For those of you that have not already done so, go and check out John Sickels' blog Minor League Ball. He's a terrific scout, with a good pedigree (from what I've read.) My only problem with his work is that he is ULTRA conservative with his projections of prospects. That said, he's just released his professional assesment of the top-20 prospects in the Jays system. Since I'm not a plagiarist, you can go and read what he had to say here.
Considering how conservative his projections are, he LOVED the Jays' system. Admittedly, we only got one A- grade (Drabek), but we went until number 14 before we got out of the Bs! That translates to having 14 players that Sickels views as above-average at the Major League level.
I was disappointed in his rankings of Jake Marisnick and Adeiny Hechavarria. They both got C pluses, which is okay-ish, but most scouts are considerably higher on them. He said that he needed to see more professional at-bats before he could make an assesment.
Still, 14 players that could be occasional all-stars!
Now on to the negative aspect of this: 7 of those 14 are currently projected to be starting pitchers. Add that to the 5 that are on the Major League Roster (Marcum, Romero, Morrow, Cecil, Rzepczinski) and clearly someone will have to be moved, either to relief, or to another team. 3 more of the top 14 are catchers. For those of you doing the math along with me, that means that the Jays have approximately 4 B prospects that aren't part of a battery. Even adding Marisnick and Hechavarria to this still leaves some considerable holes.
Luckily there is still plenty of offseason to wheel-and-deal. I've already posted my opinion on the Justin Upton Trade speculation, but if someone is after pitching or catching prospects, they should be calling the Jays. Conversely, the Jays' front office should be shopping around these marketable commodities to round out the system.
It should be an interesting next couple of months.
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