Minor League Roundup – August 16th

The Good

Emilio Guerrero – Lansing (Low Single A)

6/6 – 1 HR, 1 SB

Yet another young shortstop in the Blue Jays system who has jumped onto my radar this season.  Coming into the month of August he was doing a decent job as a 20 year old holding his own in a full season league, but his .234/.317/.332 wasn’t impressing anyone.  However, Guerrero is now riding an 11 game hitting streak, and that peaked with him going 6 for 6 Friday night, and in addition he hit his 7^th home run, and stole his 15^th base.  On this 11 game hit streak, he’s rocked a .466/.478/.733 slash line, and can now be added to Lugo, Barreto, Urena & Gudino to give the Jays potentially the best group of under 20 shortstops in all the minor leagues today.

Franklin Barreto – Bluefield (High Rookie)

3/6 – 1 2B, 1 Error

*Double Header*

In his debut in the mountains of West Virginia, Barreto picked up right where he left off in the Gulf Coast League.  Not only did he get a hit in both halves of a double header, but he also committed one of his trademark errors as well. 

D.J. Davis – Bluefield (High Rookie)

2/5 – 1 HR, 1 2B, 1 BB, 1 K, 1 Error

*Double Header*

Mitch Nay – Bluefield (High Rookie)

2/7 – 1 HR, 2 K

*Double Header*

Matt Dean – Bluefield (High Rookie)

3/6 – 1 HR

*Double Header*

We’ll deal with all 3 of these Bluefield prospects together.  This team is just a blast to follow.  In a double header Friday night, we got to see multiple hits, as well as a home run from each of them.  There’s a very good reason that this Bluefield team is 37 and 17 on the season, and these three are a giant part of it. 

The Bad

Marcus Walden – New Hampshire (Double A)

6 IP – 9 H, 4 R, 4 BB, 4 K

The sinkerballing Walden is a very tough prospect to get a handle on, because so much of his value is based on the defense playing behind him, that leads to him having very up and down starts.  Regardless if Walden is walking 4 batters every 6 innings (like he did Friday night), he’s not going to have much success at any level.

Luis Perez – Dunedin (High Single A)

1 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 0 BB, 1 K

The forgotten of the trio of Jays pitchers rehabbing from Tommy John surgery (along with Kyle Drabek, & Drew Hutchison) is finally back on the mound after having to shut down a previous rehab stint when he had a setback.  Even though he didn’t have a particularly strong outing, its still relatively good news that he’s pitching at all this year.  After he had his set back in July reports are that he had been shut down for the season.  So lets just take baby steps this time.

Shane Dawson – Vancouver (Short Season A Ball)

4.2 IP – 6 H, 5 R, 2 BB, 7 K

While Shane Dawson got off to a very hot start in his first 3 starts to begin his Single A career, things hit a bit of a speed bump in his 4^th.  He still managed to strike out a quarter of the batters he faced, but after giving up just 1 run in the first 14 innings, he gave up 5 Friday night all by itself.  Considering that Dawson came into the season as a completely unheralded 17^th round draft pick, its tough to get too disappointed after he had soared so high.

Daniel Lietz – GCL (Low Rookie)

3 IP – 7 H, 6 R (4 Earned), 1 BB, 1 K, 1 HR

Lietz, who the Jays took in the 5^th round this past June has gotten off to a very brutal start to his professional career.  While he’s struck out a healthy amount (21.4%), and hasn’t walked too many (4/1 K/BB rate), he’s really gotten beaten up when he isn’t striking people out.  At just 19, its too early to really comment on his professional future without any scouting information on him, but things don’t look especially good at this point.

Edwin Fuentes – GCL (Low Rookie)

1/2 – 3 Errors

Fuentes, the young 18 year old Columbian, has tough shoes to fill now that Franklin Barreto has been called up to Bluefield, and he got off to a very rough start making his 1^st start of the year at shortstop on Friday.  I’m fairly confident that Fuentes isn’t any type of prospect, and so seeing him make 3 errors might not be the biggest deal.  In fact the only reason I’m including him here is to reiterate my wish that Richard Urena the Jays #2 signing from the Dominican last year (behind Barreto), gets the call up and can make his stateside debut before the season ends.

The Other

Dawel Lugo – Vancouver (Short Season A Ball)

0/4 – 2 Ks

While Mr. Lugo didn’t have success in his debut in Vancouver, this post is merely to congratulate him on his promotion from Rookie level Bluefield to Single A Vancouver.  In his 50 games this year in Bluefield the 18 year old Dominican shortstop had a very successful season.  Finishing with a .295/.315/.468 slash line, but most impressively his 6 home runs tied him for 4^th in the entire league in HRs.  Considering there was only 1 player in the entire league younger than him that’s very impressive.