Travis Snider

Sitting at a cool 9-11 record, the Toronto Blue Jays have started out fairly well this season, despite a very difficult schedule, injuries, and lastly, an infusion of young talent into a relatively unsettled lineup.

With that young lineup and changeover on the Jays roster, there is bound to be some bumpy parts of the road right?

The city of Toronto, from a sports perspective, has been swimming through quicksand for a long time.

General mangers of the city's major sports teams have tried to put together teams that will contend or at least make a playoff appearance. Evidently, they’ve been coming up short.

Earlier this week, it was reported that Travis Snider has sustained a rib-cage injury which has prevented him from participating in baseball-related activities.   

Blue Jays fans have been left wondering if he will be ready for the start of the season, especially as he often seems to be taking two steps forward but then one step back.

The Toronto Blue Jays have been going in the right direction ever since Alex Anthopolous took over as General Manager.  Alex Anthopolous has put great emphasis on developing young talent and has invested time and money into ensuring that the future is bright.  At the same time, AA has managed to put a fantastic product on the field that has remained competitive even in the toughest division in baseball.  

With the Winter Meetings set to run December 6th to 9th in Orlando, Florida, talk is spreading like wildfire among baseball people that the Jays are pushing hard to try and acquire former Cy Young winner Zack Greinke from the Kansas City Royals.

It has been a year of excitement and disappointment for the Toronto Blue Jays.

When the Blue Jays started the season, it came as a bit of a surprise that the manager Cito Gaston projected that the Jays lineup would live and die by the home run. 

Gaston suggested that his lineup was packed full of potential 20 home run hitters.

"Bautista has a chance to hit maybe 20-25 home runs because he's done it before," Gaston said. "Then, of course, you've got Hill, you've got Lind and Vernon who hit 20 home runs the year before.

Travis Snider is one young player who has certainly seen his fair share of ups-and-downs in his limited major league career.  After getting called up from Triple-A for the tailend of the 2008 season, and batting .301 in 24 games, he was likely thinking that he would be playing with the team the next season. 

We all know the names of guys like Pujols, Fielder, Howard, Teixeira, and Rodriguez. They've been the league leaders in power numbers for most of this past decade.

But now that 2010 is here and a new decade has dawned, who is poised to step into the limelight? Who among the nameless, faceless masses is ready to become the next HR king?

My criteria is as follows:

Player must be no more than 23 years old.
Player must have no more than 500 MLB at bats.
Player must not be a Buffalo Bills fan.

In yesterday's 3-2 win over the Red Sox all the Blue Jays runs came courtesy of Travis Snider . Both of his hits, a double and home run, came off Sox starter Tim Wakefield. However, a couple of hits off Wakefield, a knuckleballer, tells us absolutely nothing about Snider's development as a hitter this season. Just in the same way a hitless day against Wakefield would tell us nothing.