Sunny Jays

With the Arizona Fall League season now over Gerry posts his Blue Jay centric wrap-up at Batter's Box. While Gerry goes in-depth in his report by conducting interviews regarding the Blue Jay organization's six players these two themes about the AFL in general caught my eye.

This years AFL set a record for offense, in part due to very weak pitching. Major league clubs are reluctant to send their top pitching prospects to Arizona for fear of overwork. Most of the pitchers in the AFL are either starting pitchers recovering from an injury that limited their innings in 2005, or relief pitchers.

And

The hitters in the AFL are the cream of the crop...some of the best hitting prospects in the game. Most of these players will appear in the major leagues sometime next year, both of this years rookies of the year were in the AFL last year.

I find the contrast in talent between the pitching and offensive quite interesting. Will this hurt the AFL over the long-term? In other words will the league begin to suffer in the eyes of the fans because the game's balance will be so skewed as to have the appearance of beer-league softball? Or perhaps fans will be reminded of the 1999 major league season and enjoy the show.