Roster Shuffling: Leblebijian, Pierre on the Move. Is Andy Burns next?

With the Short-season leagues started or about to start and the half-way mark in  A-ball reached, the Blue Jays have started to shuffle the deck, particularly for some infielders.

 

Jason Leblebijian

Getting promoted from Vancouver to Lansing is infielder Jason Leblebijian, a 22-year-old shortstop who has already seen some fairly successful time in Dunedin this year. He was hitting .333 in 21 at bats in Vancouver and .278 in 18 in Dunedin and it’s clear that he’s ready for some better competition. While this hasn’t shown up in the official transactions for either the Northwest League nor the Midwest League, Charlie Caskey at Jays Journal and Your Van Cs has confirmed to me that Leblebijian was headed to Lansing after the game in Vancouver yesterday. The player himself re-tweeted this:


 

Gustavo Pierre

It has been made official (or at least published officially) that 3B Gustavo Pierre, who offers a lot of upside, has been promoted to A+ Dunedin. Pierre is hitting .292/.300/.438 with 5 HRs and 15 SBs in 61 games with Lansing. He shows very good extra-base power and contact skills but doesn’t walk and strikes out a lot (2 BB/62 K) and is also very rough in the field, making 19 errors so far this year. Pierre is still only 21 and hopefully can work out some of the flaws in his game.

 

There hasn’t been another move from Dunedin announced just yet, but the expectation (which you’ll hear more about on the Podcast tomorrow) is that Dunedin Blue Jays’ All-Star 3B Andy Burns will be headed up to New Hampshire. It may not be announced yet due to roster issues but we expect to see this within the next couple of days (and I hope to be able to interview Burns when I get to Manchester, New Hampshire next weekend).

 

Andy Burns. Photo: Mark LoMoglio/MiLB.com
Andy Burns. Photo: Mark LoMoglio/MiLB.com

22 year old Burns is absolutely tearing up the Florida State League, hitting .327/.383/.524 with 8 home runs and 21 stolen bases in 64 games.  You can hear more about Burns and the Dunedin Blue Jays on Friday’s Blue Jays from Away Podcast with special guest Tyler Murray, the radio play-by-play announcer for the D-Jays.

 

Who else do you think might be on the move?