The Arizona Fall League will feature some of the Toronto Blue Jays’ top prospects in 2013. MLB has announced the rosters and they include Blue Jays’ farmhands Sean Nolin, Aaron Sanchez, Marcus Stroman, Tyler Ybarra, Andy Burns, A.J. Jimenez and Kenny Wilson.
The Arizona Fall League is a very strong league (that’s notorious for being hitter-friendly) that has historically seen a lot of the league’s top prospects. MLB.com has 25 of the top 100 prospects listed as participating in the AFL this year.
The Blue Jays content is pretty much what one would expect. Most of the players that the Blue Jays have listed have missed a significant portion of the season and are going to get some extra time. Stroman began the season completing his suspension from last year and Sanchez has been injured twice while Nolin began the season on the DL. Kenny Wilson missed more than half the season and A.J. Jimenez started the season recovering from Tommy John surgery. Ybarra also started the season injured. The only exception to this trend is Andy Burns.
I can understand why Burns is going to Arizona. He’s really been hitting well the last little while after making a mechanical adjustment (according to this article on MiLB.com) and I think that the Jays would like to get him some more reps while he’s going strong to further ingrain the new approach.
This is a much more star-studded group than hit the AFL last year when the two biggest names were Kevin Pillar (not such a big name at the time) and Deck McGuire.
Finally, the one little tidbit of information leaking out of Twitter is that Marcus Stroman is tweeting some ominous suggestions that he won’t be going to Arizona and will, instead, be going back to North Carolina to finish his degree at Duke University.
Don’t believe everything you hear though!
— Marcus Stroman (@MStrooo7) August 27, 2013
Two more starts in the regular season! One of them tonight. Excited to finish strong! Then #DUKE in the fall to finish my degree. #education
— Marcus Stroman (@MStrooo7) August 27, 2013
For more on the AFL, check out Bernie Pleskoff’s article on MLB.com.
So will Stroman be able to do both? Will he pull out of the AFL in favour of education? Stay Tuned, Jays fans!