Welcome to the first part of our many recaps of the season that was in the Toronto Blue Jays’ minor league system.

 

 

Overall, under manager Jose Mateo, the DSL Blue Jays were 33-38 and was generally an older team with most of the youngest Blue Jays’ international prospects in the GCL or at higher levels. There were only two 17-year-olds and one 16-year-old among the position players and just one 17-year-old pitcher.

 

Blue Jays from Away Player of the Game Champion

 

For those of you who followed the minor league reports here, you’ll know that I “awarded” Player of the Game (PotG) accolades on a game-by-game basis. It should comfort you to know that I’ve been keeping track of these daily awards and my rationale for the system is as follows.

 

The Player of the Game Awards were determined by a number of factors that included who I thought had the most impact on the game and who might have gone “above and beyond.” Most nights, there was just one Player of the Game. If there was, he earned one point. If I thought that either a) no one stood out enough to merit a single PotG, or b) two or more players were outstanding and deserved mention, I split the point up into two, three or four shares. If two players earned PotG mention, they each received 0.5 points and if three players earned mentions, they each received 0.3 points. There were occasions that I felt that no one merited the award and therefore, I did not give out any points.

 

Here are the final standings for Blue Jays from Away Player of the Game for the DSL Blue Jays:

 

Rodrigo Orozco	6.1
Bryan Lizardo	6
Enmanuel Moreta	6
Edward Olivares	6
Denis Diaz	3.6
Jesus Severino	3.3
Jose Nova	2.5
Francisco Rodriguez	2.5
Javier Hernandez	2.5
Luis Sanchez	2.3
Juliandry Higuera	2
Luis Gomez	2
Jonathan Torres	1.5
Miguel Almonte	1.5
Osman Gutierrez	1.5
Ronniel Demorizi	1.5
Yonardo Herdenez	1.3
Antony Fuentes	1
Erick Hurtado	1
Wilfri Aleton	1
Eddy Alcantara	0.5
Pedro Diaz	0.5
Leudy Garcia	0.5
Wilmin Lara	0.5
Manuel Herazo	0.5
Guillermo De La Cruz	0.3

 

As you can see, there were four players in close contention for the honour of the Player of the Game Champion but, coming out on top by 1/10 of a point was outfielder Rodrigo Orozco. 16-year-old third baseman Bryan Lizardo was among the three players just one point back while Enmanuel Moreta and Edward Olivares shared the second spot. It’s important to note that Olivares’ success is very interesting considering that he was signed midway through the season and, with such success, could be on a fast track to the North American minor leagues next year when he turns 19.

 

Blue Jays from Away Player of the Year

 

This was a tough decision seeing as it’s hard to judge some of these players without ever having seen them. If Edward Olivares had played a full season (he only played 40 games), he would have easily been my Player of the Year but otherwise, I’m going to have to go with Enmanuel Moreta. The first baseman led the club in slugging with a .437 mark and, of the players who played all year, he was the most well rounded (although his speed seems non-existent). Moreta’s 21 doubles and seven triples led the club while he still managed to hit for a solid batting average of .287 with a good OBP of .367.

 

Blue Jays from Away Pitcher of the Year

 

This is another difficult choice because of how hard it is to differentiate between players with very similar statistics. In the end, however, I chose 19-year-old Honduran righty Denis Diaz who led the club in strikeouts. Diaz logged 53 innings and struck out 49 while walking only 16, posting a very good 3.06 strikeout to walk ratio. He also only allowed 45 hits, giving him a 1.15 WHIP, one of the lowest on the team. His weakness appears to be home runs but his ratio wasn’t at all horrible at 0.7 HR/9.

 

Because of the relative obscurity of the DSL players, I’ll only hand out these two awards but we’ll get into more detail with the players in the North American leagues, likely starting early next week.

 

Who are these players? Find out in The 2014 Toronto Blue Jays Minor League Handbook, now available as an ebook at Smashwords.com for $7.99 US. It’s coming soon to Amazon, Apple iBooks, Kobo and other fine retailers. You can purchase and preview the book at our Smashwords.com page! If you like us here,“like” us on Facebook!

The All-Star Break Supplement to the Minor League Handbook is also available at Smashwords.com for only $2 US! Get an update on how your favourite players have been doing this season as well as a report on the 2014 draft!

All photos are copyright Blue Jays from Away (2013-2014) and may not be used without permission.