I’ve teased in the last few chats that some big updates on the various prospects lists will be out in a few weeks, but I wanted to address some of the most-asked-about prospects I’ve recently scouted in one piece as an appetizer for the big update.

Jeff Hoffman, RHP, Toronto Blue Jays

In Hoffman’s offseason scouting report I noted that he was in contention to go #1 overall until his elbow surgery, just before the 2014 draft where he went ninth overall. He made his first pro appearance this year and started making buzz right away, showing big velocity in a late big-league spring-training appearance, then in extended spring training and in his regular season debut at High-A Dunedin (he was just promoted to Double-A in the last few days). In the video, the first game shown is when I saw Hoffman about a month ago and the second game is when our own Chris King saw his first start for Dunedin about a month before that.

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The Blue Jays are a pretty good team. Sometimes they look like a very good team, and with an upgrade or two, they might get to that level consistently. There’s a decent shot this is the team that busts the extended franchise playoff slump, and with the trade deadline around the corner, you know the front office is active. They’ve been open about the activity, and you can see where upgrades would be wanted. Because of the Blue Jays’ situation, I’ve long been fascinated by the idea of a Johnny Cueto/Aroldis Chapman addition for a package built around Jeff Hoffman and Daniel Norris. And then more, presumably. Extreme seller’s market and everything.

From an outsider’s perspective, it would be a blockbuster. It would change the landscape of the American League now, and it could shift the Reds’ future fortunes. That said, there are a few hurdles. For the Jays, Norris could conceivably help in 2015. It’s also not impossible to imagine Hoffman making a difference in the bullpen down the stretch. And for the Reds, if you deal Chapman, that subtracts from 2016, and then that takes you to a slippery slope. The Reds might not want to go that far. If they had their druthers, they’d move rentals and try to get back at it a year from now.

So maybe that’s not so realistic. Maybe the Reds don’t want to tear down. And maybe the Jays don’t want to take anything at all away from 2015. The idea could use some restructuring. Which brings us to something I’m going to hate: I absolutely love the guy, but, imagine if the Jays were to dangle Marcus Stroman.

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If a person came up to you and made the claim that Josh Donaldson was the best player in baseball, you would actually have to refute his or her case with legitimate evidence. If someone said Rajai Davis was the best player in the league, you could just roll you eyes and get on with your day, but Josh Donaldson is close enough to the top of the list that a counter-argument is required. Is he a better player than Mike Trout, Andrew McCutchen, Paul Goldschmidt, or even Bryce Harper? Probably not, but he’s worth considering.

He’s worth considering, in large part, because he’s a great hitter. Donaldson ranks 18th in wRC+ since 2013 (min. 500 PA) at 140. An average defensive third baseman with a 140 wRC+ is something like a 6 WAR player over a full season. But, as I’m sure you know, Donaldson is not an average defensive third baseman. He’s one of the very best.

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The Toronto Blue Jays are contenders. They are currently four games above .500, two games out of first place, and their positive run differential of 81 is first in the American League by nearly 30 runs. The FanGraphs playoff odds give the Jays a roughly one-in-two chance to qualify for the playoffs. The Jays offense has been the key, scoring close to five-and-a-half runs per game. The Blue Jays are 60 runs above average on offense, first in major-league baseball, and their 115 wRC+ for non-pitchers is second to only the Dodgers — and those two teams have a 25-run gap on the bases. Their Base Runs record is four games better than their actual record, indicating the team easily could have better results than their current record indicates. The problem for the Blue Jays has been the pitching staff, both in the rotation and in the bullpen. The easy answer is to trade for outside help, but deploying internal solutions in different roles could prove helpful as well.

Before moving to the pitching, a final note on the offense. The offense has carried the team thus far, but it is unlikely to continue to be as great over the course of the rest of the season. The graph below shows every team’s actual runs per game so far this season compared with their Base Runs, which should be a better representation of how a team’s offense has performed.

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I think I’ve said this before, but I’ll say it again: while most of us understand that the gambler’s fallacy is a fallacy, sometimes it’s easy to see why so many people believe in it. In the case of this post, take the Blue Jays. Through the season’s first two months, they had the third-worst record in the American League, and a contender-worthy run differential. It seemed, at that point, like better times were ahead. But instead of things playing evenly from there, the Jays have simply ripped off 11 straight wins, rocketing back into the playoff picture. Barely any time ago, the Jays and Red Sox were battling for possession of not-last place in the AL East. This quickly, the Jays are back on their feet, and the Red Sox are a disaster.

I don’t have a hot take. My hottest take might be this: the Jays aren’t a true-talent 162-0 team. Winning streaks are easy for analysts because we always get to know for a fact the given team is overachieving. But there’s no better time than now to review what the Jays have done, and to evaluate where they now stand. The situation has changed in a jiffy. Even their own front office is probably trying to catch up.

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The Blue Jays’ farm got stronger last week, as last summer’s first-round pick, right-hander Jeff Hoffman, made his pro debut for High-A Dunedin. Hoffman was in the mix to go #1 overall last year until he underwent Tommy John surgery just before the draft and slid to ninth overall. The 6-foot-4 righty has the size and athleticism to support his frontline starter stuff, which was already back in his first regular season after surgery.

Fastball – 65/75

Hoffman came out establishing his fastball and showed his premium arm speed, sitting 95-98 and touching 99 mph early on. The pitch had life up in the zone and, when located down, the heater had good run and sink. It’s a heavy pitch that has the ability to swallow up opposing hitters’ barrels. In the second inning, Hoffman was leaving the pitch up and out over the plate, causing it straighten out. He was hit hard and loud that inning, but that was the only bump in the road.

Hoffman allowed four runs on four hits that inning, but put up zeros in the other four innings, scattering another four hits. He also showed the ability to hold his premium velocity while working out of the stretch, sitting 93-97 mph. The fastball command was better than I anticipated, as well. Even though he was getting squeezed a bit, Hoffman was regularly working the fastball to both corners and moving it up and down in the zone. Fastball command is usually one of the last traits to return after an injury like his, so it’s an encouraging sign to see glimpses of it this early.

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Breakout candidates are often identified on the pitching side either on the strength of peripheral stats which portend improvement over more conventional numbers, a strong second half, or some demonstrative change in a pitch. Sometimes, the candidates fulfill expectations and make those who stumped for them look like geniuses. Most of the time, however, the players meet their reasonable expectations and everyone moves on to another slew of potential breakouts. Poor seasons by breakout candidates tend not to get noticed, however, but rather ignored. Drew Hutchison spent the first month of the season looking like a breakout candidate that would soon be forgotten. He has spent the last few weeks attempting to turn around a rough start, culminating in a shutout of the White Sox during which he struck out eight without giving up a walk. Hutchison’s fastball has gained some life on it the second month of the season, providing some confidence that a breakout could still be in store.

Hutchison earned the breakout label by meeting many of the characteristics mentioned above. His ERA for Toronto in his first year of starting last year was 4.48, 10th worst in the majors among qualified pitchers, but his peripherals showed something a little better as his FIP was a middle-of-the-pack 3.85 and the difference between his ERA and FIP in 2014 was eighth-highest among qualified pitchers. His 23% strikeout rate was in the top 20, and his walk rate was decent. Hutchison’s peripherals made him look average instead of bad, although that alone is not what made Hutchison a potential breakout candidate.

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Projection systems tend to look at reality a whole lot more soberly than us humans, who can fall madly in love with a player on the basis of aesthetic appeal alone. That’s why most offseason columns here at FanGraphs reviewing free-agent acquisitions tend to damper down instead of ramp up excitement.

So it is a meaningful testament to Russell Martin’s skills that, upon being signed by the Toronto Blue Jays to a five-year, $82M contract as a 31-year-old catcher — i.e. after Martin has already sustained several lifetimes of knee-shredding, cup-checking abuse in baseball’s most brutal position — the deal was graded positively in these pages by Mr. Sullivan.

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Let’s reflect on the FanGraphs staff predictions, shall we? Seems like a great idea for the 28th of April. Every single voter selected the Nationals to win the National League East. Okay, great start. Taijuan Walker got the most votes for the American League Rookie of the Year, and his ERA’s almost 7. Daniel Norris also got some meaningful support. Devon Travis got half as many votes as Norris did. So the best you could say is that Travis at least got his name picked by a few people. I bring this up because, as silly as it is to be thinking about awards in the season’s first month, right now Travis ranks third in baseball in wRC+. Perhaps more shocking, Travis ranks fourth in baseball in isolated power. The Blue Jays decided to start Travis out of the gate even though he never spent a day at the highest level of the minors. All he’s done is out-hit the scorching-hot Nelson Cruz.

And this is a Toronto second baseman we’re talking about. Certainly, it’s not like the position is cursed. There’ve been good second basemen in Toronto before, and there’ll be good second basemen in Toronto again, after the Travis days are over. But the Blue Jays are the reason you even recognize the name Ryan Goins. Devon Travis isn’t Ryan Goins. It’s not quite clear what Devon Travis is, but one answer seems to be “surprisingly powerful.”

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Making wholesale role changes two weeks into the season is not likely a sound strategy, as the decisions leading up to Opening Day take in much more reliable information with considerably more history than a few appearances in April. Likewise, taking promising starters who have yet to prove they cannot start and sending them to the bullpen where they will pitch considerably fewer innings is not ideal either. Yet that is where the Toronto Blue Jays sit heading into the third week of the season. The Blue Jays were dealt a blow in Spring Training when Marcus Stroman was lost for the year after a knee injury that required surgery, and they are still reeling from that loss.

A battle for the fifth spot in the rotation between Daniel Norris, Aaron Sanchez, and Marco Estrada shifted as the Blue Jays anointed two of their top three prospects as starters to begin the season. With Aaron Sanchez struggling, Daniel Norris beginning the season with a dead arm, and a young bullpen that has already switched closers, the Blue Jays pitching staff has provided more questions than answers.

In five starts this season, Norris and Sanchez have combined for 22 innings and 15 strikeouts while giving up 12 walks and five home runs. The poor performance and low innings totals thus far have put a strain on an inexperienced bullpen. The Blue Jays 47 2/3 innings pitched out of the bullpen are tied for fourth Major League Baseball, but they’re not getting worked so much because they’re dominating when called upon; those innings have come with a 4.16 FIP, ranking 26th in MLB. The Blue Jays bullpen is both performing poorly and getting overworked, never a good combination for mid-April.
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