Baseball is underway once again and, here at Blue Jays from Away, we’re getting ready to launch the 2016 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook!

 

 

We’re going to be providing you even better coverage of the Blue Jays’ minor league system in 2016. That coverage starts in two weeks, when I head down to Dunedin to catch the end of minor league spring training. Why the last week of it? Because players who have been in big league camp and aren’t heading to Montreal will be around and playing at the minor league camp, and things will start to shake out in terms of how they’ll look as the season opens. We’ve also got trips to see the Lansing Lugnuts, New Hampshire Fisher Cats and Buffalo Bisons on the books with more plans to head to Bluefield and possibly beyond.

 

 

It all starts with the 2016 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook. Releasing on April 3, the 2016 edition features over 250 new and updated player profiles, an extended essay about players who have left the Blue Jays system entitled “Dearly Departed,” as well as information about all seven North American minor league affiliates, travel, city and ticket information to help you plan trips and complete 2016 minor league schedules.

 

The 2016 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook will be available on April 3 for $11.99 (CDN) through our site and for $11.99 (US) through our affiliate at Smashwords. More importantly, we’re investigating the possibility of selling and shipping print versions of the book this year. Pricing won’t be known until we know how long the book is and what it will cost for us to produce.

 

 

The 2016 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook goes hand in hand with our Premium Content section at Blue Jays from Away. This section, available to subscribers only, provides player profiles, photos, and links to our own exclusive video library which we are going to be focusing on growing this season. Like last season, our scouting reports will be available exclusively to Premium Content subscribers while we’ll also be giving you special “day-in-the-life” look-ins to our daily activities when we’re on the road at the minor league parks.

 

 

For the 2016 edition of our Premium Content section, we’ll be adding more videos taken during our travels in 2015 giving you behind the scenes looks at pitchers in the bullpen and in games and batters taking BP. We’ll be spending more time in 2016 in ballparks and will be able to update our videos and scouting reports more frequently.

 

Like last year, you’ll also be able to get a digital copy of the 2016 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook for free if you purchase our 2016 Yearly Membership for $16.99 (CDN). This membership will not only get you the Handbook, but it will also get you access to all our Premium Content online at the site for a year! The 2016 Yearly membership goes on sale on March 27* as well, giving you access to all of the updated and new content for the 2016 season. This combination is your best value: if you look at it the other way around, you’re getting a year of Premium Content for just $5 more than the cost of the 2016 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook!

 

There’s also the Monthly subscription for the Premium Content section. If you’re a monthly member, you’ll get all of the online content available starting April 3 (as well as the 2015 archive until then) but it does not come with a free download of the Minor League Handbook.

 

Why become a Premium Member at Blue Jays from Away? Not only do you get access to the Premium Content section but your membership helps us do what we do to the best of our abilities! We pride ourselves on giving you the best value for your baseball dollar, offering the several-hundred page Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook plus exclusive scouting reports, photos and video of as many players in the Blue Jays’ minor league system as we can. We can only do this because we try to get out and see as many of the players in the Blue Jays system as we can and you’re helping us do that! It’s a labour of love but our trips to Dunedin, Lansing, New Hampshire, Buffalo and beyond take time and money and by purchasing a membership, you’re helping us bring the Blue Jays’ minor league system to you!

 

We’ve also upgraded our server package this offseason enabling us to keep all of our content online with fewer behind-the-scenes problems that we’ve experienced in the past.

 

*2016 Premium Content will begin to go live the week of March 28, 2016 and the 2016 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook will be available for download here and at Smashwords on April 3, 2016.

 

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The 2016 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook is coming April 3! Visit the Handbook page for more information!

All photos are copyright Blue Jays from Away (2013-2016) and may not be used without permission.