Minor League Update: July 16th Edition

This weeks edition is weighted heavily towards the lower level players because both Buffalo and New Hampshire were limited to four games this period because of their All-Star breaks. Doesn’t seem right to highlight a player who’s success occurred in only three or four games if their are other options.

The upcoming couple of weeks will be loaded with trade speculation concerning the major league team. I don’t have any inside connections but my hunch is that with more conservative and development oriented executives in place, combined with a rather thin market for the sort of players that might actually help an already strong Blue Jays team, you won’t see players like Pompey, Alford, Tellez, Urena, Pentacost, or Sean Reid-Foley involved in any deals. Conner Greene is maybe the best player they would mull dealing, but with reluctance given that he’s closer to the majors. It’s more likely you’d see them shuffle off higher risk players like Francisco Rios or Clinton Hollon, or a somewhat lower ceiling guy like Jon Harris. The Jays have a lot of excellent low level depth, but short season players are typically seen as too risky for teams to acquire in such deals. I frankly don’t expect any big deals.

Pitchers of the Week

1. Jordan Romano (23) – RHP – Lansing (A)

Week: 2 GS , 10 IP, 2 H, 1 ER, 5 BB, 10 K
YTD: 7 G , 33 IP, 20 H, 4 ER, 14 BB, 36 K 1.09 ERA, 1.03 WHIP, 9.8 K/9, 3.8 BB/9

If you haven’t started taking Jordan Romano seriously, it’s probably time to change things up. Before he threw five no-hit innings Thursday night, he was still notable for his six previous outings having given up no more than one earned run in any of them. The Markham, Ontario native was a 10th round choice in 2014 and looked really good over 25 innings at Bluefield that year, but succumbed to an elbow injury the following Spring and missed all of 2015 recovering from Tommy John surgery. The only weakness in his game is a slightly elevated walk rate that is not atypical for the first year off of arm surgery.  One word of caution, as Romano was seeking to complete the shutout no-hitter on Thursday, he had to call out the trainers after walking the first batter in the sixth and word came Friday he was being placed on the 7-Day DL. Injury reports are very rare concerning minor leaguers so time will tell whether or not it was anything serious.

2. Ryan Borucki (22) – LHP – Lansing

Week: 2 GS , 12 IP, 13 H, 2 ER, 3 BB, 12 K
YTD: 18 GS, 93.2 IP, 110 H, 54 ER, 27 BB, 76 K, 5.19 ERA, 1.46 WHIP,  7.3 K/9, 2.6 BB/9

Every time I mention Borucki I’m forced to note up front the huge difference between his overall numbers and those he’s put up since moving down to Lansing. Taking those alone, his ERA is 2.69 and his WHIP is 1.15 with a K/BB ratio of 4.4/1. The Blue Jays remain very enamored of change-up master Borucki despite his injury history, and that feeling is no doubt enhanced by his demonstrated willingness to adjust his approach. While there is a bit of a backlog of quality pitchers in the system from Dunedin on down, there’s a good case to be made that Borucki will need another try at High A in the late weeks of the season, but with three other rotation mates who could make the same claim, it might not happen.

3. Justin Maese (19) – RHP  – Vancouver (Rookie Advanced)

Week: 1 GS , 8 IP, 3 H, 2 ER, 0 BB, 5 K
YTD: 5 GS, 26.1 IP, 20 H, 6 ER, 1 BB, 20 K, 2.05 ERA, 0.80 WHIP, 6.8 K/9, 0.34 BB/9

Look at that K/BB ratio. Twenty to one. In 13 professional appearances, Maese has a 1.45 ERA and a o.95 WHIP. He’s really good. I said last week that he’d miss a start after having been hit by a comebacker on his forearm but it turns out they only pushed him back a day (which was unannounced due to the vagaries of projected starters on team websites). With the recent promotion of 2016 first rounder TJ Zuech, the Canadians are looking at a serious rotation crowding issue (even with the demotion of Juliandry Higuera to Bluefield) so they may run a six man rotation for a bit or do some piggy-backing. Either way, C’s fans and Jays fans will be eagerly anticipating every start from this guy.

Hitters of the Week

1. Richard Urena (20) – SS – Dunedin (A Advanced)

Week: 12/28, 3 2B, 1 3B, 0 HR, 0 SB, 0 BB, 2 K, .429 AVG, .429 OBP, .571 SLG
Season: 97/331, 17 2B, 7 3B, 4 HR, 8 SB, 19 BB, 56 K .286 AVG, .331 OBP, .414 SLG

Urena is one of the Blue Jays top ten prospects, but you might not remember that given how little has been said about him this year. Most of that is because he had a perfectly bland first two months of this season. They weren’t strikingly bad, noticeably hot, injured or given to big games. He was just doing what you’d expect of a 20 year old in High-A ball. As of June fourth, he had a .668 OPS. He has a hit in 29 of the 32 games since. Over that span he has slashed .365/.404/.489/.893 and on July 9 he went five for five. Oddly, he’s on an 11 game hit streak and has been the DH in each of those games.

2. Vlad Guerrero, Jr. (17) – 3B – Bluefield (Rookie)

Week: 7/17, 4 2B, 0 3B, 1 HR, 1 SB, 6 BB, 0 K, .412 AVG, .565 OBP, .824 SLG
YTD: 19/73, 5 2B, 1 3B, 3 HR, 4 SB, 9 BB, 11 K, .260 AVG, .353 OBP, .479 SLG

Guerrero’s season divides almost right down the middle to this point. He has played in 19 games so far, and in his first ten (through July 3), he was 6/39 and those of us who were lusting for him to live up to the incredible hype were getting just a tiny bit (completely irrationally) impatient. But the holiday fireworks apparently lit a fire in the teenage prodigy, as he is 13/34 over his last nine games. More informative, he has three walks against nine strikeout in the first ten, and has six walks and only two strikeouts since.  Of course we are speaking of very tiny samples, but in the case of VGJ, I’ll indulge enthusiasm.

3. Bo Bichette (18) – SS – Gulf Coast (rookie)

Week: 9/22, 1 2B, 1 3B, 1 HR, 0 SB, 0 BB, 5 K, .409 AVG, .409 OBP, .682 SLG
YTD: 25/64, 6 2B, 2 3B, 2 HR, 1 SB, 4 BB, 13 K, .391 AVG, .414 OBP, .641 SLG

I’m just going to go ahead and admit that I’m developing an irrational crush on Bichette as my favorite from the 2016 draft class. It certainly helps that he’s tearing up the GCL in the first few weeks of the season. He has been on base in every game he’s played, gotten a hit in all but one of those 16 games, and gotten more than one hit in fully half of them. I haven’t read anything about how his defense has looked at SS, but it is not unrealistic to look forward to seeing him spend some time in the same infield with Guerrero.

Check out the glowing praise from Chris King on Twitter:

@brendonkuhn @CharlieCaskey easily best bat I've seen this year and having the most impact of any bat I've ever seen at this level

— Chris King (@StatsKing) July 16, 2016

Other Minor Notes

Continuing the recent pattern here, I feel obliged to direct your attention to the better performers in the first few weeks on the short season teams.

In the GCL, we continue to be blown away by Noberto Obeso who now has 13 walks and two strikeouts while hitting .380. Doesn’t that sound like a perfect leadoff hitter? 1B David Jacob has pushed his season OBP to .968 while SP Wilfri Alerton been included in the chart below.

In Bluefield, Nash Knight is still on fire, hitting .413 with a 1.047 OPS while outfielders Nick Sinay and Earl Burl III had great weeks. Sinay has good speed and a .467 OBP.

Well-regarded catching prospect Danny Jansen returned recently to the Dunedin lineup and had a fine week going 6/18 with a couple of doubles. 1B Ryan McBroom and infielder Gunner Heidt both had very good weeks as well.

Also worth noting, Dalton Pompey returned this week from that scary concussion that cost him almost three weeks playing time;  several pitchers got promotions including RH relievers Matt Dermody moving up to AAA and Starlin Suriel up from Lansing to Dunedin while 2016 draft picks TJ Zuech (first round) and Zach Jackson (third round) were moved up from the GCL to Vancouver as expected. Zuech is scheduled to start tonight for the VanCs if you’re interested.

Other Stat Lines of Interest

HITTERS

Last Week

Hitter	Age	Pos.	Lvl	G	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	SB	BB	K	TB
Dalton Pompey	23	CF	AAA	4	.250	.250	.375	0	0	0	3	6
Rowdy Tellez	21	1B	AA	3	.429	.429	.714	1	0	0	5	10
Anthony Alford	21	CF	A+	5	.238	.333	.238	0	2	3	8	5
Danny Jansen	21	C	A+	5	.333	.333	.444	0	0	0	3	8
Max Pentecost	23	DH	A	5	.263	.300	.474	1	1	1	2	9
Juan Kelly	21	1B	A	6	.278	.350	.388	0	0	2	2	7
Cavan Biggio	21	2B	R+	7	.259	.333	.286	0	2	3	2	8

Season

Hitter	Age	Pos.	Lvl	G	PA	AVG	OBP	SLG	HR	SB	BB	K	TB
Dalton Pompey	23	CF	AAA	14	206	.271	.337	.335	1	11	18	39	63
Rowdy Tellez	21	1B	AA	82	331	.291	.391	.498	13	2	46	64	142
Anthony Alford	21	CF	A+	52	213	.188	.286	.257	2	8	23	74	49
Danny Jansen	21	C	A+	11	46	.381	.417	.619	1	1	4	8	26
Max Pentecost	23	DH	A	49	207	.293	.362	.441	6	3	19	39	83
Juan Kelly	21	1B	A	85	336	.278	.344	.484	9	6	30	70	148
Cavan Biggio	21	2B	R+	21	87	.312	.4oo	.377	0	3	10	9	29

PITCHERS

Last Week

Pitcher	Age	Pos.	Lvl	G	ERA	K/9	BB/9	WHIP
Shane Dawson	22	SP	AA	1	1.80	7.2	5.4	1.80
Sean Reid-Foley	21	SP	A+	1	9.53	9.53	0.0	1.33
Jon Harris	22	SP	A	1	0.00	3.9	1.3	0.71
Patrick Murphy	21	SP	R+	1	0.00	3.0	1.5	1.50
Hansel Rodriguez	21	SP	R	1	0.00	7.7	2.6	0.86
Joel Espinal	19	SP	r	1	1.80	5.4	0.6	1.20
Wilfri Alerton	20	SP	r	1	1.50	3.0	1.5	1.17

Season

Pitcher	Age	Pos.	Lvl	G	ERA	K/9	BB/9	WHIP
Shane Dawson	22	SP	AA	16	3.51	7.2	5.1	1.58
Sean Reid-Foley	21	SP	A+	17	2.65	9.8	2.7	1.49
Jon Harris	22	SP	A	15	2.28	8.0	2.7	1.19
Patrick Murphy	21	SP	R+	13	2.87	7.1	3.8	1.51
Hansel Rodriguez	19	SP	R	4	2.61	6.1	1.7	1.06
Joel Espinal	21	SP	r	5	0.82	9.8	1.2	0.64
Wilfri Alerton	20	SP	r	4	2.14	9.9	1.3	0.95

Lead Photo: Gary A. Vasquez-USA TODAY Sports