Blue Jays: Conner Greene worth tracking through 2016

The Blue Jays recently reassigned top pitching prospect Conner Greene to the minor league camp, but his arm could have him flirting with a September call up

Conner Greene made the most of his brief appearance in the Toronto Blue Jays’ major league camp this spring.

Recently reassigned to minor league camp by the club, Greene is expected to begin the season with double-A New Hampshire and, as long as things go as planned, he will reach the triple-A Buffalo Bisons later in the season.

In his first look, Greene left a good impression on Conner Greene.

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“With an arm like that, shown he can pitch,” Gibbons told MLB.com. “He’ll control that. If he’s really good, I’m sure they’ll bump him . If not, we’ll wait until he’s good and ready.”

It will be interesting to see if the organization’s philosophy changes as leadership moves from Alex Anthopoulos to Mark Shapiro and Ross Atkins, but the last regime was rather aggressive with promoting young arms. This came to fruition when Roberto Osuna and Miguel Castro joined Daniel Norris on last season’s opening day roster.

“I’ve been very impressed,” Gibbons continued. “I heard a lot of things about him. I had never seen him pitch before he got here. He’s got a great arm. That’s pretty obvious. And he looks like he knows what he’s doing, too. He’s not just heaving it, you know?”

With the ability to reach 96 MPH, a dominant minor league season from Greene would at least put him into the bullpen conversation later in the year or as a September call up. The depth ahead of him means that Toronto may need to run into a serious string of bad luck for this to happen, but it’s not out of the question.

One thing working in Greene’s favour is that his arm should be fairly built up after throwing 132.1 innings in 2015. This should allow him to maintain a similar level in 2016, though a significant jump from that number may be pushing the envelope.