Blue Jays Podcast: What’s Left in the Minor Leagues
For this week’s episode of the Jays’ Nest Podcast, we reached out to a fellow blogger to discuss the state of the Blue Jays’ minor league system. We welcomed Doug Fox of Clutchlings to the show. He brought his knowledge and passion for the minors to our show and it led to some great discussion. After multiple big trades, many may have been wondering about the state of the system. Hopefully, this episode will help with that. We also had some time to touch on the recent word on Marcus Stroman and hand out our weekly awards.
Also from Jays Journal: Marcus Stroman Gets Green Light!
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To start the show off, we were joined by Doug Fox. Doug runs his own blog called “Clutchlings” where he delves into the minor league system in great detail. You can follow him on Twitter @Clutchlings77 and check out is blog HERE. He does such a great job over there, we thought we’d ask him to join us for a chat about the state of the Blue Jays’ minor league system. He was kind enough to oblige.
After hearing about his passion for minor leaguers, we asked him just how much the trades hurt the system. After all, giving up several top prospects like Jeff Hoffman and Daniel Norris can be a tough pill to swallow. Some are still gagging on the loss of Noah Syndergaard. So, we asked Doug how hard it was as a fan of the minors to lose certain players in these deals. He felt, as many others do, that Hoffman might be the one that stings the most. He acknowledged that flags fly forever, but Hoffman is a special talent. We later asked him what he thinks about the chances of Hoffman being successful in the pitching environment of Colorado.
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We really wanted to get his take on what remains in the system. He pointed out that there are still quite a number of highly regarded prospects remaining. To further this, we asked his choices for top pitcher and top positional player. His choice for pitcher wasn’t really all that surprising. Many of you will be able to guess it before you even listen. But, the guy he likes in the outfield just might surprise you. There are a few outfielders that come to mind: Dalton Pompey, Anthony Alford or even Roemon Fields. Listen to the discussion about this one. It’s pretty good.
From there, we asked him about a few specific players. In the offseason, I picked Dwight Smith Jr as a possible break out player in 2015. It hasn’t worked out for him this year. We also asked about Matt Smoral and what seems like slow development for him. And, of course, we couldn’t get through an episode dedicated to the minors without Keegan asking about Rowdy Tellez.
We ended with our Hitter and Pitcher of the Week awards. The recipients will come as no surprise to you since MLB also chose them as the players of the week. We hope you enjoy Episode 32 of the Jays’ Nest Podcast. As awlays, we welcome your comments, etc.
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