The top of the Blue Jays system saw an almost complete overhaul with the trades and promotions of the past year. It obviously has been for the best, as many of the organization’s first-year contributors played well last season — even if the minor leagues appear a little barren at a quick glance. Fortunately, the system remains filled with a lot of upside at the lower levels, and recent drafts have only helped to strengthen that depth, even if it is of the higher risk variety.

Anthony Alford is the only impact bat I see, with a few potentially useful position players in above the 45+ future-value line. Rowdy Tellez and Richard Urena both have upside with the bats, but each has enough question marks to keep them from being reliable prospects to project at the big-league level. I still like Max Pentecost’s chances of becoming an average producer, though that possibility is very dependent on his ability to return to health.

The pitching side is a bit stronger at the moment, headlined by Conner Greene and Sean Reid-Foley. I like both of their chances of remaining starters and being solid contributors, and there are a slew of lower-level hurlers with interesting qualities that could jump up this list by next year.

The strength of this system may be in the 40+ FV players and those who are just off the list. That group is filled with tremendous raw athletes, bounceback candidates and recent draftees with moderate upsides. While those kinds of profiles are risky for counting on any one prospect, the sheer volume of guys they have in those categories bodes well for a couple of them putting things together and moving toward higher end of the list.

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The Pittsburgh Pirates fired John Russell following the 2010 season and replaced him with Clint Hurdle. It’s hard to argue with the results. The perennial also-rans went on to become one of the best teams in the National League.

Hurdle deserves the praise he’s received. Given a second opportunity to manage — Colorado had canned him in 2009 — he’s made shrewd in-game moves and overseen a cohesive clubhouse. Along the way, he has adroitly balanced his old-school instincts with the data-driven philosophy of the front office.

Could the Pirates have turned the corner had they not made the change? It’s not implausible. In many respects, Russell and Hurdle are the same type of manager. According to Pirates GM Neal Huntington, there are “similarities in their foundations,” and he described Russell as “a quality person (with a) willingness to embrace different schools of thought.”

He sees differences as well. In Huntington’s opinion, their “execution of the role” isn’t the same, and Hurdle represented “a different voice with a different approach and skill set.”

Russell — now the bench coach in Baltimore, under Buck Showalter — agrees that a different voice can be needed. That doesn’t mean he feels it’s always necessary. Read the rest of this entry »

Each week, we publish north of 100 posts on our various blogs. With this post, we hope to highlight 10 to 15 of them. You can read more on it here. The links below are color coded — green for FanGraphs, brown for RotoGraphs, dark red for The Hardball Times and blue for Community Research.
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Episode 646
Jeff Sullivan is a senior editor at FanGraphs. He’s also the wholly endangered guest on this edition of FanGraphs Audio.

This episode of the program is sponsored by SeatGeek, which site removes both the work and also the hassle from the process of shopping for tickets.

Don’t hesitate to direct pod-related correspondence to @cistulli on Twitter.

You can subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or other feeder things.

Audio after the jump. (Approximately 1 hr 19 min play time.)

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Jaime Garcia has had Tommy John surgery, rotator-cuff surgery, and thoracic-outlet surgery. Despite those setbacks — or perhaps to spite them — yesterday Garcia pitched the game of his life, throwing harder than he ever has during his career. Garcia’s afternoon was nearly perfect: a wild pitch on a strikeout, a walk that was erased by a double play, and one hard-hit single were the only blemishes on a 13-strikeout performance. Garcia’s performance was made possible by continuing to keep the Brewers hitters off balance.

Garcia’s opposition on the day often seemed dumbfounded by his arsenal, unable to figure out which pitch was coming and frequently finding themselves frozen. Twenty-six of Garcia’s pitches were taken for strikes, and these weren’t just get-ahead fastballs. Eight of the 13 Garcia strikeouts came looking. Given that so many pitches were taken, it’s probably necessary to check the strike zone and make sure Garcia was not benefiting from an expanded zone. Here was the zone against left-handers, from the catcher’s point of view.

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The Houston Astros are not off to the start they had hoped for. At 3-7, they find themselves in last place in the AL West, and ahead of only the winless Minnesota Twins in the American League overall. The cause of their slow start? The pitching, which ranks 27th in ERA and 24th in FIP. The back end of the rotation has been particularly lousy, with Collin McHugh, Doug Fister, and Mike Fiers having combined to allow 23 runs in 29 innings. And yet, those aren’t the Astros starters I’d be most concerned about right now. Instead, I’m a bit worried about reigning Cy Young winner Dallas Keuchel.

From a results perspective, he’s been okay-ish, with a 3.55 ERA through his first two starts. But the underlying numbers during those first two starts are a bit concerning. First, there’s this.

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Shane Greene just had a nice start the other day against the Pirates. He didn’t throw a changeup. He didn’t even throw a curve, according to one pitch-type algorithm. It was all fastballs and… well… breaking balls? Greene features a cutter and a slider, but where one begins and the other ends is tough to decide.

Let’s take a look at all of his non-fastballs from Wednesday, graphed by horizontal and vertical movement and velocity. Maybe you can see two pitches, even if one system saw three. Then flip the tab to see all of his breaking balls over his career. Now how many pitches do you see?

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The Orioles have turned some heads with their excellent start to the year. Although they’ve lost their last two games, they’re still 7-2 and have one of the best records in baseball. Naturally, a team projected to finish last in their division doesn’t open the year with seven straight wins without help from some unlikely contributors. Perhaps none of those contributors has been more unlikely than their new outfielder, Joey Rickard. Rickard’s started all nine of Baltimore’s games thus far, and has gotten on base in every one of them. He’s slashing a smooth .306/.325/.472. With a strong spring, Rickard pried playing time away from Korean import Hyun-soo Kim, and he doesn’t appear to be looking back.

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