A Happy Summer Solstice to you all! The mid-summer ritual always makes me unreasonably cherry — no doubt some subconscious trace of my wastrel youth, partying through the night at Stonehenge of a mid-summer night, is tickling the memory banks. Anyway, it also means our baseball season is rushing away from us, and before it goes completely, I’ll bet you have things you wish to know about it!
So let’s dive in the mailbag for this week’s questions. I promise I will not take my solstice celebrations literal and make this the longest mailbag of the year…
First, of course, a word from our sponsor…..me! You can get literally thousands more words of my thoughts and observations on the Giants’ Player Development by becoming a daily subscriber to There R Giants!
And with that little task attended to….
John
Assuming Casey Schmitt and Patrick Bailey have graduated out, what would be your new top 10 for the system at this point?
So let’s start here, since this gives me a great opportunity to offer up a mea culpa of really being far too low on Bailey in Top 50 (21). I could see the high floor and eventual major league outcome, but his season has really been an extraordinary eye-opener, and what he’s doing in San Francisco right now is certainly making my expectations and report look pretty feeble. I blundered on that one — and, to be clear, players making my writeups look feeble is a best case outcome that I welcome, though I will endeavor not to blunder too often, for my readers’ benefit if not for my own reputation. You can never really tell how players are going to respond to adversity. Bailey’s response has been amazing and a credit to him as a player and person.
So with that said, Schmitt is just a handful of at bats from losing prospect status, and, though Bailey’s further behind, I think we can presume he’ll drop off shortly as well. I’m just starting to think about a midseason re-ranking, but with those two gone, the top of my list is likely to look something like this:
Something like that. The deeper you get into the top 10 (and of course the rest of the list) the more it remains in flux, with several potential candidates in my mind for that final Top 10 spot — Tristan Beck, Mason Black, Tyler Fitzgerald and even young Rayner Arias are probably in play there. There may be some slight changes when I actually roll my re-rank out (just looking at that I feel I could be low on Crawford), which I will probably do in that dark period after the major league All Star game, when all minor league action ceases for a few days.
John
Do you think Giants prospects like Matos and Bailey have been less passive at the plate this year on their own or as a result of the front office’s request?” In other words, do you think the front office backed off a bit on the emphasis of walking and let them swing more this year. If so, do you think this was due to Pete Putila’s hiring or a front office strategy shift?
I’m not sure I’d agree with the premise of your question, John. I don’t think Matos or Bailey have really been less passive this year, and, while I wouldn’t say that Matos has been “more passive,” he’s clearly been much less aggressive. Matos has been an extreme free-swinger for most of his career — the somewhat natural tendency for a player with his extraordinary ability to get his bat on almost any pitch. But both Farhan Zaidi and Gabe Kapler have quite publicly talked about the organization challenging him to be more selectively aggressive this year, and, at least in his short time in Double A Richmond, it was quite clear that he had refined his process.
When I saw Matos in Eugene last summer, he was swinging on first pitches routinely, be they fastball or breaking ball, on the plate or off it. That’s not the player who I saw in Richmond this year, where he clearly had an idea of what he wanted to go after and was pretty disciplined in waiting for it. That caused his walk rate in Richmond to almost literally double previous career highs. That didn’t continue in Sacramento, where he was back to his career norm of 6%, but I think he did show the organization that he can hold to a game plan, which is what they wanted to see.
Bailey, on the other hand, has always been an extremely patient hitter. While he hasn’t had quite the same walk rates this year that he posted in Eugene last summer (15%), I think that’s more of a result of seeing better and better pitching, rather than a more aggressive approach. Now he did tell me at the beginning of the year that he felt he was too homer conscious last year and wanted to get back to being more hitterish this season, and that might cause him to be a little looser with his swing decisions (in that he’s not just waiting for a pipe shot to try to crank out all the time). Still, I think the guy we’ve seen in the majors is very much the same patient, disciplined hitter he showed himself to be in A ball — where, despite the overall numbers not being where he would have liked, he had some of the very best “chase rates” in the organization.
We know swing decisions are a huge focus for the Giants' front office when evaluating players. Which top prospects stand out on this front, who’s shown improvement this year, and who needs plenty of refinement? Also, where can I find chase rate stats for minor leaguers online?
Perhaps I should have just bundled these two questions together, since Bailey and Matos are certainly two obvious responses here as well — but let’s see if we can find some other guys doing good work on their swing decisions.
Diego Velasquez is another batter who seems to be making a real improvement in his swing decisions. Like Matos, his ability to get his bat on almost any ball led to elevated chase rates last year, but those have improved significantly this year, no doubt leading to his incredible success. I also think we’ve seen real improvement in Fitzgerald’s game plan — though some of that is what he’s trying to do with pitches (e.g, driving balls to all fields, rather than focusing on pulling balls out of the yard), and not just what he’s choosing to swing at. And I think Luciano’s swing decisions have been impressive thus far, though, as mentioned above, because he’s tending to work himself deep into counts, the strikeout rate has been high.
As for more work to do? Well, I think we’ve all seen that Schmitt needs to make more adjustments in his tendency to chase. Aeverson Arteaga and Grant McCray still have some work to do here. It’s hard, though! It sounds way easier than it actually is to avoid swinging at stuff coming in at 95-100 mph with all manner of movement on it.
Other players in the system who show particularly good swing decisions include Hayden Cantrelle, Andy Thomas, Logan Wyatt, Damon Dues, and Michael Gigliotti, who’s made some real improvements in his contact rate this year, which I’ve perhaps been amiss in highlighting.
As for public data? Sorry, but it doesn’t exist. I was able to get my hands on last year’s data for the Giants’ farm, and am hard at work trying to find a source for this year, but it’s very hard to pry loose. I do dream of a day when all minor league data is just as available on Baseball Savant as the major league stuff is, and ultimately I think the sport will work its way there.
Dennis
The Giants hired Pete Putila as their GM last winter. Do you see him making the rounds at various affiliates, or does he spend most of his time in S.F.? This will be his first draft this July, and I am curious to evaluate his impact. Certainly he is a strong analytics guy based upon his stint in Houston.
I did see him in Richmond for a couple of days earlier this year, right after he’d attended the series in Houston and collected his World Series ring. And I believe I caught sight of him in San Jose’s dugout not long after that — he’s so tall, it’s pretty easy to know when he’s around.
That said, while familiarizing himself with the talent is an important part of his transition into the organization, as I’ve said before, I’m hesitant to place any large sweeping PD priorities at Putila’s feet. While he is the GM, he’s not a GM in the old Brian Sabean tradition, as title inflation has taken over the industry since then. GM’s today are more along the lines of Assistant GMs back in the day. Zaidi is responsible — with his team of lieutenants — for setting the organization’s priorities, as is appropriate for a PoBO. Farm Director Kyle Haines and Amateur Scouting Director Michael Holmes (and Joe Salermo on the International side) are primarily responsible for turning those priorities into an action plan and leading their departments. Putila’s main focus, I think, is on the major league roster, though familiarity with the system is obviously a part of that focus, as well. For what it’s worth, while he was, at one point, the Farm Director in Houston, from my understanding (mostly distilled from Evan Drellich’s book Winning Fixes Everything: How Baseball’s Brightest Minds Created Sports’ Biggest Mess), he never had much input on the draft side of things, other than playing a role in high level discussions about how to fold new technologies into existing evaluation models. But I wouldn’t think that he’d have a noticeable impact on this year’s draft, which will, as in previous years, be driven by the model that Zaidi has put in place, combined with the efforts of Holmes and his very talented group of scouts.
Ken
It seems like Vaun Brown rarely plays 2 games is a row. Is he not fully healthy yet or is there some other reason?
What do you make of Luciano’s struggles in Richmond?
Dennis
Can you provide an update on Vaun Brown? He seems to be struggling in Richmond lately, including lots of Ks. I’ve also noticed that he sometimes doesn’t play.
As is the case with the pitching staffs, the Giants are taking a very cautious approach to players coming off of injuries this year, with the goal of making sure that the players are strong at the end of the season. When I’ve asked Richmond Manager Dennis Pelfrey about Brown, he’s told me he believes Brown could play every day if asked to (and I’m sure Brown would be eager to do just that), but the organization is taking what it believes to be the best plan for his long term interest. That means, for the time being, resting every few days and mixing in a DH game in his rotation.
I should say that Ken’s question is a holdover from previous weeks, so the situation might have been a little different when he wrote it. But generally, Brown’s pattern since joining Richmond has been as follows:
for about a week he played every other day
for the next two weeks, he played two straight days and rested on the third
for about the last week and a half, he’s played mostly every day
That said, you’re correct that he’s been in a scuffle of late, including a lot of swing and miss — it’s not just the Ks, he’s whiffing a lot lately. But he’s got to adjust to this new level, the way Luciano and other players do as well, and it requires adjustments. Hopefully, he’ll start to show some positive movement soon.
As for Luciano, I think we’ve seen before that he takes a little while to catch up to levels — and I would expect that to be true as he tackles the levels ahead, too. But I don’t really have any concerns. He’s got a good idea of the strike zone, he has a better hit tool than I think people give him credit for, he can catch up to velocity, and his incredible power plays in games. And while his strikeout rate has been high, unlike Brown, his swinging strike rate is actually much lower (Luciano’s swinging strike rate is a fairly low 13.4%, well down the list even of his own teammates, while Brown’s is 22%, third highest in the Eastern League). I think that indicates that the strikeouts are more about trying to work patient at bats that often put him into two strike counts (which will result in some whiffs because pitchers throw ridiculous stuff these days), rather than major contact issues. I’m still skeptical on his ability to stick at shortstop, but that’s something that will work itself out in time.
Robert
Thoughts on Kyle Harrison’s development?
Matos or Luciano?
What’s Carson Whisenhunt’s ceiling?
How excited are you about Vaun Brown?
I think Harrison’s development has been terrific. At some point this year, he is almost certain to be starting major league games at the age of 21. Let me tell you: there aren’t many 21 year olds starting games in the major leagues.
As it happens, there are only three pitchers under the age of 23 who have started games in MLB this year: Tampa Bay’s Taj Bradley (22), Miami’s Eury Sanchez (20), and Atlanta’s A.J. Smith-Shawver (20). Indeed, if I turned the dial up a notch and took all pitchers under the age of 24 who have started a game, I’d add only about a half dozen more pitchers to my list.
That’s important context to keep in mind, because what Harrison has been doing has been incredibly impressive and FAST development over the past two years. It looks to me like he’s improving his strike throwing and adjusting to the complications of the tight ABS quite well. His new slider looks like a solid weapon, though tightening up the sweeper is probably still on the To Do list. I still wish he’d utilize what I think is a well above average changeup more — perhaps when he gets back to working with Bailey more that will start to come up. All in all, though, he’s well ahead of progress!
As you can see in my sketched out Top 10 above, I still have Luciano over Matos. I just think there’s more damage ability in the bat, which tends to be what defines ceilings in the majors.
I think Whisenhunt’s changeup will keep him in the bigs for a long time, but I’d put his potential ceiling around a #3 starter — which is good, because I’m not really sure we’re going to see any #5 starters with the Giants any time soon.
I’m thrilled to get to watch Brown play every single day. As noted previously, I’d like to see him start to make more consistent contact, but there’s no doubt that he is pure excitement to watch play.
Kevin
I just listened to the Interview with Cory Elasik and enjoyed hearing how he watches hitters. His answer about the issues players had in Eugene leads me to this question - given the clear development hindrances with the weather and the facilities in Eugene, can the Giants do anything to try and get out of Eugene and go to a solo-use facility and or a better weather location so that development derailments don't happen in the future?
I live in San Jose and am going to see Reggie Crawford throw. Excited to see him live and excited to see all the additions to the mural where the SJ Giants alumni who make their MLB debuts are listed. Hope they have all the new guys on there - does Richmond do anything like that?
I’ve gotten versions of the Eugene question several times lately. The Emeralds are working very hard to get a solo-use facility, and I believe they are optimistic about the process (I have it on my list of To Dos to talk with GM Allan Benevides about this when I’m in Eugene in the near future).
Other than that, however, there’s not much that can be done. There may be other communities in Oregon or Washington that ultimately could be relocation partners, but they’re not escaping the Pacific Northwest and its weather, entirely — that’s where the league is and there’s no escaping that fact. They are part of a larger conglomeration of parties and logistics. And honestly, it’s not like the NWL is alone in its weather concerns. The High A Midwest League (which has teams in Michigan and Wisconsin) is just as inhospitable in spring, not to mention Double A Eastern League (with its teams in Maine and New Hampshire). When summer comes, you have plenty of leagues and levels with heat so intense it seems to drink the energy right out of your body. Heck, let’s not forget that we all follow a major league club that plays in a city that is almost universally despised by major league hitters on account of its weather.
And, as for your mural question, Richmond absolutely does have such a thing. They add an entry to their alumni wall for everyone who makes the majors, and there’s a beautiful mural on the stadium wall that includes several notables. I assume we’ll see something like that at the new stadium as well (which, though MLB has not yet approved the timeline, looks like it should come online Opening Day 2026).
With Luciano heating up and Fitzgerald more than showing his top prospect status, what will the Giants do if Luciano appears ready for AAA?
The Giants like moving guys around the field — as they already do with Fitzgerald and Will Wilson in Sacramento (and Schmitt in the earlier part of the year). They’ll juggle things around. I think we’re a ways away from that being an issue with Luciano. He’s getting his feet under him, but I assume they’ll want to see him really start to punish the level for at least a little while before pushing him further. As for Fitzgerald, I’m not sure that he has “top prospect status” outside of There R Giants-land, but I do think he’s a steady prospect who will get an opportunity to show his worth at the big league level.
I keep waiting for Onil Perez' batting average to cool off. So far it refuses to do so. Given his age, as well as his abilities behind the plate (tangible and intangible), does a hit tool like we've seen so far change his prospect status?
I would say so. For the last two years he’s been just off my Top 50, but very much in my watch list. I know other teams were on him last summer in the complex league, and that continues to be true this year in San Jose. He’s a very similar prospect to Adrian Sugastey, and I would think that they’ll land pretty close together on my (and other) lists this winter. In fact, looking at Baseball America’s midseason re-rank (which came out last Friday), they have Sugastey at #24 and Perez at #25. So, yeah. That’s about right. I’d expect I’ll have them something like that when I do my re-rank in a few weeks.
Perhaps LaMonte Wade, Jr. is a long-term answer at 1B, but with Belt having held down that other hot corner for so long, who in the organization seems ripe to be the next standout all around solution at 1B?
I don’t see anybody who’s likely to supplant Wade in the upcoming years of his team control — and I don’t mean that in a backhanded way. Wade’s really good! He’s on track to have something like a 4 or 5 Win season this year. It’s entirely possible that none of the players the Giants bring up — at any position — will have a year quite as good as what Wade is doing right now. Anyway, for those hungering after a 1b prospect who can settle in for a decade or so, I’ll just note that in the 65 year history of the Giants in San Francisco, there are only five men who have played as many as 300 games at 1b for the team.
Willie McCovey, 1775 games
Brandon Belt, 1192 games
J.T. Snow, 1137 games
Will Clark, 1124 games
Orlando Cepeda, 872 games
As I’ve said before, the best prospects tend to be the best athletes, and the best athletes aren’t usually playing 1b at low levels of the game. Which is why it’s hard to be a top prospect as a 1b without doing something pretty incredible (like Belt did!). I don’t really see anybody fitting that bill right now in the organization. And I think that’s fine. If there’s a position to be light at on the Depth Chart, 1b and LF aren’t bad positions to pick, because you can easily fill them with players from other spots on the field.
Nobody on my Top 50 last winter was primarily a 1b, and I don’t know that that will change next year, either. As they say: Will Clark isn’t walking through that door any time soon.
Who is your sleeper pick to become a top 100 prospect? It seems like Rayner Arias and Gerelmi Maldonado could make those sort of lists if things go right, but is there anyone else you've got your eyes on or a gut feeling about?
Well, Jason, you answered your own question. I don’t know that Arias is really all that much of a sleeper. Given the bonus he received, he’s certainly a known commodity. I’d also put Crawford in that category. As a lefty who can come close to touching 100 off the mound, he fits a pretty rare profile (without even getting to his hitting). And, of course, it’s possible to see any of the top prospects (Arteaga, McCray, Brown) move up in that type of way, with big second halves (though they would have to be very big).
But I guess Maldonado would really be my sleeper pick — though MUCH would need to go right for that to happen. Right now, BA doesn’t even have him in their midseason re-ranked Top 30 (I did let Josh Norris know I thought he was going to be late to that particular party by omitting Gerelmi in this list), so he’s probably not in any danger of making their Top 100 any time soon! Still, outside of Crawford, there’s no potential starter in the organization who throws as hard as he does, and he seems to be learning by leaps and bounds. That’s two pretty good steps to start the climb with.
Let me put it this way, guys generally don’t come too far from out of left field to become Top 100 types — you really need tools that pop out to get on those lists, and generally those kind of physical tools start to show themselves fairly early. Without real top of the line physical tools, you have to have a demonstrably plus hit tool (think Matos in San Jose), typically displayed over multiple seasons. If you want someone who could take that Matos’ path, well, why not tab 19-year-old Velasquez.
There was a clip of the Cardinals announcers comparing Matos's swing with Acuña’s, and that made me wonder how much does having a "similar swing to X player" matter when it comes to scouting and player development? Does having a similar profile of swing help scouts narrow down on identifying potential prospects?
That’s not something any scout I’ve ever talked to looks for. Now scouts do use “body comps” — this guy looks like that guy as an athlete. Back in the days before ubiquitous video, that’s the language that scouts would use to describe a player so as to create an image in the mind’s eye of the listener, and it’s where “comping” prospects to major leaguers comes from (a practice I don’t much like, as I’ve written about before).
What scouts care about — and do talk about — is how well a player’s swing “works” for their body. How well are they utilizing their lower half to generate power? Does their load and trigger allow them to get to the ball on time? How well do their hands “work?” But these are all pretty specific to the individual’s body and swing.
I do think you’ll get the opposite, however. A player whose swing contains a lot of negative aspects that scouts have seen drag other players down (a hitch, or an arm bar, or a swing that is too long), they’ll tend to knock the grade down. And sometimes, that can cause them to underrate a player. I’m thinking specifically of Bo Bichette, who was uniformly dinged for his unusual swing mechanics, but, as he has shown pretty decisively over time, those mechanics work for him in a way they wouldn’t for most hitters.
Anyway, Matos’ swing is his own, and while I can see the extraordinary flexibility and rotation ability of the trunk being a visual match for Acuña’s swing, the two are very different players.
While Luis Matos has not “made it” in the majors yet, we all think he will. What is the difference between him and Heliot Ramos?
Well, I’ll toss in my normal caveat at the top here. While I certainly love Matos and believe very much in his make-up and work ethic, and baseball IQ, and that unbelievable ability he has to make contact (even while frequently swinging out of his shoes — a sort of parallel for Dustin Pedroia, as long as we’re throwing around swing comps), no player has “made it” until they have. In fact, a quick check of the second-year progress of last year’s ROY Julio Rodriguez and Michael Harris II reminds me that even after players make it, they’re still fighting to MAKE IT. Major league pitching is just that good.
And with that caveat asserted, I guess I’d answer the question by asking what the similarities are between Matos and Ramos, who could hardly be more different as athletes or players. While you can connect the two as CF prospects with good instincts but maybe not burner speed, and excellent bat speed, nothing else is really in common. And of their various differences, I’d say their physical distinction is most important. Matos is a very slightly built athlete who generates his tremendous bat speed from his hands and wrists, and thus has that kind of “handsy” swing scouts look for (this is also where his power comes from — he’s not a big or necessarily strong kid right now).
Ramos, on the other hand, gets his power from his pure strength — as Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen famously wrote, he’s “built like a boulder stacked on top of two Iberico hams” (a line I would desperately like to steal, because it’s just so perfect). But all of that muscle has made his swing tighter as he’s matured, so despite good bat speed, he tends to be just a little late on pitches, resulting in a lot of opposite way, ground ball contact.
TL:DR — extremely loose vs extremely tight seems to be the core of it.
Will Wilson is putting up some good numbers. With Schmitt, Wisely (and Fitzgerald?) ahead of him, what is his best route/outcome? Do they continue to try to make him a super utility or is he more likely trade-bait?
Wilson has been hitting for good power lately, belting four homers in four consecutive at bats at one point last week, and he’s been a much better hitter in June (1.071 OPS) than in his first two months of the season (.540 and .750 OPS respectively), but I don’t want to get ahead of myself quite yet with the 2019 1st rounder. He’s still putting up an overall line of just .224/.303/.421 that’s good for just a 65 wRC+*.
Which is just to say that there’s plenty more development work ahead for Wilson (as indeed, there is for Schmitt, Wisely, and Fitzgerald). I’ve said before that I don’t really think there’s all that much clarity at this point about the future of the shortstop position, post-Brandon. It’s possible that all of these guys will get their opportunity at it, or not. Someone, at some point, will grab it and make it theirs (we hope, though honestly, the history of shortstops playing more than 300 games with the Giants isn’t a long one, either).
As is always the case with these sorts of questions, it’ll work itself out. You can never have too much talent on hand. And we’re still a ways away from knowing exactly what level of talent this group making their way to the top will ultimately deliver.
*I use that number as something of a thumbnail picture for the league context, but it’s always good to remember that the wRC+ model isn’t really made for, or tested on minor league environments, as I wrote a bit about in today’s Stats Review.
Have you heard from your scouting sources about how the Giants are leaning in the upcoming draft? I’m expecting an emphasis on hitters overall, but of course I’m mostly curious about their thinking for the first round. Sixteen seems too low to me to try to work an under slot deal, so I presume they’ll pick the remaining guy they like best.
What are your thoughts? Still leaning towards Colin Houck? If you were in charge, and the choices were HS pitchers Noble Meyer and Thomas White, HS hitters Bryce Eldridge, Colin Houck (although I’m reading that he will be gone by #16) and Walker Martin, college pitchers Hurston Waldrep and Tanner Witt, or college bats Matt Shaw, Nolan Schanuel, Enrique Bradfield, or Braden Taylor - whew - who would you prefer? (I had to really struggle to come up with Witt, so if there’s another college arm you like at this selection feel free to add him).😊
With the massive caveat that most of the stuff you hear leading up to drafts is disinformation — and the equally massive caveat that I’m not really that plugged into amateur scouting — I do kinda think it’s trending towards a bat. My previous comments still apply, however, about models tending to push pitchers upwards due to the perceived reliability of the data underlying their pitches. If the Giants do end up with another arm, Waldrep does seem a very likely candidate to be in the sweet spot when their #16 pick comes up.
Both Maryland’s Matt Shaw and Standford’s Tommy Troy really do seem to fit the Giants’ spot in the round and the things they value, so neither should be considered a surprise if he ends up being the pick. I really like Shaw, though I’m not entirely sure he sticks in the dirt in the pros. I do think that there are plenty of high school hitters who interest them, including Houck (and yes, I still think he could be the pick if he’s there), Aiden Miller, Arjun Nimmala, and Eldridge (whom I know they’ve been in to see with a fairly high level of brass, though whether they like him as a hitter, pitcher, or both, I can’t say). I also think that if prep shortstops Sammy Stafura or Adrian Santana fell to them in the 2nd round, those might be players they would be interested in.
Is Stuff+ measured throughout the minors and if so could you maybe talk about how the kids look? Also one thing that I wish was easy for you to include in your articles but I doubt actually is is the quality of Stuff+ the Giants batters are facing each night.
Sadly, while teams themselves have Stuff+ models that they use internally at every level, there’s no publicly available data akin to the Eno Sarris’ Stuff+ model that appears for major leaguers on Fangraphs. Sarris does reveal Stuff+ numbers for Triple A pitchers to subscribers at The Athletic (and I note them when appropriate, while also trying to be mindful of his intellectual property), but beyond Triple A, it’s just one big black hole. Best I can do is note, anecdotally, when the Giants’ affiliates are facing a particularly notable pitcher, which I do try to do.
Time to close up the bag for this week. As always, the Stats Review will drop in an hour or so, complete with some notes on yesterday’s rookie league games. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an appointment with some BP sessions. Time to crank the action up again.
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Love these.
Piggy back question about the draft. With that comp pick after rd 2, and the extra draft pool money it comes with, and the teams history of under slot picks early, do you think they'll spread that extra bonus around on a few guys or do you think they'll go big bonus on one guy?