The Toronto Blue Jays and general manager Alex Anthopoulos continued their vast overhaul and improvement of the Blue Jays scouting department on Thursday.

Added to the Jays scouting department are Gary Rajsich as professional cross-checker, Brandon Mozley as regional cross-checker, Brian Parker as professional scout and Dan Cox as area scout.

Tom Burns, Dan Cholowsky and Matt Briggs have also been promoted to regional cross-checker positions.

With the additions the Jays have nearly doubled the size of the scouting department to 25 as opposed to the 14 they employed last season.

Anthopolous has made it quite clear via the media that the Jays player development and scouting departments were main focuses of his upon taking over the role of general manager.

Anthopoulos had this to say about the additions:

“If we can get the best in scouting and the best in player and development, ultimately that will result in better players and a better product on the field. That being said, we’re also going to move toward restructuring the way we do our pro scouting and the way we do our amateur scouting.
“We’re going to have new layers of scouts. We’re going to really be doing some things that haven’t been done in the past with other organizations.”

Also, Toronto Blue Jays Randy Ruiz, who spent the majority of last season with the Triple A Las Vegas 51’s has been named to the Topps Triple A All-Star team.

The 32-year-old Ruiz batted .320 with 25 homers and a Triple-A-leading 106 RBIs while winning Most Valuable Player honors in the Pacific Coast League with Las Vegas.

Also named to the squad were second baseman Kevin Russo (New York Yankees), third baseman Andy Marte (Cleveland Indians), shortstop Alcides Escobar (Milwaukee Brewers), outfielders John Bowker (San Francisco Giants), Jordan Brown (Cleveland Indians) and Shelley Duncan (New York Yankees), catcher John Hester (Arizona Diamondbacks), designated hitter Mitch Jones (Los Angeles Dodgers) and pitcher Lenny DiNardo (Kansas City Royals).