Toronto Blue Jays Had a Home Run Derby Champion, It Just Wasn't Jose Bautista

The Major League Baseball All-Star Game has come and gone, the National League won again and a Yankee won the Home Run Derby.

Robinson Cano wowed the crowd with both his impressive home run stroke and the fact that he was being pitched to by his father.  Jose Bautista hit four home runs in his first attempt at the power challenge, but that wasn't enough for him to make it out of the first round.

Of course, this is all old news and already much discussed.  

What hasn't been talked about a lot is that fact that the Blue Jays did have a home run champion over the All-Star break, it just wasn't with the major league club.

The New Hampshire Fisher Cats, an affiliate of the Blue Jays, hosted the All-Star game for the Double-A Eastern League this year and had two of their own players go blast-for-blast in the Home Run Derby.

Outfielder Moises Sierra managed to make it to the final two against first baseman Mike McDade, but the latter proved to be the victor after both of them put on an impressive display.

What is interesting about this and why it is worth bringing up rather late after the actual All-Star break is how little press this player has received so far in his young career.  

McDade was born in 1989 in Las Vegas, Nevada, is a 6'1", 260-lb switch-hitting first baseman and in the first half of the season pretty much dominated the Eastern League in most offensive categories.

He was first in hits, runs and total bases, second in doubles and RBI, sixth in slugging, ninth in average and 10th in home runs.

What is even more interesting is that he isn't a highly touted prospect, McDade was actually selected in the sixth round (205th overall) of the 2007 draft and has played exclusively at first base after being drafted as a catcher.

McDade was a NY Penn league midseason All-Star in 2008 and was named the Organizational Player of the Month after hitting .382 with six home runs and 20 RBI in 26 games.  In 2010, he led the Florida State League in home runs with 21 and was voted Dunedin's MVP, then, in the Arizona Fall League, he finished third in average batting .375.  

Once again, this year, he was promoted and has continued his impressive ways in Double-A, voted an Eastern League midseason All-Star and winning the Home Run Derby.

With the emergence of Blue Jays 2008 first-round draft pick David Cooper the past two years, it gives the Blue Jays two strong prospects at first base.

When Brett Wallace was traded to the Houston Astros last year for Anthony Gose, it was viewed that the Blue Jays had little in the way of first base prospects after him.  But with Cooper already making an appearance in the majors and McDade tearing up Double-A, the future at first doesn't look so bleak after all.