clase/Loperfido and the list gets really short. Take out the few that are so young and controllable that their current team would be foolish to trade him and it's shorter still. 

Austin Hayes, Ramon Laureano and Tayler Ward. That's the three with a wRC+ higher than Myles Straw has right now. Three. Do I need to point out Laureano's combined WRC+ for the five seasons before this one combined is 101? He's not your savior. Hayes comes in slightly better at 106, but he was a free agent that they passed on last winter. Which means everyone looking to add an OF bat will be trying to get Ward - and he might not even be available.

Bottom line, barring a shocking acquisition of a player basically no one thinks is available - don't expect a big move here.

For the sake of length I'll discuss the pitching options in a separate column. 

Minor League Notes

 

I'm not really going to try and keep up the pretense of a systematically formatted overview here. I've never been satisfied with previous attempts and (as always) there's already five or so other columns on this same topic out there, perhaps with more insight. So I'm just relaying what I find to be worth remarking on - though I will go level by level.

This is the time of year that's most difficult for "scouting the stats." If you've followed my writings for a while you probably know that I kind of hang my hat on trends. Which players seem to be moving in a positive or negative direction? Likewise over the course of a season we get constantly reminded again that even though "month" is an entirely arbitrary end point, a good player can have a horrid month, and a marginal guy (at best) can look like an all-star for a month. So when you're sitting on the first weekend in May, you don't have enough of a sample to say very much about trends, and you don't want to over-react to one month of work.

Case in point, one Orelvis Martinez. Our #5 prospect (on the aggregate list) is stinking it up so far. He's hitting a not-exactly robust .151 with a .523 OPS and 31 strikeouts in 22 games. It would be unwise to panic but he's not beating down the door. In the "trending" department here you might note Joey Loperfido. After a 14 game cold streak in which he went 8 for 49, his BA was sitting at .188 (.607 OPS) but he's 7 for his last 19 (as of May 1) so maybe he'll continue to heat up. For good news we look to Jonatan Clase who's whose hitting .351 with an .872 OPS and he's already stolen 13 bases. there's a non-zero possibility that the Jays let Roden step back here and regroup, as they did with Wagner and Schneider, and see how Clase does with some major league run. Give a hat-tip to corner infielder Riley Tirotta too. he's got a .910 OPS so far. 

Among the pitchers it's been a month of waiting on guys to get it together and step up to their expectations a bit. For example, Jake Bloss (#4) got knocked around in his first three starts (to the tune of a 10.32 ERA) but has thrown 9 shutout innings over his last two starts, walking one and striking out 12. Less heralded, but with a good track record, Trent Wallace wasn't pilling up his usual high K rate but he's struck out 25 in his last 16.1 IP and the results have followed (2.76 ERA over those starts).

In AA, the Fisher Cats offense is making the Blue Jays group look like league leaders. There's ONE guy who's doing good work and it's not the guy anyone would have predicted a month ago. Yohendrick Piñango (guy needs a nickname I can spell) is the only hitter with above average output so far, sporting a .964 OPS. The next highest OPS is #26 Jace Bohrofen's .691 and he's got 33 strikeouts already.

The pitching, on the other hand, has been getting good results in most cases - so maybe this is a league/weather fluke favoring pitchers? - and the highest profile guy here is probably Ryan Jennings (#25) who kinda went sideways for a week but also has 21 K in 14.1 IP.

Now the best feel-good story in the system, at least among hitters, belongs to Arjun Nimmala. His six homers already leads the league despite being much younger than the average player in the NWL. He's also hitting .303 with a .940 OPS. 2024 6th round pick Aaron Parker is off to a sold start (.819 OPS) and #29 OF Victor Arias (.812) are also showing well, as is #20 prospect Adrian Pinto (.819).

Ranked prosect Juaron Watts-Brown (19) has been pretty dominant (leads the NWL in strikeouts) and is building momentum towards a AA promotion maybe by the end of the month. He has 37 strikeouts (against only 8 walks) in 22.2 IP. Not ranked and largely unheralded coming into the year, Grant Rogers has a 2.22 ERA over 5 starts. He's the oldest starter here and needs to be challenged with a promotion son. Three or four good relief arms so far too that might be mentioned here over the coming 4 months.

The Dunedin squad has some interesting stories. Start with SS Manuel Beltre, who's on his third try with the D-Jays. For two years he hasn't even been average offensively, but in this early small sample he's got an .885 OPS with a significantly better BB/K ratio. RF Yeuni Munoz who had been considered interesting but not ranked on anyone's list has 5 homers in 16 games and sports a 1.053 OPS. Shortstop Bryce Arnold, an undrafted free agent in 2023, would have seemed to be just an org guy but at the moment he's got a .983 OPS so maybe we keep an eye on him. CF Braden Berry is hitting .347 (.868) has been solid. Another sleeper to watch is also an undrafted FA - 1B Payton Powell. He's walked 13 times and struck out only seven. Gonna need some XBH though.

If there's a pitching companion to Nimmala's early season success, it's Trey Yesavage. The 2nd ranked prospect in the system sports a 2.31 ERA and 36 K in 23.1 IP. Draft mate Khal Stephen (9th )is also dominating with a 2.19 ERA in five outing. The two of them also look like candidates to move u in the next few weeks, Watts-Brown and Rogers moving to make way for these two would be my guess. Another guy to watch is Greg Stanifer, a SP who's been piggy-backed with Yesavege this season. Last season he walked 50 in 59.2 IP - this year he has 8 in 18 with 9 hits and 24 K. His ERA is 0.50 which it eye-popping. Also shout-out to last year's 9th round choice Colby Holcombe who has a 2.25 ERA and also has to be on the radar to move up.

Meanwhile on the IL watch Brandon Barriera (ranked 13th) just past one year out from his internal brace elbow surgery and Landen Moroudis (14th) is three weeks short of the one year anniversary of his and both are reportedly on the cusp of pitching again in games that count. With the Complex League starting up this weekend, the two of them are likely to see some game action there and if all goes well be penciled in to fill a couple of the openings that will arise with the D-Jays before mid-season. Alek Manoah's IBS was roughly a month after Moroudis' so this time next month we'll be hearing, barring a setback, about the approach of his first game action. Ricky Teidemann's surgery was in July so put him down as maybe a month behind Manoah.

Speaking of the GCL, where the begin play today (May 3) their initial roster (subject to change) features an unusually intriguing quintet of SP. Three high-school draftees from the '24 draft, highly praised (and 11th ranked) Johnny King, intriguing Carson Messina, (28th), and under-the-radar Troy Guthrie will join two graduates who earned their tickets out of the DSL last summer. Cuban Silvano Hechavarria (21) had a 1.84 ERA and impressive ratios, given his age relative to the league he might get the first promotion to the D-Jays here beyond the rehabbers. Sann Omasako, a 19 year old Brazilian, had a 2.49 ERA in the DSL and only walked 7 in 76 IP over 19 games ('23-'24) in the Dominican. On the offensive side, the organization will be trying to get ranked prospect (27) Emmanuel Bonilla on track after his '24 season went badly off the rails. Obviously we'll know more in a month.