Will New Hampshire OF Brad Glenn Ever Get a Shot with the Jays?

There’s a great chance that one of the hottest hitters the Jays have in their system is someone you haven’t heard about in the Jays system is OF Brad Glenn. He’s on a tear of late, hitting .436/.463/1.077 over his last 10 games, hitting the ball with authority with 6 HRs and 7 doubles (13 extra base hits) making up the majority of his 17 hits over 39 ABs. That brings Glenn to a total of 29 extra base hits in 234 ABs and a very telling overall line of .256/.309/.500. It’s telling because it indicates just how badly Glenn began the 2012 campaign.

Glenn, now 25 and promoted to AA after spending 2011 in HiA, hit .221 in April and .190 in May, accumulating only 14 extra base hits over those 2 months. Now barely through 1 week in July, Glenn has awoken since then to the tune of .324 in June and .429 so far in July. After accumulating a whopping 52 extra base hits in 418 ABs for Dunedin last season, Glenn is finally showing an ability to hit AA pitching not only for the power he displayed that season, but also for some average – a very encouraging sign.

The problem for Glenn is this: he can show all of the power he wants in AA and perhaps even hit for average, but to make it to The Show with the Jays, he’s going to have to do a whole lot more than that! With big guns like Travis Snider, Anthony Gose, Moises Sierra, and Eric Thames in his way in AAA, as well as Jake Marisnick who just recently joined him in New Hampshire and others climbing behind him, Glenn is going to have to litterally tear the cover off the ball – or hope to get traded – to even get a sniff at The Show! Or….will he?

Here’s the one saving caveat for Glenn: while the Jays may not be willing to sit a talent like Gose, Sierra, Thames, or Snider on the bench for most games and use them in pinch hitting situations, having a power threat off the bench like Glenn may be “permissable”. Simply by being a less hyped talent, Glenn could sneak his way onto the Jays bench in the future and get a shot to prove himself. With his power, there’s a possibility that he could provide a team with “Andruw Jones like” performances off-the-bench.

As I said before, he’s got quite a steep hill to climb with the Jays, and there are more chances that he’ll be on the outside looking in than there are that he’ll make it to The Show, but he’s still fairly young, is proving to be talented enough to handle AA, and could make an interesting addition to some other teams in MLB if he comes up in trade discussions. After all, if a team like the Rays is willing to live with a low average just to get the power that Carlos Pena provides, why wouldn’t another squad take a chance on Glenn?

It’s easy to get wrapped up in following the Marisnick-Snider-Gose types and to lose track of who else may get a shot. You don’t need to look any further than to Ben Francisco to realize that not all bench outfielders are ex-regulars and that there’s is sometimes a better chance a player will stick within the big club simply because the team wants to continue to develop its more highly rated prospects. Will the Jays ever give Brad Glenn a shot? I’m not really sure, but the fact that he’s knocking the ball around in AA at a tremendous rate of late will certainly get their attention.

What do you think?

– MG

http://www.baseball-reference.com/minors/player.cgi?id=glenn-002bra