Official MiLB/Prospects Thread

[Ehjays]

Slow day, thought I would throw this Pre-draft tweet out from last year. No need to dream boys , this guy is ours!!

 

[Blazeit420]

"Premier body"

 

Easy there Ian.

[Ehjays]

 

This guy is an analyst for ProspectsLive. He is coming boys. Not sure if it will be this year or next but soon he will be here.

[L54]

 

This guy is an analyst for ProspectsLive. He is coming boys. Not sure if it will be this year or next but soon he will be here.

 

Yes he is. I’ve heard guys put Shane McClanahan comps on him. If he’s healthy and producing there’s no way he shouldn’t be in the big leagues this year.

 

This is going to be a big year for prospects in the Jays system. A couple guys like Tiedemann, Barger, Horowitz, Zulueta, all of a sudden breaking out and looking like a legit 26 man piece would help the long term outlook. The team is getting expensive.

[Jimcanuck]

Pfaadt is considered Tiedemann's equal as a breakout pitching prospect. Getting him in a deal for one of the 3C would be a coup.

[L54]

Pfaadt is considered Tiedemann's equal as a breakout pitching prospect. Getting him in a deal for one of the 3C would be a coup.

 

Well he would cost Moreno or Kirk so I’d be hesitant to call it a coup

[Jimcanuck]

Well he would cost Moreno or Kirk so I’d be hesitant to call it a coup

 

Well if you get one of the OF as well. I'm firmly in the camp that Moreno or Kirk for Pfaadt and Thomas is a good deal for the Jays. Moreno probably not enough, but Kirk might be.

[Ehjays]

Yes he is. I’ve heard guys put Shane McClanahan comps on him. If he’s healthy and producing there’s no way he shouldn’t be in the big leagues this year.

 

This is going to be a big year for prospects in the Jays system. A couple guys like Tiedemann, Barger, Horowitz, Zulueta, all of a sudden breaking out and looking like a legit 26 man piece would help the long term outlook. The team is getting expensive.

 

Yes when your payroll is up like the Jays, having your farm graduate is a huge help. In the FO's defence, Big Nate not graduating threw a wrench in their plans. But yes we have some interesting names coming , Id also throw Danner in the list that could help the team this year.

[Ehjays]

Well if you get one of the OF as well. I'm firmly in the camp that Moreno or Kirk for Pfaadt and Thomas is a good deal for the Jays. Moreno probably not enough, but Kirk might be.

 

[Stangstag]

Well if you get one of the OF as well. I'm firmly in the camp that Moreno or Kirk for Pfaadt and Thomas is a good deal for the Jays. Moreno probably not enough, but Kirk might be.

 

I’d do it. Sending them to AZ at least won’t feel bad because they suck. Much preferable than sending Kirk/Moreno somewhere in the AL

[Ehjays]

[Ehjays]

https://www.mlb.com/news/breakout-prospects-for-each-mlb-team-2023?t=mlb-pipeline-coverage

 

These 30 prospects will break out in 2023

 

Blue Jays: Brandon Barriera, LHP (No. 3)

Toronto developed the blueprint for taking a talented left-hander to the next level last year with Ricky Tiedemann, and could follow a similar path with Barriera, its first-round pick last July. The pieces are there for the 18-year-old lefty to make the jump -- starting with a fastball that can already touch 96 mph as well as an above-average slider and a promising changeup. If the Jays can unlock a little more velo with Barriera (who seemed motivated by only going 22nd overall in the Draft) as they did with Tiedemann in his first full season, they could have yet another Top 100 southpaw on their hands by midseason.

[Brownie19]

Just to stir the pot, Fangraphs lists Nick Frassco #16 in the Dodgers prospect ranking. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/los-angeles-dodgers-top-51-prospects-2023/

 

Frasso was an atypical college draftee, with his prospectdom more about projection than present stuff. He started throwing harder pretty quickly, sitting 95 mph early in 2021 when he had merely topped out there at Loyola Marymount, but in June of that year, Frasso blew out and required Tommy John. Not even 11 months clear of the surgery Frasso looked fantastic on the Blue Jays backfields, sitting 94-96 and touching 97-98 in early outings, and he was traded to Los Angeles for Mitch White not long after that. Perhaps more important than the arm strength coming back are the improvements Frasso’s secondaries have shown. His breaking ball has added power and velocity. Once a loopy, low-80s slurve, Frasso’s slider is now a solid big league offering in the 83-85 mph range, and he also has a high-spin changeup with lots of horizontal movement. It’s his third-most used offering at the moment but it has massive potential as Frasso continues to build experience with it, and it’s projected as his best eventual pitch here. All of this is seasoned with a deceptive cross-body delivery and huge extension. Los Angeles hustled him to Tulsa for the last month of the season and he’s on track for a 2024 debut, especially if Frasso can sustain the relatively new velo across more innings.

[The Iceman]

https://razzball.com/toronto-blue-jays-top-10-prospects-for-2023-fantasy-baseball/

 

Pretty good BJ prospects for fantasy purposes take from the folks at Razzball

[Terminator]

Just to stir the pot, Fangraphs lists Nick Frassco #16 in the Dodgers prospect ranking. https://blogs.fangraphs.com/los-angeles-dodgers-top-51-prospects-2023/

 

Frasso was an atypical college draftee, with his prospectdom more about projection than present stuff. He started throwing harder pretty quickly, sitting 95 mph early in 2021 when he had merely topped out there at Loyola Marymount, but in June of that year, Frasso blew out and required Tommy John. Not even 11 months clear of the surgery Frasso looked fantastic on the Blue Jays backfields, sitting 94-96 and touching 97-98 in early outings, and he was traded to Los Angeles for Mitch White not long after that. Perhaps more important than the arm strength coming back are the improvements Frasso’s secondaries have shown. His breaking ball has added power and velocity. Once a loopy, low-80s slurve, Frasso’s slider is now a solid big league offering in the 83-85 mph range, and he also has a high-spin changeup with lots of horizontal movement. It’s his third-most used offering at the moment but it has massive potential as Frasso continues to build experience with it, and it’s projected as his best eventual pitch here. All of this is seasoned with a deceptive cross-body delivery and huge extension. Los Angeles hustled him to Tulsa for the last month of the season and he’s on track for a 2024 debut, especially if Frasso can sustain the relatively new velo across more innings.

 

“Future superstar” according to some.

[Ray]

Not sure this was reported anywhere, but Brandon Barriera was apparently touching 99 mph at Instructs facing live hitters for the first time since shutting down in May.

 

https://dmfox.substack.com/p/whos-the-next-blue-jays-breakout

[Eat My Shatkins]

Not sure this was reported anywhere, but Brandon Barriera was apparently touching 99 mph at Instructs facing live hitters for the first time since shutting down in May.

 

https://dmfox.substack.com/p/whos-the-next-blue-jays-breakout

 

f***ing rights

[Deadpool]

Not sure this was reported anywhere, but Brandon Barriera was apparently touching 99 mph at Instructs facing live hitters for the first time since shutting down in May.

 

https://dmfox.substack.com/p/whos-the-next-blue-jays-breakout

 

Stoked to see what this kid can do this year!

[Brownie19]

Not sure this was reported anywhere, but Brandon Barriera was apparently touching 99 mph at Instructs facing live hitters for the first time since shutting down in May.

 

https://dmfox.substack.com/p/whos-the-next-blue-jays-breakout

 

Should I care who Jimmy Robbins is? This article suggests he showed big league rotation promise - yet I've never heard of him.

[Deadpool]

Should I care who Jimmy Robbins is? This article suggests he showed big league rotation promise - yet I've never heard of him.

 

What a weird fangraphs page...

 

Jumped 3 levels last year after not pitching at all in 2020 or 2021, has a total of 28 professional games (18 starts) and he'll be 25 this year. I'm guessing lots of injuries, but some of the numbers look quite good in ridiculously small sample sizes.

[wamco]

Batters box top 30.

 

https://www.battersbox.ca/article.ph...22121915561212

 

 

https://www.battersbox.ca/article.ph...21219160228275

 

https://www.battersbox.ca/article.ph...21219160811527

[Ehjays]

https://www.sportsnet.ca/mlb/article/pitching-prospect-macko-joins-blue-jays-with-high-hopes-and-high-strikeout-rates?fbclid=IwAR0MwEIpWHtfoliqhPrbH-SKv5Niu-lHJf5S2jWUnMzU-8Va_lpALCAobmo

 

 

Pitching prospect Macko joins Blue Jays with high hopes – and high strikeout rates

 

As the Toronto Blue Jays and Seattle Mariners completed the mid-November trade that saw Teoscar Hernandez swap teams with Erik Swanson and Adam Macko, the young left-handed pitcher was asleep.

 

A phone call from Andy McKay, the Mariners' senior director of player development, woke Macko unexpectedly. Though he’d never been traded before, the recently turned 22-year-old had a hunch he might be on the move when he saw McKay’s name on his phone.

 

"I don’t think I’ve ever received a call from him, so I had a feeling that it meant I might have been traded," Macko said over Zoom. "At that point, I was sad to be leaving the Mariners. They’re a great organization where I’ve made so many memories and built so many relationships.

 

"It was my first trade, so I wasn’t really sure what to expect."

 

What came next for the 6’0" lefty was a whirlwind couple of months.

 

He had to re-schedule his first-ever vacation so he could complete his physicals at the Blue Jays' spring training facility in Dunedin, Fla., travelling there from his off-season home in Vancouver.

 

 

Of course, travelling and moving aren’t exactly new to the Slovakian-born pitcher.

 

Macko has taken an unusual path to the professional ranks, starting in a country "where baseball is unheard of," as he put it.

 

After moving from Slovakia to Ireland at 11 and then to Stony Plain, Alta., just over a year later, he settled in at southern Alberta’s Vauxhall Academy of Baseball, where he played until Seattle selected him in the seventh round of the 2019 MLB Draft.

 

During his formative years in baseball, YouTube gave him his introduction to pitching. Macko would watch videos of MLB stars Justin Verlander and David Price, emulating two of the game’s best.

 

His admiration for Price converged with his rooting interests when the Cy Young winner was traded to the Blue Jays during the summer of 2015.

 

"Once I got to Canada, obviously the team to support was the Blue Jays, so they were the first team I would watch religiously and support, so I'm beyond excited to be a Blue Jay," Macko said. "Once Price got traded to Toronto, it was awesome. I loved watching them play. I remember watching the Jose Bautista bat flip … it was probably the most exciting baseball moment that I’ve watched."

 

Fast forward seven years, and Macko now finds himself as the eighth-best prospect in the Blue Jays farm system, per MLB Pipeline.

 

His four-pitch arsenal features a fastball that sits around 93 m.p.h. and has topped out at 97 along with a curveball, slider and change-up.

 

 

He joins the Blue Jays organization with 95 career minor league innings under his belt, 38.1 of which came in 2022 for the Everett AquaSox, the Mariners’ high-A affiliate.

 

While battling an elbow strain and meniscus injury, Macko posted a 3.99 ERA with the AquaSox, striking out 35.9 per cent of the hitters he faced.

 

As he continues to improve on the mound, balancing his work ethic with caring for his body has become one of Macko’s top priorities.

 

"I’ve never been afraid of working hard, but I understand now that I’ve always been overworking myself and never letting [my body] rest," he said. "I always wanted to push myself to get better because there’s always someone else working hard.

 

"I’m starting to understand that recovery is a good thing. I've learned that it's really about the quality of the reps that I'm doing rather than the quantity."

 

Vauxhall’s head coach, Les McTavish, saw that work ethic in Macko from an early age.

 

"He’s obsessed with being great. He would wake up at six in the morning in high school to go to the gym and work on his core and go through his stretching routine," McTavish said in a Zoom interview. "There are very few people that I’ve ever met that are like that."

 

That drive to be great was evident when Macko — in grade 10 at the time — told Vauxhall’s strength coach, Jeff Krushell, that his goal is to make the Hall of Fame.

 

"All of us as a staff remember that because he just had a confidence in him," McTavish said. "That’s the mentality he had as a 15-year-old. He wants to be great at everything he does. He’s extremely driven in the sense that he tries to turn over every rock to figure out how to get better, and he’s been like that from a young age."

 

 

Now transitioning to a new organization, Macko’s goals aren’t changing — for 2023 or beyond.

 

"This off-season, I’m trying to build up some more strength to throw harder and to protect my elbow, shoulder and whole body to withstand the whole season," he said. "Long term, my ultimate goal is to make the Hall of Fame, but I don’t think it’d be worth being in the hall if I didn’t win a couple of World Series.

 

"I think it’d be awesome to do that with the Blue Jays. To bring a championship back to not only Toronto but to all of Canada would be so special."

[Ray]

Great thread by Chris Black (Sportsnet content producer) on Ricky Tiedemann

 

 

Never noticed it before, but his windup is almost a complete replica of Chris Sales.

[John_Havok]

Great thread by Chris Black (Sportsnet content producer) on Ricky Tiedemann

 

 

Never noticed it before, but his windup is almost a complete replica of Chris Sales.

 

My arm needs surgery just watching that.

[Dagagad]

Any word on who we signed in international free agency?

[Spanky__99]

Any word on who we signed in international free agency?

 

Isn't that Sunday? Yeah, it's Sunday, we're linked to Bonilla...

 

Enmanuel

Bonilla

OF

 

AGE

16

BATS

R

DOB

01/22/2006

THROWS

R

HT

6' 1"

WT

190

Scouting grades: Hit: 50 | Power: 55 | Run: 50 | Arm: 50 | Field: 55 | Overall: 55

 

A corner outfielder from the Dominican Republic, Bonilla already shows plus raw power and is one of the best sluggers in the class.

 

Physically, he’s strong and mature with room to develop even more. And while his hit tool is a work in progress just like other prospects his age, Bonilla shows superior bat speed and the ability to hit fastballs hard to all fields. He has the potential to make an impact on the game each time he steps into the batter’s box.

 

On defense, he shows good instincts with a solid arm and could stick in center field. There’s a chance he could move to a corner position in the outfield as his body matures, and he’s athletic enough to play all three spots.

 

Bonilla trains with Ysbel Medina. The Blue Jays have shown interest in him.

[Dagagad]

Isn't that Sunday?

 

My bad, thought it was the first.

[Krylian]

Isn't that Sunday? Yeah, it's Sunday, we're linked to Bonilla...

 

Enmanuel

Bonilla

OF

 

AGE

16

BATS

R

DOB

01/22/2006

THROWS

R

HT

6' 1"

WT

190

Scouting grades: Hit: 50 | Power: 55 | Run: 50 | Arm: 50 | Field: 55 | Overall: 55

 

A corner outfielder from the Dominican Republic, Bonilla already shows plus raw power and is one of the best sluggers in the class.

 

Physically, he’s strong and mature with room to develop even more. And while his hit tool is a work in progress just like other prospects his age, Bonilla shows superior bat speed and the ability to hit fastballs hard to all fields. He has the potential to make an impact on the game each time he steps into the batter’s box.

 

On defense, he shows good instincts with a solid arm and could stick in center field. There’s a chance he could move to a corner position in the outfield as his body matures, and he’s athletic enough to play all three spots.

 

Bonilla trains with Ysbel Medina. The Blue Jays have shown interest in him.

 

Apparently he'll be in the $4M range. That should eat up most of our cap space

[jaysguy44]

https://twitter.com/VarshOAA/status/1614299871967674369?t=XfXcFlwUUjsSPNdCpUhYTw&s=19

[Spanky__99]

https://twitter.com/VarshOAA/status/1614299871967674369?t=XfXcFlwUUjsSPNdCpUhYTw&s=19

 

Any relation to Juan?