Jays Prospect Performances Through 11-Apr-11

With the start of the season and at least 1 full week of play for all affiliates behind us, I thought it would be fun to see who has kicked things off on the right foot, and who hasn’t, thus far in 2011.

Here are the top and worst 5 hitting and pitching starts for all Jays prospects (LoA-AAA):

HITTING

• Hot #1: Brett Lawrie (3B-AAA) .417/.517/.750 – 3 db, 1 tr, 1 HR, 1 sb, 3 bb, 4 so, in 24 ABs, 3 errors
• Hot  #2: Eric Thames (LF-AAA) .409/.517/.682 – 3 db, 1 HR, in 22 ABs, 0 errors
• Hot  #3: Carlos Perez (C-LoA) .357/.438/.571 – 1 db, 1 tr, 2 bb, 2 so
• Hot  #4: David Cooper (1B-AAA) .385/.407/.500 – 3 doubles, 1 K in 26 ABs, 0 errors
• Hot  #5: Michael McDade (1B-AA) .360/.385/.480 – 3 db, 1 bb, 7 so
• Cold #1: Adeiny Hechavarria (SS-AA) .174/.208/.261 – 2 db, 1 sb, 2 errors
• Cold #2: Travis d’Arnaud (C-AA) .067/.176/.133 – 1 db, 1 cs
• Cold #3: Brian Jeroloman (C-AAA) .286/.375/.286 – 0 extra base hits, allowed 10 SBs in 1 game….
• Cold #4: Adam Loewen (RF-AAA) .158/.227/.211 – 1 db, 1 cs, 0 extra base hits
• Cold #5: All of the Dunedin Blue Jays aside from Justin Jackson, Brad Glenn, and Chris Hopkins. Once you get passed those, no hitter is above .267 and few have extra base hits. 

PITCHING

• Hot  #1: Drew Hutchison (0-0, LoA) 0 ERA, 7 IP, 3 hits, 1 bb, 11 Ks, 0.57 Whip
• Hot  #2: Asher Wojciechowski (0-0, HiA) 0 ERA, 5 IP, 2 hits, 0 bb, 2 Ks, 0.40 Whip
• Hot  #3: Nestor Molina (1-0, HiA) 1.80 ERA, 5 IP, 3 hits, 1 bb, 6 Ks, 0.80 Whip
• Hot  #4: Deck McGuire (0-1, HiA) 0 ERA, 4 IP, 3 hits, 1 bb, 5 Ks, 1.00 Whip
• Hot  #5: Evan Crawford (0-0, AA) 0 ERA, 3.2 IP, 2 hits, 1 bb, 4 Ks, 0.82 Whip
• Cold #1: Zach Stewart (0-1) 4.50 ERA, 12 IP, 16 hits, 5 BB, 5 Ks, 1.75 Whip
• Cold #2: Joel Carreno (0-1, AA) 9.45 ERA, 6.2 IP, 11 hits, 6 bb, 8 Ks, 2.55 Whip
• Cold #3: Misaul Diaz (0-0, LoA) 6.75 ERA, 2.2 IP, 5 hits, 2 bb, 1 K, 2.63 Whip
• Cold #4: Dayton Marze (0-1, LoA) 15.43 ERA, 2.1 IP, 3 hits, 2 bb, 1 K, 2.14 Whip
• Cold #5: Drew Permison (0-0, LoA) 27.00 ERA, 1.1 IP, 5 hits, 1 bb, 1 so, 4.50 Whip

Some of the negative surprises from above include the slow start of 2 of our top catchers in the system – d’Arnaud and Jeroloman – as well as the struggles of Stewart and the LoA pen.

The positive surprises include the apparent strength the franchise has at 1B in Cooper and McDade, something that just a year ago seemed to be one of the most glaring wekanesses of the Jays affiliates. The entire HiA starting rotation has been simply outstanding, and Molina stands out as the one starter who surprised some because he was a reliever in 2010.

All-in-all it’s a promissing start for many of the Jays top prospects, but you can see from the list above that many still have a lot of work to do. I can foresee a time when the Jays give up on the Zach Stewart in the rotation experiment and send him to the pen if his early performance is an indication of things to come.

We’ll catch up with this gang in another 10 days and will update the list as required. At some point in the near future, we’ll also be releasing a list of the top 10 prospects per affiliate.

– MG

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