Playoff-bound Vancouver Canadians balancing developing Blue Jays prospects, winning

HILLSBORO, Ore. — Brent Lavallee really likes his players, but the Vancouver Canadians manager only wants them on his team for a good time, not a long time.

“Essentially less than a year, or whenever the time comes — everyone's on a different progression and different path,” he says in the visitors’ dugout on a sun-kissed Friday afternoon at Ron Tonkin Field, before a 10-7 win over the Hillsboro Hops later that night left them with a season record of 47-31. “It is not bittersweet at all when they are promoted. We love to see them leave. That is our job. Our job is to develop and win baseball games. And this group we've had this year has done an incredible job of both. The player-development aspect is at the forefront and the competitor is also there, so it's been extremely fun and we look forward to seeing more leave and not return.”

Already the Toronto Blue Jays’ advanced-A affiliate has sent starters Chad Dallas and Trenton Wallace, high-octane relievers Connor Cooke, Mason Fluharty and T.J. Brock, and infielders Riley Tirotta and Rainier Nunez up to double-A New Hampshire. 

The upward flow of talent hasn’t kept the Canadians from running roughshod through the Northwest League, clinching the first-half crown with a 5-1 win over the Hops back on June 18 that also secured a berth in the loop’s best-of-five championship series in the fall.

A slate of interesting prospects — infielders Josh Kasevich and Cade Doughty, outfielders Alan Roden and Dasan Brown, starters Adam Macko and Dahian Santos, and emerging reliever-turned-starter Devereaux Harrison among them — have helped keep the wins coming. 

In a system that, generally speaking, tends to focus on and reward individual performance, they’re determined to be a team. Several of them went to the playoffs with the low-A Dunedin Blue Jays last year and are poised to chase a title again with the Canadians this summer.

“I think it matters a whole lot,” said Roden, the left-handed hitting outfielder selected in the third round a summer ago who extended his hit streak to 11 games with a three-run homer Friday. “We are true teammates and that doesn't always happen in pro ball. You hear stories, sometimes it's pretty individualized and that's just the matter of fact. Our group is pretty darn close. It's fun to play for each other and really, truly, genuinely hope for their success. And we've had a lot of that this year with so many good players. So it’s been really fun.”

Kasevich, a gifted defender taken in the second round a year ago and described as being big-league ready with the glove while his high-contact bat develops, points to the core group “going to programs prior to this and how to be a winning baseball player instead of just a kind of a showcase ballplayer.”

“There are different things that are required to win baseball games that don't necessarily show up in showcases or stuff like that,” he added. “And I think this team does a lot of that stuff really well – moving runners, scoring runners, stuff like that. It was a lot of fun starting to play with them last year, getting that foundation for winning down in Dunedin and carrying it through here and hopefully continuing up the org.”

An example is often found on TV in the Canadians’ clubhouse before games, when they see Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Bo Bichette, Cavan Biggio, Danny Jansen, Santiago Espinal and Jordan Romano playing for the Blue Jays, having risen through the system together.

“We see how they've won together and grinded through this together," said Lavallee. "That's what these guys want and going back to last year in Dunedin, they made a second half playoff push, we made a second half playoff push, so it's almost like they expect that. And we hope that continues to grow as they go up to double-A and the big-leagues. As Blue Jays staffers, that's what we're hoping for.”

The Blue Jays, as an organization, need that to happen as a series of win-now trades in recent years have thinned out what once was one of the top farm systems in the majors. Sunday’s draft represents an important opportunity to rejuvenate the talent base but they’ll also need some developmental wins to aid in the process, as well.

Harrison, a 22-year-old right-hander selected in the ninth round out of California State University, Long Beach, last year, may be turning into one of those. 

He only began pitching during his junior year of high school, closing games while playing the outfield, and made just two starts in college when he was primarily a closer. But on May 21, with the Canadians in dire straits after the promotions of Dallas and Wallace, he started and threw five innings of one-hit ball with six strikeouts and has remained in the rotation since, striking out 33 in 36.2 innings with a 1.23 ERA in seven starts.

The Blue Jays had discussed him possibly making some starts later this year but he’s quite literally taken the ball and run with it, hauling innings, each one with a closer’s mentality.

“I started the two games in college on Friday because our Friday guy got hurt, but I never really thought about starting,” said Harrison. “I don't care when I have the ball. I don't care if it's in the first inning, the ninth inning, the fifth inning. I just like to go out there and compete, my best versus their best. No matter what inning, no matter the score, what's going on. I just want the ball and to compete.”

Macko, the Slovak-born, Alberta-raised lefty acquired with reliever Erik Swanson from Seattle in the Teoscar Hernandez deal, has more of a prospect profile but his emergence would also be significant. 

While his numbers aren’t ideal so far — a 6.04 ERA and 1.520 WHIP in 12 starts — he’s also logged 50.2 innings, a third of an inning more than he threw all last year between low-A Everett and Peoria in the Arizona Fall League. 

Macko is pleased about that and the way he’s recovering physically after each start, without the soreness that’s plagued him in recent seasons, while learning to trust in process over results, with club metrics telling him he’s far outpitched his numbers.

At the same time, he’s also relished pitching regularly in Vancouver while finding his footing in a new organization.

“This is one of the funnest teams I've been a part of,” said Macko. “That was something that I wasn't worried about, but leaving the Mariners, I had a great connection with guys there and it was all very familiar. Moving into an organization that's not familiar, I was a little wary, but as soon as I got to the Blue Jays, everything clicked immediately. So I'm having a lot of fun playing with them and Nat Bailey was my favourite place to play even before I was a Canadian, so being at that stadium, being at home, having the fans behind us and the way that we were playing is just amazing.”

How much of it ultimately filters up to the big-leagues will take years to determine. Maybe this is the beginning of another wave of talent that will eventually help refresh and turn over the current Blue Jays' core. Or maybe this is just a great season for a franchise that deserves some karmic payback after being forced to spend the 2021 season calling Hillsboro home due to pandemic border restrictions. 

Whatever the case, the Canadians are a fun team worth watching.

“We're all cheering for each other,” said Harrison. “There's not one person on this team that doesn't want someone to do well because he wants to stand out. We all have our moments of shining this season and all have had our moments going bad, but team is always there to pick each other up. You could just tell that by our record. To clinch the first half, that's awesome. But why not win the second half, as well, you know? Just sweep it.”

Why not, indeed.