TwistedLogic

Who has him ranked that high? I still can't find him anywhere on BA 500.

Don't forget Boyd.

Bukauskas is a near-impossible sign (like Bickford was), so expect him to reach the Jays at #83, and to continue sliding beyond that point. Based on everything the Jays have done the past few years, you would expect them to begin punting picks on off-board seniors at some point soon to free up cap space, but it's strange in the sense that, they don't actually need any additional cap space for their current three picks. Despite drafting three very highly-touted prospects, the savings they are expected to make on the Hoffman pick, and probably even the Pentecost pick to a certain extent should be more than enough to afford Reid-Foley. It will be an incredibly interesting thing to follow and keep an eye on as we get deeper into the draft, because outside of the Jays draft room, I don't think anybody knows anything about their strategy.

Toronto Blue Jays 2014 First Year Player Draft - Full Draft Results [table=width: 800, class: outer_border, align: center] [tr] [td]RD[/td] [td]PK[/td] [td]RK[/td] [td]PLAYER[/td] [td]SCHOOL[/td] [td]POS[/td] [td]B/T[/td] [td]CLASS[/td] [td]SCOUT[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]01[/td] [td]9[/td] [td]13[/td] [td]Jeff Hoffman[/td] [td]East Carolina (NC)[/td] [td]RHP[/td] [td]R/R[/td] [td]JR[/td] [td]Video[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]01[/td] [td]11[/td] [td]10[/td] [td]Max Pentecost[/td] [td]Kennesaw State (GA)[/td] [td]C[/td] [td]R/R[/td] [td]JR[/td] [td]Video[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]02[/td] [td]49[/td] [td]19[/td] [td]Sean Reid-Foley[/td] [td]Sandalwood HS (FL)[/td] [td]RHP[/td] [td]R/R[/td] [td]HS[/td] [td]Video[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]03[/td] [td]83[/td] [td]119[/td] [td]Nick Wells[/td] [td]Battlefield HS (VA)[/td] [td]LHP[/td] [td]L/L[/td] [td]HS[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]04[/td] [td]114[/td] [td]151[/td] [td]Matt Morgan[/td] [td]Thorsby HS (AL)[/td] [td]C[/td] [td]R/R[/td] [td]HS[/td] [td]Video[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]05[/td] [td]144[/td] [td]172[/td] [td]Lane Thomas[/td] [td]Bearden HS (TN)[/td] [td]RF[/td] [td]R/R[/td] [td]HS[/td] [td]Video[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]06[/td] [td]174[/td] [td]309[/td] [td]Grayson Huffman[/td] [td]Grayson County College (TX)[/td] [td]LHP[/td] [td]L/L[/td] [td]J1[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]07[/td] [td]204[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [td]Zack Zehner[/td] [td]Cal Poly - San Luis Obispo (CA)[/td] [td]LF[/td] [td]R/R[/td] [td]SR[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]08[/td] [td]234[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [td]Justin Shafer[/td] [td]Florida (FL)[/td] [td]RHP[/td] [td]R/R[/td] [td]JR[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]09[/td] [td]264[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [td]Ryan Metzler[/td] [td]USC Aiken (SC)[/td] [td]2B[/td] [td]R/R[/td] [td]JR[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [/tr][tr] [td]10[/td] [td]294[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [td]Jordan Romano[/td] [td]Oral Roberts (OK)[/td] [td]RHP[/td] [td]R/R[/td] [td]JR[/td] [td]N/A[/td] [/tr] [/table] RD: Round | PK: Pick | RK: BA Top 500 Rank

http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/images/events/draft/y2014/draft_header_logo_647x74.jpg http://www.chicagonow.com/cubs-den/files/2013/11/2014-Draft.jpg Click HERE to Watch Day 2 Draft Coverage LIVE on MLB.com Notes Day 2 draft coverage will begin with a pre-show at 12:30PM EST on MLB.com. Rounds 3-10 will be broadcast beginning at 1:00PM EST. Day 3 draft coverage will begin at 1:00PM EST, broadcasting Rounds 11-40 and concluding the 2014 First-Year Player Draft. Day 1 Recap: The Toronto Blue Jays selected three consensus Top-20 picks in college right-hander Jeff Hoffman (Picked #9, Ranked #13), college catcher Max Pentecost (Picked #11, Ranked #10) and prep righty Sean-Reid Foley (Picked #49, Ranked #19) The draft slot allocations for these picks are as follows: Jeff Hoffman, picked #9 overall, is slotted at $3,080,800 and expected to sign significantly underslot. Max Pentecost, picked #11 overall, is slotted at $2,888,300 and expected to sign at or slightly below slot. Sean-Reid Foley, picked #49 overall, is being speculated to be a tough sign, but with a slot value of $1,128,800, and a comfortable budget as a result of the earlier two picks, the Jays are expected to sign him as well. The Blue Jays' first selection on Day 2 will come at #9 in Round 3 (83rd overall), and after the Marlins make their lone pick in the Supplemental Round, the Jays will draft after every 30 picks (#9 of each round) thereafter, until the conclusion of the 2014 draft. Below you will find the results of Round 1 and Comp Round A from Day 1, a link to the results for Round 2, the top remaining players on Baseball America's Top 500 list, and a set of useful links that will keep you informed and up-to-date on all draft-related news. Round 1 Results (+Compensation Round A) http://i.imgur.com/Dom2cHx.png *Click above image to be redirected to the Draft Tracker on MLB.com* Click here for results of Round 2 and all subsequent draft rounds 2014 Baseball America Top 500: Best Remaining Players http://i.imgur.com/kNKoBIL.png http://i.imgur.com/inZota0.png http://i.imgur.com/ai5Cd2M.png http://i.imgur.com/OJvmPfo.png http://i.imgur.com/LZhndUm.png Black: Taken | Red: Available | Blue: Blue Jays Useful Links Blue Jays Message Board Mock Draft Results Full Draft Order Draft Tracker MLB.com Top 200 Baseball America Top 500 Assigned Slot Values for Rounds 1-10 Toronto Blue Jays Draft Jeff Hoffman Toronto Blue Jays Draft Max Pentecost Basic Info Clip: Sean Reid-Foley http://i.gyazo.com/ff1b72f97b08263ac3c2845349373d22.png *Credits go to King for providing headers and Day 1 draft thread, ace for providing an infinite amount of prospect and draft data throughout the season, baubau for finding the Pentecost reaction video, and to all of the respective websites from which we've retrieved the above information.

He took a lot of heat early because Jays fans as a collective group are generally a bunch of morons. It pains me to say that because there was once upon a time that I took pride in being a part of this fan base, thinking that it was one of the more educated and rational lots, but that misguided assumption went out the window a while ago. Just look at the general opinion that Seitzer is a god now while he should have been fired 5 weeks ago. If the Jays struggle for a few weeks in the future, it'll be back to #FireGibby, #FireSeitzer, #Firesale. Gibby has always been a great manager, and Seitzer by all indications is a very good hitting coach. If the players don't perform, that isn't on the coaches.

I'm going to miss Joe Siddall

You're such a f***ing loser http://i.imgur.com/py2PxcN.gif

The Rays, the Jays, and Another Look at the Odds by Jeff Sullivan - June 4, 2014 It’s been about a month since the last time I did this, so it seems like it’s time for an update. Again, eventually, you’ll be able to click on a team on the Playoff Odds page and see what the odds were on any given day. That’s still not a tool we have at our disposal, though, so your continued loss is my continued gain, as in the meantime I still get to author these posts. The image should be fairly self-explanatory. The odds are based on player projections, schedules, and author-maintained team-by-team depth charts. http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/oddschange6414.png At the start of the season, we gave the Blue Jays about a 27% chance of making the playoffs. At this writing, they stand at 77%, fourth-highest in baseball. At the other extreme is a rival of the Jays, the Rays. Before the year, we had their odds right around 51%. Currently they come in just above 6%, which in a sense are pretty good odds for a team tied for baseball’s worst record. The Rays are tied with the Cubs in record, and the Cubs’ odds are between 0-1%. Good news, Tampa Bay! Now, that’s interesting. It’s also interesting to compare this chart to the chart from a month ago. At that point, the Jays’ odds had barely changed. The Rays were down about 18 percentage points. Since then, the Rays have tanked further while the Jays have caught fire. Since May 5 — when the post was published — the Jays have gone 21-7, better than anybody else. The Rays have gone 8-19, worse than anybody else. Helping the Jays has been the re-emergence of Edwin Encarnacion; hurting the Rays has been almost literally everything, including the underperformance and subsequent injury of Wil Myers. It just came across the wire that Jeremy Hellickson is getting closer, but at this point it seems like too little, too late. Two months in and the Rays are too far gone, and it looks like David Price will be available starting any day now. The good news for Tampa is there are plenty of teams who could use him. The estimated number of those teams is 30. As of last month, five teams had seen playoff-odds changes of at least 20 percentage points. Now we’re at eight, with the Rangers understandably showing up next to the Rays in the image above. As of May 5, the Rangers’ odds had actually gone up since the end of March. But they’ve since cratered, the team having gone 12-15 and with all the players getting hurt. Now, 12-15 isn’t a terrible stretch of baseball, but consider that, over the same window, the A’s went 17-10. The Angels went 15-12. The Mariners went 17-13. Even the Astros went 15-13. The Rangers have lost ground to the whole division, and they’ve suffered more injuries, which is why now they’re barely clinging on. Alexi Ogando is the latest victim, hitting the disabled list with elbow discomfort. That happened a few minutes ago. The upside for the Rangers is that he’s been bad, which is some really dark upside. The Brewers have slightly strengthened their position. While they’ve gone a decent 14-13 since May 5, the Cardinals have also gone just 14-13, so while the projections continue to like the Cardinals more, there’s now a month less remaining of the regular season. The Pirates have partially recovered; a month ago, they were down about 27 percentage points. They’ve cut that basically in half, after going 16-11 and getting closer to the debut of Gregory Polanco. In short: the Pirates are in a worse position than they were in March, but they’re in a better position than they were a month ago. The projections like them better than the Brewers, but they dug a deep hole in April. The Mariners have been one of baseball’s hottest teams, but you don’t even seem them in the chart, because they’re essentially where they started. In March, their odds were in the low-30s, and currently, they’re again in the low-30s. But they were in the 20s in early May, so while it’s been a struggle to gain ground on Oakland and Los Angeles, the Rangers have been hurt and the Mariners presently occupy one of the two wild-card slots. Seven teams below the Mariners are within 2.5 games of the Mariners. Nobody’s safe. Except for maybe the A’s and Giants. Right now they’re the two teams with playoff odds above 90%. They did a lot to help themselves before a month ago, but they’ve also both gone 17-10 *since* a month ago, the Giants running the best record in the National League. While the projections continue to prefer the Dodgers to the Giants, the Dodgers are also seven games worse than the Giants, and they’re projected to finish four games back. The Tigers are in the next-best spot, but a mediocre month has kept them in place, losing a little ground to the Indians. Right now, 21 teams have at least a 1-in-10 shot at the playoffs. Of those, 16 different teams have at least a 1-in-5 shot at the playoffs, and ten teams are at least 1-in-2. To look at things differently, 13 teams have at least a 1-in-10 shot at the division. Of those, nine teams are at least 1-in-5, and five teams are at least 1-in-2. The NL Central has the least-secure division leader, even though the NL East is tightest. Now, a table. Before the year, we had, for each team, an expected winning percentage. Now we have a new expected rest-of-season winning percentage, based on updated depth charts and projections (and schedules). This has nothing to do with wins and losses already in the books. Which teams have changed the most in terms of projections? http://i.gyazo.com/0eb06a9e606b3e764b9ec3aaf558b15d.png Leading the way are those Houston Astros. They’re projected now as something like a 72-win team, where before they were projected as a 67-win team. Now, George Springer is a starter. Now, Jon Singleton is a starter. Now, Dallas Keuchel and Collin McHugh have improved. Behind the Astros you get the Braves, A’s, and Jays. On the other end, the Rangers project much much worse, almost entirely due to an impossible number of roster injuries. Their initial projection was inflated a little by over-optimism regarding Tanner Scheppers and Robbie Ross, but the bulk of this is because of all the DL stints. The drop in the Rangers’ projection is more than double the drop of any other team’s projection. The Yankees project worse, probably because they miss CC Sabathia and Michael Pineda. Everything here hinges on mathematical projections, so there’s a certain accuracy ceiling. If you like a team more or less than the projections, then that affects almost every single number. But you can consider this a starting point. It’s a good starting point, for Jays fans. http://i.gyazo.com/063bcf393c9dd08e2bd71097fa9dedec.png

16-3 in the last 19 games.

Why don't we throw a switch hitter with nearly identical career splits into a platoon... yeah... that seems like a great idea...

Did you vote "f*** off" on your own poll?

Ugh

There's not many jobs out there in today's world where guys make as little as these guys do, after the amount of time they've invested in it. If most people spend the hours and effort that these kids did training to be a baseball player, into their education or training to work in a trade, they're easily making ten times as much as these minor leaguers are.

One of the best baseball-related pieces I've read all year. Again, I know it's long, but if you have the time, it is really worth a read. This is the kind of thing that that will (hopefully) make us think twice next time we want to laugh at a baseball player failing at the majors, or ridiculing guys for their play, begging for them to be DFA'd or released as soon as virtually possible. Here is Dirk Hayhurst writing about the conditions in minor league baseball: An Inside Look into the Harsh Conditions of Minor League Baseball By Dirk Hayhurst , National MLB Columnist May 14, 2014 http://img.bleacherreport.net/img/images/photos/002/893/791/d267e70776e12e6fd280ee84f5cc7041_crop_north.jpg?w=630&h=420&q=75 On the walls of every minor league locker room, where rosters and travel schedules are pinned, you will find sign-up sheets for what are known as "player appearances." They usually include things like speaking engagements at local schools, signings at grocery stores, meet-and-greets with the mascot at a car dealership, etc. The venues vary, but the payment—which can be as little as a gift card at the lowest minor league levels—only changes with a promotion. In High-A ball, you'll earn anywhere from $50 to $100 a pop, depending on whether you have to give a speech. Appearances are first-come, first-served—there are usually only three spaces for signatures—and often are scheduled during a player's sleeping hours or on one of the eight days off a player will get over the course of a seven-month season. Still, you can count on the sheet being covered in names within minutes of its posting. Money is so tight in the minors, getting your name on that list is a godsend. Being a minor league player is a brutal experience—a brutal experience you, dear minor league player, can never speak of. If you ever decide to tell the general public of your disgust with professional baseball, that it's paying you in stale beer and day-old hot dogs for the honor of playing among its chosen immortals, expect your words to echo off into the endless vacuum. Indeed, you'd be lucky to get ignored. The alternative is a tidal wave of angry, bitter vitriol declaring you an ungrateful whiner with no concept of how hard the real world is—where working stiffs daily have their souls slowly snuffed out in torturous professions established by Satan himself. They have mouths to feed, mortgages to pay, bills to weep over. You have baseball, the dream, the game, the joy, the crack of the bat and the roar of the crowd. You fly over all in a fantasy land where money has no value. How dare you talk of such trivialities in the face of all you have, you acquisitive minor-league swine. Take your player appearance sign-up sheet and shove it! But minor league baseball is not a fantasy. It's a profession. A cruel one that justifies its cruelty by offering a golden carrot so valuable and coveted that young men will put their blinders on and drudge after it until they get their teeth on it or get put down trying. But this carrot does not negate the fact that, at its lowest levels, professional baseball is exploitation. It has been for years—decades. So long, in fact, that it has become a victim of its own belief system: that a player must sacrifice and succumb to unfair treatment as part of "chasing the dream." Read the rest here.

I don't know... nobody seems to be threatened by the Orioles, but I'm scared of them as much as the Sox and Yankees. People seem to forget that they haven't needed pitching in either of the past two seasons to succeed. Now they have Cruz, Crush can bounce back at any time, Hardy and Machado can bounce back at any time, their offense is a sleeping giant.

In an age of numbers and advanced analytics, scouting is still as important as it has ever been. Here is an excellent article written by Tony Blengino (of FanGraphs) on the scout's side of the ball. If you have the time, it really is worth the read. The Road to the Draft by Tony Blengino - June 3, 2014 This week, one of the key events on the baseball calendar takes place: the annual Rule 4 draft. Yup, that’s what it’s technically called, but it’s better known as the amateur draft, with 1,200 high school, college and junior college players hearing their names called over the three days of proceedings. Unlike the football and basketball drafts, the baseball version takes place a bit under the radar, with all but the most hardcore fans unfamiliar with the vast majority of the draftable players. This is understandable, as all but the rarest of exceptions among players are not seen at the major league level for a while, unlike the instant gratification of the football and basketball drafts. This isn’t to say that the events of later this week aren’t vital to the short, intermediate and long-term future of all 30 clubs. On the contrary; the draft remains the cheapest way to turn a club around, though it does take time. There is a lot of player-specific draft content around this week, so let’s take a different tack and look at the process, the people involved – the who’s, what’s and where’s surrounding the baseball draft. While many people might be aware of the draft only during the three-day period during which it takes place, or at most throughout the spring season preceding it, the reality is that preparation for the next year’s draft begins immediately – literally, immediately – following the end of the previous one. Let’s begin this review by examining the draft calendar. Within days after the end of last year’s draft, area scouts were responsible for submission of their first “follow list” for the 2014 draft. Time is of the essence here, for obvious and less obvious reasons. Summer wood-bat leagues begin play quickly – in the case of the Northwoods League, for example, they’re playing prior to draft day. All of them are in full swing within a week after the end of the draft, and crosscheckers and other scouts responsible for covering them need to know which players to focus upon. Another reason for such an early deadline is that the club desires an orderly transition in the territories of scouts whose contracts are not going to be renewed – some such decisions are made fairly quickly after the draft. This initial follow list is often quite short, focusing on only the best prospects in a scout’s area. Scouts place prospects in categories, ranging from Excellent, to Good, to Average, Marginal and Fringe. There is often a further breakdown of the Average category, with the Strong and Mild Average categories also utilized by some clubs. The initial summer follow list might feature only Average and above prospects. Depending on an area scout’s territory, summer responsibilities may vary widely. When I scouted the Northeast for the Brewers a decade ago, I had the good fortune of having the Cape Cod League within my territory. This enabled me to see some of the prospects from my area play against the best possible competition, and gave me an up-close and personal look at some of the game’s best prospects facing off against one another on a nightly basis. There were also smaller college wood-bat leagues like the New England Collegiate Baseball League (NECBL), which featured a high percentage of players from my area on the rosters, as well as a sprinkling of national prospects, including some exceptional underclassmen. Stephen Strasburg played in the NECBL following his freshman year at San Diego St., for example. Other leagues such as the New York Collegiate Baseball League (NYCBL) and Atlantic Collegiate Baseball League (ACBL) didn’t feature as much quality depth and thus didn’t require an extended scouting trip, but there were always some prospects there, and attendance at their All Star festivities was always a must. As the summer progresses, the focus begins to shift from wood-bat college leagues to the leading summer high school showcase events. Area Codes, the Under Armour Game, the East Coast Pro Showcase, Team USA tryouts…..there is no shortage of opportunities to see the high end prep prospects. As the summer reaches its end, many scouts will hold tryout camps, some open to the public, some by invitation only. You will always find at least a prospect or two at a tryout camp, but the public relations value of holding them makes it worthwhile even in the event that you come up totally dry. The end of the summer is also a perfect time for a scout to make his initial home visits with his very best prospects. In any business, relationships are paramount, and this is the time for the foundation to be laid. Meeting the prospect and his family in a comfortable setting during this time of year enables the scout to make a personal connection, answer the family’s questions about professional baseball – much more so than about his own club, at this stage – and present himself as a go-to resource for the family, who is in the middle of a whirlwind phase that includes a college commitment and possibly selection of an advisor. With the summer over, it’s time to submit another, much lengthier follow list to the home office, in preparation for the fall scouting season. A scout’s fall responsibilities again vary quite a bit, depending on geography. In warm-weather areas, the games almost never end, with college scout days spanning the entire fall semester, while in the cold weather areas, the games shut down by late October or early November, freeing up time for administrative responsibilities and more home visits, moving down the scout’s follow list. If a baseball scout is going to take a vacation, it very well might take place around the holidays in the second half of December or very early in January. Recharge those batteries while you can, because the spring is one long sprint toward the finish line. Spring is the time when a “follow list” transforms into a preference, or “pref list”. The scout is no longer just roughly projecting what category a player falls into, he is now writing detailed reports on each player he is submitting for draft consideration, and then putting those players into a preferential order within those categories. The typical scouting report utilizes the traditional 20-80 scouting scale, grading position players in hitting ability, power potential, fielding ability, arm strength and running speed, with many clubs sprinkling in other categories as well. Each one of a pitcher’s individual pitches is graded, along with his fastball command, overall control, and “pitchability”, among other categories. Some clubs allow scouts to award a prospect an overall score independent of his individual category grades, while other systems automatically calculate an overall grade based on the individual category grades, with the scout given some latitude to make slight adjustments afterward. As the spring goes on, an area scout may submit anywhere from roughly 40 to 70 players for draft consideration from his area, submitting multiple reports on most of them, and is generally responsible for submitting an updated “pref list” every other week or so. That’s the basic calendar for an area scout, but in addition to the area scouts, who are the other players in the draft process, and what are their respective roles? The area scout has one of the most vital, underrated and underpaid roles in the game. To sum up the job in one word, I would select one that might surprise most of you – entrepreneur. Each club employs roughly 15 to 20 area scouts, and they are responsible for knowing what is going on prospect-wise in their respective areas. For a Northeastern scout, the prospects are more spread out, and you are generally responsible for a greater geographic expanse. I was responsible for New England, New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Delaware, and for a time, eastern Canada as an area scout. A southern California scout, on the other hand, might never have to spend a night in a hotel, their area is so physically small. Virtually every high school in that scout’s area might have a prospect, however, and the games go on all year round. Each club might give their area scout some guidance as to how to “set up” their area, but the bottom line is that it is the scout’s responsibility to have eyes and ears everywhere in their area, and not be caught napping when a prospect “pops up”. An area scout, if he’s lucky, might have a paid part-time scout based in a key spot in his area. I had the good fortune of having part-timer Eddie Fastaia based in Brooklyn. Try being responsible for scouting the greater New York City area without a known and respected native son who knows every nook and cranny of the city. An area scout also creates a network of unpaid “associate’ scouts to serve as eyes and ears throughout his area. These scouts’ expertise and experience runs the gamut – I gave a couple of young baseball jobseekers their first crack at a baseball gig, and they have gone on to begin successful scouting careers. Veteran baseball coaches and instructors, who knew where the talent was within their home areas, were also vital components of my team. While one might think an area scout might venture a bit from their home base to add associates, I took great care to add resource very close to my home – an area scout travels a lot, and the absolute last thing that can be allowed to happen is to get beat on your own home turf. The regional crosschecker, in the grand scheme of things, is an area scout with a larger, more talent-packed area. The crosschecker doesn’t have to make all of the home visits that an area scout does, and doesn’t have to materially concern himself with the lower end of an area scout’s follow or pref list, but he sees a ton of talented players, and is chiefly responsible for combining individual scouts’ lists into a larger one that will have direct impact on formulation of the organization’s overall draft board. The crosscheckers often help create the scouting director’s ever-evolving, fluid schedule, helping him decide which “Average” prospects to see and not see, for example. An organized, productive area scout with solid evaluation skills often graduates to a crosschecker role within a few years. Then there’s the scouting director, who has the ultimate say on draft day, and throughout the season. They might get a bit of a late start on the summer scouting season, as recently drafted players have to be signed first. After that, however, they make a circuit of the major college wood-bat leagues and high school showcase events in the summer, and the college scout days of key prospects and programs in the fall. A scouting director’s spring travel itinerary must be seen to be believed – plans change on a dime because of weather, and quality looks at as many high-end prospects per day as possible are squeezed in, via matchups, double, and triple-ups., etc.. The scouting director constantly strives to find the balance between seeing as many prospects as possible, keeping the big picture in focus, meeting administrative responsibilities and maintaining one’s sanity. It’s a hard gig. Behind the scenes are a bevy of vital supporting players in the club’s home office. There may be an assistant scouting director as well as other direct administrative support staff responsible for a variety of tasks, including but not limited to the required logistical interaction with the MLB office in New York that enables clubs to select each player submitted by the area scouts, as well as processing of medical, vision and psychological test information received from prospects by area scouts. Some very heavy computer support is required as well, with reports being submitted at all times of day from all parts of the country, and draft-related detail and summary information of many types often being requested by front office members. Most clubs have a fairly significant analytical component to their draft process today. The numbers don’t mean much with respect to the high school players, but college info is quite useful, especially with the death of the aluminum bat. It is best used only as a supplement, but batted-ball data such as ground ball and popup rates for pitchers, and quality of contact info for hitters, as well as various split information, can be quite useful. The GM, his assistants and special assistants get involved as needed as additional sets of eyes upon the best prospects. Quite often, a specific high-ranking front office member may work hand-in-hand with the scouting director, providing big-picture guidance, i.e., highlighting points of strength/weakness in a draft, managing the club’s “draft cap”, etc.., allowing the scouting director to focus on the core of his job – player evaluation. All of the efforts of all of these individuals throughout the draft season leads to one place, the draft room, where all of the info is accumulated and aggregated, and the final decisions are made. Next time, we’ll take a look at that process, up to and including the moment the red light goes on.

I don't know if that means as much as it used to. I think Baseball is getting to the point where if you "decently hit a ball right at a guy", I don't know how much that has to do with you getting unlucky than it does with you letting the shift beat you. Defensive shifts are at an all-time high and they're being used almost twice as much as they were used last year (8,000 shifts last season, on pace for 14,000 shifts this year). You've gotta get the ball between the fielders now, the line drive out / unlucky BABIP excuse has now got an expiry date, and it won't work for many more seasons.

Yeah, nothing can ever make that kind of feeling better for someone, but one thing of the smallest silver lining is that the whole situation is what actually lead to his job as a broadcaster. You can read about it here: http://msn.foxsports.com/detroit/story/tragic-loss-leads-joe-siddall-to-blue-jays-broadcast-booth-031114

Does anyone know how long Siddall is going to be in the main broadcast booth? I just read the story of how he lost his 14-year old son to cancer a few months ago and felt really sorry about it. He's a really good commentator, is he just a stand-in for Pat?

You sound like someone who doesn't know s*** about baseball. This is Anibal's job. They aren't supposed to throw pitches down to middle to this lineup, there's a reason they're called breaking balls. They look like they're going to zip through the zone and then they sink. You aren't standing in the batter's box, and by the sounds of it, you never have before. Stop trying to question why guys are chasing and having trouble against one of the best pitchers in the game when you clearly don't understand.

Jose Bautista’s Counter-Shift by Jeff Sullivan - June 3, 2014 One of the remaining great unknowns is finding a reasonable way to evaluate the performances of coaches. With managers, we have only so much of the picture. It’s the same with hitting coaches and pitching coaches, and while sometimes we can credit a pitching coach for helping a guy learn a new pitch or smooth out his mechanics, hitting coaches are even more of a mystery. It would appear that teams haven’t even figured out who is and isn’t a worthwhile hitting coach, yet while their overall value isn’t known, one thing we can do is focus on individual cases. A team’s hitting coach won’t have the same effect on every hitter. In Toronto, one hitting coach has had a significant effect on one hitter. Before the year, the Blue Jays added Kevin Seitzer, and one of Seitzer’s messages was stressing the importance of using the whole field. Seitzer came into a situation featuring Jose Bautista, who blossomed into a star by becoming an extreme pull power hitter. This season, Bautista has performed at a level well above what he did the previous two seasons. He’s back to what he was at his peak, yet he’s gotten there by following a different sort of path. To review: between 2010-2013, there were 287 qualified position players. Bautista ranked fourth in wRC+, yet 12th-worst in BABIP. This season, out of 174 qualified position players, Bautista ranks fourth in wRC+, and when it comes to BABIP, he’s in the upper third. On its own, that’s interesting, but it could be noise. You have to dig deeper to confirm the presence of a signal. Brendan Kennedy actually just wrote about this. I’m just going to put more numbers to it. Proof that Bautista’s a little different: "With opposing teams using the infield shift against him more and more, Jose Bautista says he is being “less stubborn and hard-headed” this season, adjusting his approach to hit balls to the opposite field. [...] He said he made the change after talking with hitting coach Kevin Seitzer, who was hired this off-season and arrived in Toronto preaching the gospel of hitting to all fields." Bautista would run a low BABIP in part because he was focusing on fly balls, but also in part because he hit the ball most of the time to the left. So defenses responded to that, as Bautista became one of those righties who got shifted. The most oft-recommended way to beat the shift is to bunt, but it doesn’t work the same for righties as it does for lefties. Bautista’s working to beat the shift not by bunting, but by swinging and hitting the ball toward the area left vacant. Here’s a pretty important chart: http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/bautistaballsinplay2.png When Jose Bautista became Jose Bautista, he started yanking the ball a lot more often. He consistently hit more than half of his balls in play toward left field. This year, his pull rate is down from over 52% to under 44%, and his opposite-field rate is up from 18% to over 25%. Bautista says he’s made a conscious adjustment, and the numbers demonstrate as much, unmistakably. Last season, 400 players hit at least 100 balls fair. Bautista ranked 14th in pull rate, and 379th in opposite-field rate. This season, 215 players have hit at least 100 balls fair. Bautista ranks 79th in pull rate, and 110th in opposite-field rate. Of the 199 players to have hit at least 100 balls fair in both 2013 and 2014, Bautista’s got the ninth-biggest pull-rate drop. All the pull power is still there — Bautista is still lethal as half of the Bautista/Edwin Encarnacion tandem — but sometimes, now, Bautista’s willing to try to do something else. A drop in pull rate isn’t always a good thing. One of the biggest drops belongs to Domonic Brown, and he’s been a disaster. But unlike Brown, Bautista isn’t missing his power, as he’s hitting the ball toward right on purpose. How about a couple examples? Here’s one from early May, and one from later May. http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/bautistashift.png http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/BautistaShiftHit.gif.opt_.gif http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/bautistashift2.png http://cdn.fangraphs.com/blogs/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/BautistaShiftHit2.gif.opt_.gif What’s unclear is how much of this Bautista can do on the fly, and whether he has to prepare to go the other way beforehand. I don’t know if he can make his decision when the pitch is on its way. But there’s no arguing with the overall results of his process to date — he’s taken advantage of mistake pitches, and he’s also taken advantage of specific defensive alignments. As one of the best hitters in baseball, we can conclude that Bautista has tremendous bat control. Blessed with tremendous bat control, it shouldn’t be a shock that Bautista’s finding success toward right field. Here’s what Bautista’s done going the other way: http://i.gyazo.com/cc6a8a0a64abe9c0ebae6a579446311e.png Before, a third of his balls hit toward right were liners or grounders. This year, he’s at half, as more of those balls in play are intentional. So his success has skyrocketed. Among players with sufficient balls hit the other way this season, Bautista ranks 13th out of 84 in wRC+. In the past, even when he went the other way, he wasn’t good. Presumably, this is because he was trying to not go the other way. Now it’s a goal of his, and the results are following, because extreme defensive shifts leave open an extreme amount of space, and one doesn’t even need to hit the ball that well to take advantage. What Bautista’s been before is a power hitter with limited success on fair balls that didn’t leave the yard. Now he’s a power hitter more able to spread the ball around, and while teams might continue to shift him as they’ve done, he’ll probably only continue to poke singles and doubles into the space when he’s able. I should note that, perhaps as an additional consequence, Bautista is running a career-low foul rate, and a career-high in-play rate. That might be unrelated, or that might be the result of Bautista looking to go wherever a given pitch might take him. In the past, he’s blamed emphasis on spraying the ball around for his foul balls, but he’s a different hitter now than he was before his Blue Jay days. He’s an elite hitter now, and an even better hitter in 2014 than he was in 2013. Jose Bautista didn’t need Kevin Seitzer to be good. Jose Bautista was already really good. But with the help of Kevin Seitzer, Jose Bautista has started to do something he hadn’t done, and he’s returned to the uppermost tier of offensive nightmares. Not everyone is going to be able to defeat an extreme defensive shift. But then, not anyone is Jose Bautista.

I wasn't talking about the final stats for the season; the offense was a monster up until that point where they gave up their lead. Other then Delgado having one of the best years ever as a Blue Jay, the other guys regressed and Mondesi missed half the season. That being said, two guys that haven't been mentioned, Stewart and Fletcher, were both excellent that year.

People need to stop with this. There is no chance in hell that the Blue Jays are going to trade Edwin. Just stop speculating. It's complete nonsense.

Beeston says that attendance figures and dollars will not be a significant factor at the trade deadline -- the only thing that matters is wins: Attendance dwindles while Jays soar The club entered June alone in first place in the American League East for the first time since 1992 and has been the hottest team in baseball for a month, winning games with the electrifying speed of Reyes and the thumping power of record-setting Edwin Encarnacion at the plate, while Mark Buehrle earned his MLB leading 10th win on Sunday. But for all of that the Blue Jays average attendance for their just finished 10-game home stand was 25,456, with the only sellout coming a week ago Sunday. Twenty years of mediocre-to-bad baseball has given fans in Toronto a pass. Failing to fill the Rogers Centre on a regular basis over the years was easy to explain away: the 1994 strike alienated fans in the first place and the team has never been quite good enough to bring them back. Now the test comes, and it comes with a catch: Is Toronto a baseball town or not? And will passing that test dictate the shape of the roster as the season moves along? Yes and no, says Blue Jays president Paul Beeston: “Absolutely demand is picking up. I’m disappointed where we’re at but we’re better off now than we were two weeks ago and we’re better off than now than we were two years ago.” Beeston also said that the club’s attendance figures won’t be the arbiter of any roster improvements that general manager Alex Anthopoulos may contemplate going forward. “There’s no magic number for attendance,” Beeston said. “If there’s a deal it’s not going to be money that determines if it’s going to be done, it’s going to be wins. If we’re winning we’ll do it. I hope we have that opportunity.”