Around The Nest: 2024 Minor League Season Wrap-Up Show

Artificial Turf Wars

The broadcasters from the Buffalo Bisons, New Hampshire Fisher Cats, and Vancouver Canadians look back at the 2024 season in the Blue Jays minor league system.

Pat Malacaro (triple-A Buffalo) leads off with host Tyler Zickel (high-A Vancouver) to talk about a Bisons season that did not turn out as expected, with the likes of Leo Jimenez and Addison Barger spending a lot of time in Toronto with the big league team, Orelvis Martinez serving a big part of the season on suspension, and pitchers Ricky Tiedemann and Chad Dallas finding themselves on the injured list. This forced the Bisons to adopt the "next-man-up mentality", exemplified by Alan Roden who struggled after being promoted from double-A before finishing very strong. Andrew Bash and Paxton Schultz solidified the Bisons' pitching, Will Robertson had a strong finish to a good bounceback year, and Payton Henry became a hero coming back from a horrific head injury, hearing loss, and the death of his brother.

The 20th season of Fisher Cats baseball did not turn out the way the team wanted; however, Chris Jared and Bob Lipman (double-A New Hampshire) are excited about the return of some of the team and players coming up from Vancouver in 2025. Alan Roden and Josh Kasevich were noted as having made a huge impact at the level before their promotions to Buffalo, RJ Schreck, Charles McAdoo, and Yohendrick Pinango were fun to watch after their acquisitions at the trade deadline, former water polo player Johnathan Lavallee just shoved for the team down the stretch, and Eric Pardinho, who has lost the top-prospect shine, was a dominant reliever at double-A.

Tyler and broadcasting partner Chris Georges (high-A Vancouver) were sad to see the Canadians' season ending with a walkoff hit-by-pitch in the Northwest League Championship, but they were proud to see the team keeping the series with the Spokane Indians relatively close given that Vancouver was 8-20 against that team during the regular season. Jace Bohrofen took a couple of months to adjust to professional baseball, but then blew up in the second half, including August in which he OPSed 1.055. After being signed out of independent baseball, Je'Von Ward made a big impact both at the plate and in the outfield for the C's, Jackson Hornung continued to hit all year despite his transition from catcher to first base to outfield, and Peyton Williams may have been too good for high-A. On the mound, Kendry Rojas and Lazaro Estrada were spicy punches, and Ryan Jennings' stuff and dumpster were things to behold.

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