Farm Report

The Blue Jays have continued to show over the last week that they are a fun team at the big league level. It didn’t hurt that they got to face the awful Kansas City Royals four times, but those are still big league players to at least some degree, and it’s been exciting to watch the Jays’ young hitters start to look like the kinds of potential stars that fans of the club have been hoping for.
Danny Jansen, Cavan Biggio, and Lourdes Gurriel Jr. have been especially impressive, and with Vladimir Guerrero Jr. still due to break out in a big way, and Bo Bichette still tearing the cover off the ball in Buffalo, things genuinely feel as though they’re looking up for the first time after what was a long slog of a first half.
In the minor leagues, too, good stories continue — and the Jays will need them, because it’s still unclear who is going to be pitching for this team in the years ahead (especially with Marcus Stroman likely on his way out the door, and Aaron Sanchez looking like the shell of his former self). And it’s in this space that every week we’re going to highlight some of the best and brightest among these up-and-comers.

Ryan Borucki — LHP, Toronto (MLB)

Ryan Borucki is currently on the Blue Jays’ 60-day Injured List, so he’s not technically a minor leaguer. But you’ll likely remember that back in spring training, before he was shut down with elbow troubles, he was fighting for a spot in the big leagues. Despite an impressive rookie campaign last year, in which he posted a 3.87 ERA over 17 starts, there was a chance Borucki would end up in Buffalo to start the season because of the Jays’ decision to roll the dice on starters Matt Shoemaker, Clay Buchholz, and Clayton Richard. The door is wide open for him now, though, and he has looked impressive so far as he works his way back. Last week it was three scoreless, hitless innings in the Gulf Coast League (which included three strikeouts), and on Canada Day he moved up to the Florida State League, working four innings, allowing one hit, no runs, while striking out four. He has yet to walk a batter so far in his seven innings of rehab work. While the level of competition he’s faced has obviously been beneath him, it sure looks better to see him having success than not (Julian Merryweather), and he seems poised to join the Blue Jays not long after the All-Star Break.

 

Thomas Pannone — LHP, Buffalo

Thomas Pannone occasionally showed flashes of big league quality during his time in the Blue Jays’ bullpen, but the team eventually made the decision to send him back to Buffalo and stretch him out as starting depth. It appears to have been the correct decision. You could be forgiven for thinking that Pannone isn’t anything more than a back end starter at best, but something might be changing with him. Pannone doesn’t have especially filthy stuff, sitting at 88-90 with a couple extra ticks of velocity when coming out of the bullpen, but through his minor league career he’s done a decent job of accumulating strikeouts, generally at a rate just shy of one per inning. In the big leagues last year he wasn’t quite as good, striking out just 29 in 43 innings, but this season saw a bit of an uptick. Since returning to Buffalo, though, he’s been striking out even more batters — 25 in 17.2 innings over four appearances, including six innings of three hit ball with nine Ks in his last outing. It’s hard to say from here whether something has fundamentally changed or if we’re merely witnessing a blip due to the small sample of data, but it bears watching. A Pannone with more swing and miss ability is certainly a more interesting prospect than the guy we’ve seen so far.

Demi Orimoloye — RF, Dunedin

Acquired last summer for Curtis Granderson, Demi Orimoloye hasn’t exactly been a top name among Blue Jays prospects, but the Nigerian-born, Ottawa-raised outfielder is certainly making an impression of late. While his season stats don’t jump off the page (he’s slashing just .229/.298/.368), he was just named the Florida State League’s player of the month for June. In 22 games for Dunedin since June 1 he’s been red hot, slashing .309/.378/.580, cutting his somewhat problematic strikeout rate down to a respectable 20 percent over that span. Yes, it’s just one month, but Orimoloye has always had impressive tools — speed, power, and his throwing arm in particular — but gets knocked for his lack of a feel for hitting. If his recent performance is a sign that he’s starting to figure that out, the Jays might genuinely have something in the former fourth round draft pick and member of the junior national program.

Dasan Brown — CF, Unassigned

Speaking of Canadians in the Blue Jays organization, the club added another this week, announcing that they had signed their third round pick in last month’s draft, Dasan Brown of Oakville. I wrote about Brown at the time, noting that he “was the first Canadian selected in this year’s draft. He is a speedy centre fielder who — per an excellent team-by-team draft roundup podcast at FanGraphs — is one of the youngest players in the draft, and whose feel for hitting “started coming a little bit this spring.” According to GM Ross Atkins, he has a, “chance to be an above-average defender, a chance to be, dare I say, a five-tool player.” That sounds quite a bit like Orimoloye, and the Jays will be happy to have brought another player with that kind of upside into the fold. There was some question about whether Brown would sign — he’s a high school player who could have gone back into the draft — but the Jays seemed confident throughout that they would be able to get his name on a deal. The club also announced on Tuesday that they have signed three more of their recent draftees, including Philip Clarke, a catcher from Vanderbilt who was a draft-eligible sophomore and considered as potentially among the tougher signees in the Blue Jays’ class.

Rikelvin de Castro — SS

The July 2 international free agent period opened this week, and with it came a slew of signings around the league. The Blue Jays announced 33 of them on Wednesday, and have reportedly spent the biggest chunk of their bonus pool on 16-year-old Dominican shortstop Rikelvin de Castro. He is a “high enery, hard-nosed player with a chance to develop into a plus defender,” according to Baseball America. While MLB Pipeline praises his strength (despite a lean frame), as well as his hands, footwork, and baseball IQ. Shi Davidi of Sportsnet has reported some of the figures going to the other players the club has signed, and notes that this year the club has diversified its spending in this market, especially as compared to last year, “when they devoted roughly 70 per cent of their bonus pool to shortstop Orelvis Martinez.” De Castro has a long way to go before the big leagues, of course, but is a name to keep in your back pocket.

Joey Murray — RHP, Dunedin

Joey Murray is a name that hasn’t really been on anyone’s prospect radar, but the 22-year-old has been putting up some impressive numbers this season, first with Lansing, and now with Dunedin. Murray struck out 40 batters in 30.2 innings while with the Lugnuts, walking only 12 and posting an ERA of 3.82. He’s been even better since moving up a level, striking out 64 in 51.1 innings of Florida State League action, walking 16, and pitching to an impressive 1.58 ERA. He’s allowed just 32 hits so far, holding opposing hitters to a .180 average. In a recent chat at Fangraphs, Kiley McDaniel noted that his fastball is a bit light, and that he’s not really sure, then, how well equipped Murray is for success at higher levels, but if we’re scouting the stat line (which we are!) he looks awfully intriguing. It might just be time we start hearing more about him.