Do the Jays have trouble drafting/developing hitters?

[AdamGreenwood]

It seems that the Jays are very good at developing pitching talent. In addition to all the young arms helping us now, many of the players on the team are here as a result of pitchers we've traded away.

But looking at the position players, we don't have a lot of homegrown talent:

 

C: Russell Martin: Dodgers sytem. Acquired as free agent.

1B: Colabello: Twins system. Claimed off waivers.

2B: Devon Travis: Tigers system. Acquired via trade (Gose).:

3B: Josh Donaldson: A's sytem. Acquried via trade (Lawrie+2 pitchers+SS prospect)

SS: Tulowitzki: Rockies system. Acquired via trade (Reyes+3 pithers)

RF: Bautista: Pirates system: Acquired via trade.

CF: Pillar (homegrown)

LF: Revere: Phillies system. Acquired via trade. (pitching prospects)

DH: Edwin Encarnacion: Reds system. Acquired via trade.

 

Main Backups:

 

C: Navarro (Yankees system)

1B: Smoak (Rangers system)

2B Goins: (homegrown)

 

If we do have a problem, maybe we should trust in our strenghts, and focus on developing pitchers, which we can then trade away for position players.

[G-Snarls]

Why this thread now?

[GD]

Drafting, maybe. Developing, clearly not

[Laika]

It's a fact that the Blue Jays think it's easier to scout amateur pitching. I don't think it's about a lack of development. They just draft a lot of arms.

 

On one hand, it's not a good approach because of the failure and attrition rate of pitching. High school pitching is the riskiest of the four main draft prospect types.

 

But on the other hand, pitching makes for very fluid trade currency because every team in baseball always will covet controllable pitching, to some extent. Whereas if you have a hitting prospect at a specific position, you might simply not line up with teams that have depth at that position.

 

Also, if the organization truly is better at scouting pitchers then that could overcome the attrition "risk" of amateur arms and make selecting them more often a viable strategy.

 

Further, you need to invest in pitching somewhere. Maybe it's a more sensible prospecting strategy to load up on arms, and try to create a pipeline. Even if many of them fail, as they will, you should have more cheap ones coming. And then when it comes to the major league payroll you can invest heavily in hitting there, in the place where the injury risk of pitchers really hurts when you get dinged by it.

 

This is ostensibly what the Blue Jays do, from the outside looking in. They spend most of their amateur budget (~$10M) per year on a truck of amateur pitching, let it develop over time, and spend most of their major league payroll in any given year on hitters. Vlad Guerrero jr. might have been a slight deviation from the normal plan, but they still had 4 of their top 5 rule 4 draft players as pitchers.

[Angrioter]

If we do have a problem, maybe we should trust in our strenghts, and focus on developing pitchers, which we can then trade away for position players.

 

Revere Twins System

[Grant77]

Also, Edwin signed with Texas as an amateur.

 

It's amazing how many currently good 1B/DHs were originally Rangers.

 

Nelson Cruz 158 wRC+

Edwin Encarnacion 150

Chris Davis 147

Mark Teixeira 143

Adrian Gonzalez 129

Mitch Moreland 115

Justin Smoak 107

 

You should know that Adrian Gonzalez was not drafted by the Rangers. He was a first overall pick!

 

Nelson Cruz was with THREE teams before the Rangers. Remember the big Carlos Lee trade?

[LGBJ29]

Drafting, maybe. Developing, clearly not

 

this. I don't see a problem the way they developed Jose, Edwin, Cola

[dineke]

Yet they have the greatest offense seen in recent history. pretty amazing.

[Grant77]

You're right! I always imagine that the Rangers drafted Adrian first and quickly moved him to San Diego, but it was the Marlins who quickly moved him to Texas.

 

At least they did develop a ton of these guys.

 

They certainly did. On the flip side, Texas has never been able to develop good starting pitching in my lifetime. Their atrocious 4.68 ERA over the past 25 years is only beaten by the Rockies. CJ Wilson (and Colby Lewis, kind of) are the only legitimately good pitchers that they have drafted and developed in that entire 25 year span. A couple of ok guys have been dealt as prospects, but that's all I really see. Even Wilson (5 full years as RP) and Lewis (went to Japan) took really weird developmental paths.

[Angrioter]

You should know that Adrian Gonzalez was not drafted by the Rangers. He was a first overall pick!

 

Nelson Cruz was with THREE teams before the Rangers. Remember the big Carlos Lee trade?

 

Sammy Sosa?

[Candide]

whatever happened to Hank Blalock? I remember how he and Hinske were tabbed as the second coming of Mike Schmidt.

[admin]

AG going back to the AG of old.

[Nafro]

My thoughts are in 3-5 years from now, when the names of at least a few of Anthony Alford, Rowdy Tellez, Dalton Pompey, Richard Urena, Dan Jansen, Vlad Jr. and Max Pentecost are considered well developed major league hitters. The thought that the Jays can only develop pitching may change. Also Franklin Baretto will probably be someone who the Jays signed that becomes a very good major league hitter.

[TheHurl]

I think there was a system wide issue with hitting priorities at one point. Most significantly IMO, was zero concern for K-Rates (including in those that did not have power) but there appears to be a shift in that (along with a few things that I was fundamentally opposed to...now I hate him more as a person than a GM) line of thinking. As NJH said they have more than prioritized pitching in the draft (I'm not sold the trading commodity it became was a plan, but it has certainly turned out well in that regard) but because of the trade success I could see more middle of the pack teams trying the same thing (Bad teams will follow the Cubs formula of most major league ready power hitter)

[glory]

Jays never had a problem developing talent under Ash and appear to be even better at developing talent under AA.

 

Don't let a decade of JP Ricciardi drafts cloud reality. The Jays develop talent, either internally or in trades. They just didn't do so when Ricciardi was drafting 24-year DH's with no power in the first round.