Spring Training 2023: A look at Blue Jays’ upcoming roster battles

Following a productive off-season, much of the Toronto Blue Jays’ 26-man roster has been already set as team workouts begin at the franchise’s Player Development Complex this week, leaving few roster battles to be decided. But there are still a few spots up for grabs ahead of Saturday’s spring training opener versus the Pittsburgh Pirates.
The Blue Jays have the next four-plus weeks to polish the edges around their big-league roster, determining which players will fly north with them ahead of Opening Day and which will be assigned to the minor leagues. It will almost certainly be challenging to decipher between the good and the bad, though.
As with every spring training, player performances have to be taken with a grain of salt during this time of the year as they can often be misleading – think last season’s Greg Bird, who slashed .261/.393/.565 with two home runs in 23 at-bats before being cut by the team. Evaluating small sample sizes for hitters can often be difficult, especially when they’re facing pitchers just looking to get their reps in and vice-versa.
Luckily for Toronto, manager John Schneider likely won’t be forced to make many tough roster decisions out of the gate. That is, of cour …

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Author: Thomas Hall / Blue Jays Nation

Minten’s monster performance, Woll working his way back: Leafs Prospect Roundup

Minten’s monster performance, Woll working his way back: Leafs Prospect Roundup

Following a brief holiday hiatus, the Leafs Prospect Roundup is back to kick off 2023. From some of the top names in the system such as Matthew Knies, Fraser Minten, and Nick Moldenhauer, to some of the more under-the-radar prospects like Ryan Tverberg, Braeden Kressler, and Joe Miller, there is plenty to catch up on so let’s get to it.
Fraser Minten | C | Kamloops (WHL)
With teammates Logan Stankoven and Caedan Bankier off representing Canada at the World Juniors, Minten has been charged with leading the Blazers’ offensive attack, and he continued to do just that over the holidays.
Already riding a three-game goalscoring streak heading into last Tuesday’s matchup against Kelowna, the Leafs’ 2022 second-round pick registered his first hat trick of the campaign and added an assist in what would go down as a 6-4 win for Kamloops. Minten has been deadly on the man advantage all season, and that was the case once again on this night. He sniped a pair of powerplay goals, including a late go-ahead goal that would stand as the winner, before adding an empty netter to complete the hat trick.

Fraser Minten with another powerplay snipe to put the Blazers up by one late in the third period#LeafsForever pic.twitter.com/EbVoVPPWdA
— Nick Richard (@_NickRichard) December 28, 2022

It was a …

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Author: Nick Richard / The Leafs Nation

Establishing reasonable expectations for Ilya Samsonov

I’ve been following the Leafs for a long time. And in those many years of following the Maple Leafs one thing I can never recall seeing is a goaltender coming to Toronto and seeing their career rebound. Jack Campbell and Frederik Andersen maybe punctuated their success after establishing that they were good during their time in Southern California, but neither was truly struggling. Curtis Joseph and Ed Belfour came to Toronto and continued on with their Hall of Fame worthy careers, but no one breaks out in Toronto and that’s part of why establishing expectations for Ilya Samsonov is important.
It’s also important to note that with a new goaltending coach comes the opportunity to erase the past. Just because it hasn’t happened doesn’t mean it can’t happen now. If hope is an important part of your Leafs viewing process, I’m not going to be the person that takes away from you, and admittedly I’m very excited about Curtis Sanford as the Leafs goaltending coach too. I’ve caught myself believing he could do for goaltending what Dean Chynoweth did for special teams, and then reminded myself to dial it back a little.
Dialing …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Leafs hoping to be the team that unlocks Victor Mete’s potential

Following his selection in the 2016 draft, Victor Mete has been on a path that had him viewed with more potential than most fourth round selections. At 19 he made the Habs opening night roster. He’d follow that up with making the Canadian World Junior team, an accomplishment that now seems to be viewed more as a curse than an achievement. And the next two seasons would still see Mete used as an NHL regular, although never really establishing himself with a role with meaningful minutes. In short, he seemed rushed to the NHL.
Given his early arrival in the NHL, Mete also had an early arrival at waivers eligibility, and the Senators were all too happy to take a chance on a once regarded prospect at a discount price. Unfortunately, Mete’s time in Ottawa involved a further step away from NHL regularity and resulted in spot duty throughout his time in the capital. He seemed to be moving further away from the promising role he seemed destined for in Montreal.
It seemed entirely possible that it was time to write off Mete, but there is something to be said for a little exploration of talent. Montreal’s defensive reputation of late has been geared towards us …

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Author: Jon Steitzer / The Leafs Nation

Inside the Leafs’ development pipeline: Report from the Rock

The following article contains excerpts from an interview originally conducted in November 2020.
The Toronto Maple Leafs, like any team aiming for long-term success, have heavily invested in prospect development. And in a flat salary cap world, the versatility of good players being able to slot into a lineup for close to league-minimum is more valuable than ever before.
Following in the footsteps of what the Pittsburgh Penguins established years ago with the Wheeling Nailers, the Leafs made a commitment when they established an affiliation agreement with the Newfoundland Growlers in 2018 that the ECHL club would be seen as a true development program for the AHL’s Toronto Marlies and beyond. This agreement made the Growlers the entry-level point of a true three-tier development system, as opposed to just another ECHL team where careers would go to die, or players banished from an AHL club would wind up to play out their contracts in obscurity.
The process is slow, naturally, but it has begun to bear fruit. Defenceman Kristians Rubins played three games for the Leafs this past season after beginning his tenure within the organization on an ECHL contract with the Growlers in the team’s inaugural season. Timothy Liljegren is technically a Growlers alumni, as he played a single game with the tea …

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Author: Dylan Murphy / The Leafs Nation