Jays Sending Top Prospects to Arizona

The Arizona Fall League announced most of their rosters on Monday and the Blue Jays contingent included some of the top prospects. The Blue Jays will send David Purcey, Ricky Romero, James Vermilyea, Sergio Santos, Ryan Patterson, Travis Snider and one more pitcher to be added later.

The goal of the Blue Jays was to send players who missed significant time due to injury. Purcey, Vermilyea and Romero were all sidelined due to arm injuries this season and are being sent to catch up on their development.

Romero has pitched in 16 games with the Fisher Cats after missing a month in the middle of the year and is 2-6 with a 5.11 ERA in 75 2/3 innings. Purcey has not pitched since June 6 and was 3-5 with a 5.37 ERA in 11 games at the time of his injury. The southpaw started the season on a strong note going 3-1 with a 2.81 ERA over his first four starts.

Sergio Santos had a career year with New Hampshire batting .252 with 20 home runs. He was promoted to Triple-A Syracuse in August but struggled in 13 games batting just .191.

Patterson came back in May after breaking a bone in his hand during a major league spring training game. He’s performed well with New Hampshire batting .259 with 15 home runs and 62 RBI, however, the extra at bats and experience of playing in the competitive league will help speed up his development. It’s the second consecutive off-season Patterson will be playing baseball. Last year he played in the Hawaii Winter League.

Travis Snider rounds out the group as the lone selected of a player below Double-A that the Blue Jays were allowed to send. Snider spent the entire year with Low-A Lansing batting .309 with 14 home runs and 89 RBI to date. The Blue Jays wanted to test Snider this off-season and see how he reacts to the higher level of pitching.