Photo Credit: Bay Area News Group
As the 2019 minor league season opened, the Bay Area media outlets all flocked to San Jose, where the jewels of the Giants’ system were set to star. The previous two 1st round picks, Heliot Ramos (2017) and Joey Bart (2018), were the star attraction, with the 2018 2nd rounder, Sean Hjelle, soon to join them. Last night, four different members of that 2019 San Jose squad appeared in the Giants’ lineup — Bart, Ramos, David Villar, and Bryce Johnson — and there have been times in this series against the Dodgers when five different 2019ers have taken the field at once (with Hjelle or Camilo Doval making up a fifth hand). Most of the group is still working to establish a foothold in the majors. Some, undoubtedly, never will. Yet another 2019 teammate, Tristan Beck (whom we’ll meet again in a moment), is still working a step away from the maddening crowds.
There are a few lessons we can draw from all of this. One is that, despite the impatience of fans who dream of every prospect being a generational aberration like Juan Soto or Ronald Acuña, Jr., four years is still a standard pace in which to cross the minor league landscape. Mastering each level is complex and difficult, and one a year is still a normal standard. As Bart has shown, it can take much longer to master that final one. And a second lesson is that the end of those journeys may look much different than we imagined. It’s Doval who has had the biggest impact on the major league team so far, and it’s Villar who has been proving himself a reliable and productive member of the everyday lineup, not his more illustrious High A colleagues, Bart and Ramos.
As much technology and data as teams have to bring to bear on player development, so much of the process is still as much a mystery as lightning must have seemed to the neanderthals. I was chatting yesterday with a senior executive from a big league club, who spends much of his time on player development issues, and he told me the biggest thing he’d learned in his years inside the industry is how little anybody really knows about the game and how to succeed in it. “Humility” is always the watchword.
I started all of this with the idea of doing a quick appreciation for Johnson, who is still building his part of the mystery. The hitting is obviously a major question mark that will have to be answered in the affirmative at some point if he’s to stick around. But there are lots of ways to help a club win, and Johnson manages several of them exceptionally well. So tip your cap and say a quick prayer that last night’s brilliant effort won’t sideline him for too long. I want to keep following this journey for awhile.
HITTER of the NIGHT: Jared Dupere (Eug), 2 for 4, HR (1), 2 R, 3 RBI, 1 K
PITCHER of the NIGHT: Manuel Mercedes (SJ), 4.0 IP, 3 H, 1 R, 1 ER, 0 BB, 4 K
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to There R Giants to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.