Player Development Contracts and Spring Training Updates

Florida Auto Exchange Stadium - ballparkreviews.com photo

  Every two years (in even-numbered years), Player Development Contracts between MLB teams and their minor league affiliates come up for renewal in September.

   In the standard PDC, the MLB team agrees to provide players and coaching staff to the minor league team.  The MiLB team agrees to provide a small-scale MLB experience, with standard training facilities.
The agreement between the two hinges on many aspects, but from the MLB's team point of view, they want a good atmosphere for their prospects to develop in, and the MiLB team wants a good supply of  quality prospects to make the team competitive.

  AAA Buffalo has been a Blue Jays affiliate since 2013, and it has been highly successful relationship for both sides.  The Blue Jays can quickly recall a player from Buffalo, and the team has been very successful both on the field and at the gate during their partnership.  The team drew over 551 000 fans last year, and will come close to that mark again this year.  With prospects like Rowdy Tellez, Reese McGuire, Richard Urena, and Conner Greene likely to be donning Bisons colours at some point next season, Bisons fans on both sides of the border should have plenty of reason to head to Coca-Cola Field, one of the top venues in the minors. Because their affiliation has been so successful, the Blue Jays and Bisons put to rest any doubts about their collective future in early April when they extended their PDC to 2018.

  Toronto is the only MLB affiliation the AA New Hampshire Fisher Cats have known since coming into existence in 2014.  There was talk a few years ago about the Blue Jays switching affiliation in the event of a shift of an existing Eastern League team to Ottawa, and while several prospective ownership groups offered to run the team, no one (including Ottawa City Council) stepped forward to fund necessary stadium improvements.  New Hampshire has been competitive as a Blue Jays affiliate as well, wining a pair of league titles since their inception.  Both sides agreed to a four-year extension in May of 2014.

  Dunedin is owned by the Blue Jays, so there is no PDC coming up for renewal between the two sides.

  Lansing has been another highly successful partnership, dating back to 2005.  It's a little surprising that no extension has been announced (often, they aren't - they just continue) to date, but indications are that both sides are pleased with their agreement.  Lansing is fairly easy to access for Blue Jays roving instructors and front-office executives.  Cooley Law Stadium is a top-notch facility, and the team draws well.  One has to feel for Lansing fans, however, because by being on the bottom of the full season ladder in the system, they often are the first to lose players to promotion.  With the Lugs fighting for a playoff spot as the season winds down, they likely would be headed to the post-season if the still had some or all of promoted players like Jon Harris, Francisco Rios, Sean Reid-Foley, or Max Pentecost, but that is the reality of life in the minors. Toronto did airlift in high profile June draftees like Cavan Biggio, Josh Palacios, J.B. Woodman, and T.J. Zeuch to help with the playoff push, which is good, because the Lansing fans deserved it.

  Vancouver is the Blue Jays' top short season affiliate, and the pairing has been a runaway success since it started in 2011.  It's a natural match in many ways - it helps to grow the Blue Jays brand, and it gives prospects a taste of living in Canada, albeit a brief one.  The C's won the Northwest League title in their first three years as a Blue Jays farm team, and made it to the final in the 4th, but missed the playoffs last year, and are headed to one of their worst finishes of all time as a NWL franchise.  Additions to venerable Nat Bailey Stadium have allowed Vancouver to become the league's runaway attendance leader this year (setting a franchise attendance record in the process, averaging over 6 000 fans per game), but the quality of prospects the team was provided has fallen short, with starting pitching being a huge concern.  One of Mark Shapiro's first acts in 2016 was to get Canadians' ownership to agree to a PDC extension to 2018. Let's hope the team can be competitive next year, because the C's fan base is deserving of it as well.

  Bluefield is the other PDC that is up for renewal.  The town had a long relationship with the Orioles before becoming a Toronto affiliate in 2011.  The Appalachian League is a nice buffer between the complex leagues and short season play, and there have been no suggestions from either side that there are problems in their relationship.  It's reasonable to assume that it will continue.
  From a purely personal standpoint, it would be nice one day to see a Blue Jays affiliate in the New York-Penn League (which, over half a century ago, was known as the Pennsylvania Ontario New York - PONY - league).  The NY-Penn league is a short season loop on par with the Appy League, and Toronto did have a franchise there for a number of years based in St Catharines, ON, but a declining Canadian dollar saw the team move to Queens, NY for the 2000 season.
 
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   The Blue Jays have known only one spring training site since their first spring almost 40 years ago.
Times have changed, and the club has looked at other sites in Florida and possibly Arizona over the past few years, as talks with the City of Dunedin have lagged.  The club would like a new facility - currently, the minor league complex and Florida Auto Exchange Stadium are about a 10-15 (depending on traffic) bus ride away. With other teams in the Tampa area having had huge sums of cash thrown at them over the past decade to remain in the region with upgraded, all-at-one-site complexes, the Blue Jays would like to have a similar one.
  The current agreement between the two sides expires in 2017, and talks have been quietly ongoing to broker a new deal.  The city, of course, would like the team to stay - reports suggest the six weeks of spring training has an economic impact of about $85 million.  The Blue Jays, for their part, would like a considerable upgrade to either FAES or the minor league complex.  Both sides seem to have reached the conclusion that a "one address" site probably is not feasible in Dunedin.  The question becomes which facility will receive upgrades, and how will they be paid for.
   FAES, originally named Grant Field, was built in 1990, and seats 5 000.  The website ballparkdigest.com calls the park, "outdated yet charming,"  but it pales in comparisons to the aesthetics and amenities of other stadiums in the area.  Its landlocked location limits parking, there is no concourse, and the facility's infrastructure is outdated.  The Florida State League Dunedin Blue Jays draw sparse crowds that number in the hundreds, and while FAES is a good place to watch a game, it does feel on the antiquated side.
   There are some quaint features to the stadium.  Located just blocks from the waterway which separates the mainland from Clearwater Beach and the Gulf of Mexico, the park is in a very picturesque setting.  Both teams have to walk down their respective base lines to get to their clubhouses, giving fans ample access for autographs.  Quite a group gathers down the right field line to see their Blue Jays heroes, and the players seem to enjoy interacting with the fans.

A block west of FAES stadium - Clutchlings photo

  The city is in the process to applying to local and state sources of funding to secure financing for the project, and a group of city officials met with the Blue Jays in Toronto in late July.  Megan Reeves of the Tampa Bay Times writes that an announcement from the city should be forthcoming sometime in the next few weeks.   It does appear that funding will be available, but as with most government processes, it takes some time to secure.
   The Blue Jays, for their part, understand the history of their team and Dunedin, and also realize how accessible the city is for Canadians.  Spring training has become an important marketing vehicle for the team, and relocating (especially to Arizona) would hamper those efforts.
   The short take on this is that the Blue Jays will not have their spring training and minor league complexes under one roof, but significant changes should be coming to one of them, meaning that the team will remain in Dunedin.  Word should be coming sometime in the next month about what those changes will look like.

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  Just before hitting the "publish" button, I noticed that Lansing RHP Jordan Romano, who threw a lights-out 10Ks over 6 IP in his last start, went on the 7-day DL.  He was removed from the 7th inning of that start for precautionary reasons, and said he felt fine and wouldn't miss his next turn in the rotation, but with Romano coming back this season from Tommy John surgery, and at a career-high 100 innings, the club opted to shut him down.  The move was retroactive to August 27th.
  Romano threw a bullpen session with no ill effects yesterday, and will likely come off the DL and pitch in a piggyback situation before the season ends.
  The club and Romano, a Markham, ON native, have to be thrilled with his first full season, and his first one as a starter to boot.  Romano missed all of 2015, and went 3-2 with a 2.17 ERA in 14 starts for the Lugnuts.  He struck out 69 in 70 IP, allowing only 48 hits.  Midwest League hitters managed only a .192 batting average against him.

Clutchlings Notebook - Playoff Hunt Edition

Vladimir Guerrero Jr - milb.com photo

      Minor league playoff races, in terms of excitement, don't generate a whole lot of buzz beyond the cities and leagues involved, but they hearken back somewhat to the golden age of the minors, when teams acted as independent entities, and were very much in competition with big league teams for players and the entertainment dollar.  As the season winds down, four Blue Jays affiliates are in a playoff position at the moment.

   The GCL Blue Jays, who perform in front of a small gathering of scouts, family, and girlfriends with no video scoreboards, walk-up music, or between-innings in-game entertainment, sit atop the Northwest Division standings with a league-best 36-13 record, but are separated by only percentage points from the GLC Phillies.  In the abbreviated GCL playoff format, only the four division winners qualify, pairing off in a one-game semi-final with the winners meeting in a best of three final.  The Jays have had to do without their leading hitter, 2nd round pick Bo Bichette, who had his appendix removed in late July.  The infielder was tearing apart the GCL in his pro debut, slashing .421/.440/.744.  There is no word on his return, but with 10 games left in the season, his bat would give the lineup a huge boost.  Last year, the club made it to the league final with one of the more veteran teams in the loop, but they are one of the youngest this year, and have the second-youngest pitching staff.

  If Bichette had remained healthy, he might have moved up to Bluefield of the Appalachian League, forming a potent 1-2 punch in the lineup with 3B Vladimir Guerrero Jr.  Bluefield currently sits in 2nd in the Appy League's East Division, a game back of Burlington, and a half game ahead of Princeton.  The top 2 teams in each division make the post-season.  The club lost leading hitter Nash Knight when he was promoted to Vancouver, but there is still plenty of pop in the lineup - Bluefield leads the league in Home Runs with 50.

   The Low A Lansing Lugnuts also occupy a playoff position at the moment, a half game ahead of both Great Lakes and 1.5 games up on Lake County for the second (and final) Eastern Division playoff spot.  Full season teams see a lot of players come and go, and such is the case with Lansing, who have seen Francisco Rios, Jon Harris, and now Max Pentecost move on to Dunedin.

  Dunedin also is in a playoff spot at the moment, sitting atop the Florida State League's North Division, thanks to a 7-game winning streak.  The D-Jays lost SS Richard Urena to New Hampshire earlier this month, but still have the organization's top prospect in rebounding OF Anthony Alford.

   Playoff participation is something of a double-edge sword for MLB farm departments.  On the one hand, the pressure is a good experience for their prospects, but with some of their younger pitchers already having exceeded their career highs in innings pitched, Managers have to have one eye on the pitch count as well as one on the scoreboard.  Already, Rios has been moved to Dunedin's pen to preserve his arm, and other starters like Ryan Borucki, who has found himself with Lansing this year, are seeing their pitch counts reduced as the season winds down.  Similarly, especially with some of the Lansing roster, many players are in their first year of full season ball, and are wearing down as well.  Still, especially for the top prospects, the organization do doubt likes having them take part in the playoffs together.

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   One team that is conspicuous by its absence from the post-season for the second straight year is Vancouver.  The C's won the Northwest League title in their first three seasons as a Jays affiliate, and made it to the final in their fourth.  The partnership with the Jays has been wildly successful, and the C's lead the NWL in attendance by almost an average of 1 000 fans a game.
   For the second straight year, however, the C's are mostly devoid of top prospects.  Roberto Osuna, Kevin Pillar, Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman, and the departed Franklin Barreto have all spent time in YVR, but the only high profile prospect to adorn the lineup this year was P Justin Maese, who was promoted to Lansing a month ago.
   The C's are next to last in the league in batting average and ERA.  Thanks to the Shaw Cable network, select Saturday night home games are televised - the quality is decent, and you have to love the high camera angle on plays at 1st Base.  After watching a few Shaw games, as well as some at Hillsboro, which provides an milb.tv feed, it's been possible for Eastern Canadians to catch a glimpse of the C's, and get a read on some of their players.
   Three players that have stood out are outfielders Josh Palacios and J.B. Woodman, and SS Yeltsin Gudino.  Palacios, a 4th round pick in June, looks like a 110m hurdler, and his athleticism will no doubt translate well as he gains experience.  Woodman, the team's 2nd round pick, has bat speed but a bit of a long swing, and has struck out in 31% of his ABs.  Gudino, a prized IFA signing from 2013, is slick at shortstop, with good hands and a quick release.  The question has always been about his bat, and while his .214/.328/.244 line has done nothing to quell that, he shows quick hands and makes contact.  At 19, he's fared reasonably well against higher competition after failing to crack the Mendoza line in his previous two minor league stops. C Javier Hernandez is probably another name worth mentioning.  He has already drawn praise for his defensive work from previous seasons, but he's not produced a great deal offensively.
   Fielding a competitive NWL team can be difficult.  The league is filled with recent college grads, most of whom were mid-level draftees.  These players tend to produce well in short season ball, but have low ceilings.  In order to stock an NWL team, an organization has to risk some of its picks on this type of player. Ryan McBroom was among the most successful of these, but this year, the organization has opted to place younger players, like Gudino, Hernanedez, and 3B Bryan Lizardo in Vancouver, and while they ultimately may have higher ceilings, they've mostly struggled against the advanced NWL pitching.
   Still the fans in Vancouver deserve more.  The Blue Jays in the past have liked sending their top prospects there, to give them a taste of life in Canada.  With strong entries in Bluefield and the GCL this year, hopefully that will translate into a more successful C's team next year.

Tellez, Reid-Foley, and Pentecost: Three Prospects on Fire

Kevin Pataky/MiLB.com 

  As the minor league season settles firmly into its second half, three Toronto Blue Jays  prospects have emerged as not only as among the top ones in the organization, but in all of minor league baseball, as well.

   Rowdy Tellez was a legend on the showcase circuit for his batting practice and home run derby displays as a high schooler.  Thought to be a lock to attend USC, the Blue Jays took a flyer on him in the 28th round in 2013 as a result some draft day dealing that may one day go down as one of former GM Alex Anthopoulos' best moves.
   With a new system of bonuses in place for draftees (and penalties for teams that went over their allotted bonus budget), the Blue Jays loaded up on college seniors after the 4th round (they did take a high schooler named Conner Greene in the 7th round).  With little leverage, many of these players had no choice but to sign - Matt Boyd signed for $75 000, while Kendall Graveman and Chad Girodo each signed for $5 000.
   Using the savings they gained through those rounds,  Toronto chose Tellez in the 28th round, and threw a $750 000 bonus at him to forego his college commitment.
   Tellez did not rocket through the Jays system after making his debut with the GCL Jays later that summer. An 0-34 start at Bluefield in 2014 exposed some flaws, and talk was growing that the Californian was turning into a bad-bodied, base-clogging, one-dimensional slugger.
   But the organization was patient with the 6'4"/250 prospect, giving him time to re-configure his body, and work on other parts of his game.  In a 2015 split between Lansing and Dunedin, Tellez began to turn some heads and change some minds.
   Some eyebrows were raised when Tellez was sent to AA New Hampshire to begin 2016, but the club obviously felt he was more than up to the challenge.  Unlike many other hitting prospects, Tellez is a patient, use-the-whole-field hitter, and that advanced approach helped when he didn't see a whole lot of strikes in April, putting up a .706 OPS despite a .164 batting average.

MLBfarm.com graphic

  As other hitters in New Hampshire's lineup like Dwight Smith Jr began to heat up in May, opposition pitches could not pitch around Tellez as much, and the results showed.  Despite being one of the youngest players (he turned 21 in March) in the Eastern League, he's tied for the league lead in walks, and is in the top 5 in OBP and OPS.  Over his last 10 games, Tellez is hitting a torrid .441, with 3 homers.  On the year, he's now hitting .281/.390/.492.
   What does Tellez have to work on in order to get to the next level?  Not much, beyond hitting lefthanders better.  He can be streaky, but he has a solid approach to hitting that allows him to contribute even when the hits aren't falling in for him. He will never be the fastest of baserunners or the most agile of fielders, but Tellez is smart on the basepaths, shows surprising agility around the bag at 1st, and generates Quality AB after Quality AB, wearing pitchers down.

   Sean Reid-Foley was as surprised as anyone to repeat Lansing this year.  After a mid-season promotion to Dunedin last year, Reid-Foley was sent back to Lansing for the Midwest League playoffs, but was shut down before season's end.
   In only his second pro season, the club had challenged him with an assignment to full season ball, but the new regime likely felt this year that Reid-Foley still needed to work on his fastball command, and Low A was the place to do it.
   Reid-Foley tended to lose his mechanics somewhere in the middle innings of games last year, losing the strike zone, driving up his pitch count, and resulting in many early exits.  Reid-Foley's delivery was tweaked last fall in Instructs,  and the result was improved command this year that led another mid-June promotion to Dunedin.
   Since his return to Florida, the 2014 2nd round pick has not looked back.  His season debut with the D-Jays was a 7 inning, 2 hit/12 K outing, while his most recent was a dominant effort in which he pitched into the 8th inning for the second time in his career, giving up just one hit, fanning nine, and most importantly, issuing no walks. Long-time Dunedin PA Announcer Bill Christie was impressed:

@DunedinBlueJays #BlueJays best pitching performance by a DJay that I have witnessed, Reid-Foley 7 1/3 1H 0R 96P vs Tampa Yanks

— Bill Christie (@billsportsnews) July 4, 2016

 In 26 Florida State League innings since his recall,  Reid-Foley has struck out 32 while allowing only 6 walks.  He can hit 97 with his fastball, and sits 92-95.  When he's on, which appears to be often lately, he commands that fastball to both sides of the plate with arm side run.  With two strikes on a hitter, he can elevate that pitch to good effect.  Reid-Foley complements that fastball with a mid-80s slider that flashes plus.
   The biggest concern about Reid-Foley was that fastball command, but he seems to have found the key to consistently repeating his delivery to pound the bottom of the strike zone and generate weak contact.  He doesn't turn 20 until August, and in his third pro season there's no need to rush him, and the Jonathan Papelbon back-of-the-bullpen arm comps we heard about a year ago have been quieted.
 

MLBfarm.com graphic

Max Pentecost
  As fans, one thing about pro ball players we tend to have difficulty understanding is the toll playing every day takes on a player.  Playing high school, travel, and college ball is intense, but there's little to prepare prospects for the physical and mental grind of playing every day.  There's travel, eating properly (often without the means to do so consistently), dealing with nagging injuries, and personal things on top of having to show up to the park and give your best effort with only a handful of off-days during the season.
   For the second of the Blue Jays two 2014 first rounders, that experience has been delayed by almost two seasons while Pentecost recovered from several shoulder surgeries after a brief pro debut with Vancouver that year.
   And while some are impatient for Pentecost to move to the next level after making his return to action with Lansing only two months ago, he's still barely into his development.  And if the first two months are any indication, the athletic, bat-first Catcher will be worth the wait.
   After going 3-4 with a Home Run in his Midwest League debut, Pentecost smacked 8 hits in his first four games, and rode a hot May before tailing off as June rolled around.  He's picked again of late, hitting .378 over his last 10 games, bringing his line up to .292/.361/.429.  Not to sound cliche, but when Pentecost steps up to bat, he looks like an athlete.  He has a good approach both in terms of mechanics and pitch selection.
   What's keeping Pentecost in Lansing for now is the fact that he's yet to play a game behind the plate, DHing during his stint with the Lugnuts.  He's obviously chomping at the bit, and word is that he's not far from returning to some on-field action, but the club will want to protect their investment, and it's hard to see Pentecost catching much this season.
   And there's the rub.
  He may be the best Catching prospect in the system, but he's been limited to all of 72 innings behind the plate in his pro career.  He'll need a minimum of several hundred before he's ready to handle a big league pitching staff.  With Russell Martin signed for three more seasons after this one, there's no great urgency to rush things with Pentecost.

A Look at Jesus Tinoco

   Jesus Tinoco made his full-season debut with Lansing last month, and thanks to a good-quality broadcast from host West Michigan on Sunday, May 17th,  I had a chance to chart his start against the Tigers' Midwest League affiliate.

   As with my other "scouting" reports, I remind you that I am not an actual scout.  I spent many years as a catcher/centerfielder, so I think I've always had a fairly good perspective on pitchers, but the following should not replace reports from an actual real live scout.

   Tinoco was born and raised in Venezuela, and was nurtured by legendary trainer Cito Barrios.  His teammates at Barrios' academy included Franklin Barreto, Jesus Gonzalez, and Wuilmer Becerra, all of whom the Blue Jays signed for huge bonuses on the July 2 International signing kick-off day in 2011.  Thought to be in that company, Tinoco didn't sign with Toronto until September, for a $400 000 bonus.

   Tinoco didn't make his pro debut until 2012, and made his stateside debut a year later in the Gulf Coast League.  The West Michigan broadcasters made note of his 2-19 career Won-Loss record prior to the game, but W-L records can very misleading for pitchers in the low minors.  Pitch counts, especially in short season play, are strictly adhered to, and starters often come out in the middle of innings - it's not until later that they get a chance to pitch out of trouble (as Tinoco had to in this game). So, a pitcher's record, at least until they get to full season ball, can be a reflection of the pitchers who come in after them during a game.  I don't know for certain how often this was the case for Tinoco at Bluefield of the Appalachian League last year, but several accounts have him pitching better than his 1-9 record.  I spoke with Danny Jansen, who caught several of his starts at Bluefield last year,  Jansen said that Tinoco had dominant stuff, and was hard to hit when he got going.  The trouble is, of course, is that he didn't always have that sinker going last year - he pitched six complete innings four times for Bluefield last year,  His ERA for those starts was a tiny 0.67, compared to 7.59 for his other 8 starts.
   Nonetheless, Tinoco has drawn some notice.  Clint Longenecker of Baseball America compared him to a former Lugnut:

 He has youth (19), a great body, the fastball (velo and life) as a foundation for his prospect status. He can really sink the baseball. His combination of fastball velocity and heavy sink reminded some of former Blue Jay farmhand Henderson Alvarez, who has the 7th highest GB rate among MLB starters. His changeup is presently his best secondary offering and his curveball shows 12-6 tilt at its best, though it is inconsistent. Tinoco will need to improve his lower half in his delivery because he often collapses his front leg and falls off to the first base side, causing him to not get on top of his pitches. But he has the raw materials to emerge. Keep your eye on Tinoco.

   I asked Lansing broadcaster Jesse Goldberg-Strassler, who has called games for both, about the validity of that comparison, and he disagrees:

  Alvarez was just a kid out there slinging it, and the natural movement was ridiculous. Tinoco is more of a pitcher. Tinoco also has a defined curve. Alvarez had a semblance of a slurve that he had no clue what to do with.

   To be fair to Longnecker, he may be thinking of a more current version of Alvarez, as I recall reports about him at that time spoke about his rawness, and the need to refine his command.

The Game

   Tinoco was making his third start for Lansing against a West Michigan lineup that included Tiger prospects Derek Hill and Joey Pankake.  He breezed through the first two innings, needing only 11 pitches in both to retire the side in order.  He threw first strikes to the first three batters he faced, and generated three groundball outs in that first inning.  In the second, he struck out Pankake swinging, and sauntered through a second three up-three down frame.
  Tinoco needed only 13 pitches to get through the 3rd, working down in the zone with almost every fastball that he threw, showing that heavy sinking action.  I had him throwing only 3 pitches up in the zone through those first three, and two of those were outside of the strike zone.  He allowed a bunt single that 3rd Baseman Justin Atkinson had no chance on, and was called for a balk on his first pitch to Hill as he failed to stop at the end of his stretch.  We began to see a bit more of his breaking ball in that 3rd inning.  He had six ground ball outs and a pair of swinging strikeouts through 3.
   The West Michigan hitters began waiting on Tinoco more in the 4th.  He did have great control of his slider, though, bending hitters' knees a bit at least twice.  He also gave up his first hard contact of the game, a hard line drive up the middle.  Tinoco needed 18 pitches to get through the inning.
   The 5th is where things fell apart for Tinoco.   With his pitch count up a bit, and with the West Michigan hitters getting their second look at him, they began teeing off on Tinoco's offerings.  He gave up a hard hit leadoff groundball on the first pitch that handcuffed 1st baseman Ryan McBroom and was generously scored a single, followed by a hard hit double down the 3rd base line on the next pitch.  McBroom made a nice play on a groundball after that, holding the runners at 2nd and 3rd, but the next batter cracked another double down the 3rd base line to score the runners.
   A flyball out to Left put Tinoco one out away from getting out of the inning, but he gave up more hard contact for another double (the fourth of the inning) to bring in the inning's' fourth run.  Tinoco got a swinging strikeout to end the inning.  He threw only 14 pitches in the frame - he lost the bottom part of the zone, which he had all but owned through the first four innings, and the West Michigan hitters hit his high-in-the-strike-zone pitches early in the count, and hard.
   Did Tinoco get rattled by McBroom's inability to cleanly field that first-pitch shot?  That's hard to say, but he did seem to lose his focus that inning.  He seemed to be trying to blow the ball by the West Michigan hitters, and he left the ball up as a result.  There have been reports that Tinoco sometimes collapses his front leg during his delivery, which causes him to fall off to the first base side, and leave his pitches up.  I couldn't tell if such was the case in the 5th - he was falling off toward 1st, but it was hard to tell from the angle we had if he was collapsing that leg or not.

   Now that he's in full season ball, there was no rescue from the bullpen for Tinoco in the 5th.  He was given the chance to pitch out of trouble, and was also allowed to come back out for the 6th, which, after giving up another first pitch, leadoff double to Pankake, he retired the next three hitters in order, needing only 7 pitches to finish the inning.

  There was a lot to like from this outing.  Take away that disastrous fifth, and you have a dominant performance.  Tinoco retired 6 of the first 8 hitters on groundballs, and had 8 groundouts (against 3 flyball outs) on the day.  He threw 74 pitches, 50 of them for strikes.  For the day, Tinoco went 6 innings, allowing 8 hits, 4 runs (all earned), no walks, and struck out 6.

   Is Tinoco a future big leaguer?  That's hard to say.  He has the long, lean (6'4", 190) frame that the Blue Jays covet in a pitcher.  He has struck out more than twice as many hitters as he has walked in his minor career, and he has almost 2.5 groundouts for every flyout.  The 26th-ranked Blue Jays prospect by Baseball America is only 20, but as a player in Low A, he's a long way away from the majors.  His fastball sits between 91-93, and has hit 95 - because he's around the plate so much, and since his velocity isn't necessarily premium, being down in the zone with that sinker is essential.  When he's not, 5th innings like today occur.  His hitter's heat map would seem to back that up:

MLBfarm.com

   

    That the Blue Jays skipped Tinoco from Bluefield to Lansing (bypassing Vancouver) says a lot about the organization's belief in his abilities.  Just turned 20, Tinoco is still learning, and making the transition from thrower to pitcher.  It will be interesting to watch his development.