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John Schneider excited by Blue Jays prospect promotions

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Shortstop JoJo Parker and pitcher Johnny King — two of the top prospects in the Blue Jays organization — each moved up a level within Toronto’s minor-league system on Sunday, to the delight of Schneider. The manager of the major-league club spoke about the two promotions the following day.

“Keep him going,” said Schneider of Parker’s promotion from the single-A Dunedin Blue Jays to the High-A Vancouver Canadians. “Keep him moving up.”

Schneider was then asked about King’s promotion from Vancouver to the Double-A New Hampshire Fisher Cats.

“Keep him going too, you know what I mean?” said Schneider. “Minor leagues is practice.”

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Parker is ranked 27th on MLB Pipeline’s top 100 prospects list and is Toronto’s highest ranked minor leaguer. King is the third-highest ranked prospect in the Blue Jays system, behind fellow pitcher Nolan Perry, who is also in Double-A.

The 20-year-old Parker was the Blue Jays’ eighth-overall selection in the 2025 MLB Draft. He hit .259 for Dunedin this season with 13 home runs and 66 runs batted in over 87 games. He had a .389 on-base percentage and .471 slugging percentage in that span.

Parker was especially effective through June and July, hitting 10 homers and posting a .973 on-base/slugging percentage.

Schneider said that Donnie Murphy, the minor league infield coordinator for the Blue Jays, was in Toronto on Monday and had delivered a report on Parker.

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“We were talking about him a little bit, and he’s another smart kid,” said Schneider. “For a young guy, he can obviously hit, there’s all those tools, but pretty baseball savvy.”

King was taken in the third round of the 2024 draft, 93rd overall, by the Blue Jays.

The left-hander, who is also 20 years old, had a 5-2 record with a 3.21 earned-run average for Vancouver this season. He had 112 strikeouts, 50 walks, and 1.381 walks/hits per inning pitched over 84 innings in 21 starts.

“The biggest thing is if you’re posting and you continue to do well, it’s like get going,” said Schneider. “The reports on him have been really, really good for the whole time he’s been here.”

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Schneider said the organization hopes King will continue to attack the zone more and reduce the number of walks he issues.

“I think just as he continues to go, just say, ‘hey, the more you’re around older hitters, you got to just trust that your stuff is going to be good in the zone,’” said Schneider.

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“It will be very harsh on Ruturaj Gaikwad”

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7 minutes ago

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11 August 2026

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Former cricketer Subramaniam Badrinath made a huge statement on Indian superstar Hardik Pandya’s trade deal ahead of IPL 2027. Several reports have linked the star all-rounder to Chennai Super Kings (CSK).

However, it is being said that Hardik would move to any franchise only if he was offered captaincy. That said, Badrinath reckoned that it would be unfair on current CSK captain Ruturaj Gaikwad if Hardik came in and took away the leadership. He reckoned that the current skipper should be given at least another year.

“If Hardik comes, you will take the captaincy from Gaikwad and give it to Hardik? I will not agree with this. It will be very harsh on [Ruturaj] Gaikwad. They gave him captaincy in 2025, but he got injured and did not play the majority of the season, and MS Dhoni led in that season. 2026 was the season where he fully led as captain. Yes, he did not do as great, I agree. He did lead in 2024 too, but I feel he should get one more season as captain. I think CSK will also do that,” he said in a video on his YouTube channel.

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CSK have failed to make the playoffs since 2024. While Gaikwad played only five games in 2025, he returned as captain last season, where they finished eighth on the table. Badrinath added that with one more year left for the mega auction, the five-time champions could give Gaikwad one more season as captain.

“There is one more year in this cycle before the mega auction so probably CSK will give him one more year. Gaikwad the batter is someone I really like and I have said it before too. We don’t know who the new coach also will be. So we have to wait and see.”

Gaikwad’s form with the bat was a bit of a concern last season, though. He scored 337 runs from 14 games at an average of 28.08 and a strike rate of 123.44 with just two half-centuries. Overall, he has played 85 games for the franchise, scoring 2839 runs at an average of 38.36 and a strike rate of 135.64 with two hundreds and 22 fifties.

S Badrinath picks former champions as another franchise Hardik Pandya could go to

While rumours and reports have it that Hardik Pandya is likely to move to either Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) or CSK, Subramaniam Badrinath picked IPL’s inaugural champions, Rajasthan Royals (RR), as another option for Hardik.

He took a dig at RR skipper Riyan Parag, stating his captaincy was not as great and impactful.

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“Rajasthan could also be an option, as Riyan Parag did not have much impact as captain. Tell me what he did as captain? Is he MS Dhoni or Rohit Sharma? Is his captaincy of that level? Records are in front of you. I have nothing against any player personally,” Badrinath said.

Riyan Parag has led RR in 22 games so far with 10 wins, 12 defeats and a win percentage of 45.45. That said, they also finished fourth last season and made it to the playoffs, eventually losing to the Gujarat Titans (GT) in the second qualifier.