Christmas (Baby, Please Read Your Free For All Mailbag)!

Let's empty out the bag and put a lid on 2023

[A quick note: Of course, I had this post finished and scheduled yesterday afternoon, as I’m headed out of town this morning for Christmas weekend. And, of course, in the hours immediately after polishing off the last note, the night quickly descended into one of the great bummers of recent off-seasons (for Farhan as much as anybody else, if you listened to Dave Flemming on the topic. I still hold to my final note in this Mailbag — now more than ever.]

The Christmas weekend descends and those of us who observe the festivities hunker down to enjoy time with family and loved ones, celebrating the season each in our own ways. Me, I miss the days of attending the candelight service on Christmas Eve, concluding with the shimmering beauty of a communal sing-a-long of Silent Night, as the lights went down and we lit our neighbor’s candle from our own, creating a sea of soft, flickering light surrounding us with warmth, followed by a boisterous Mexican dinner at China’s Alley, which may or may not have stayed open just a little bit later on Christmas Eve, knowing our entire clan would be stopping by.

Everyone has their own way of marking the most wonderful day of the year, but we all craft our traditions around the people we love.

And with that, I will send you off until the New Year with one final look into the ol’ Mailbag, before I turn out the lights here for a bit (albeit without flickering candlelights and music).

[And, crass as it may be following my homey sincerity, I suppose I should also give you one more chance to take advantage of my current Christmas sale…..)

Kam

Happy Holidays, Rog!

Do you think Luciano is ready to be a mainstay at shortstop at the big league level this year? I know there aren’t many better options internally or externally, but….

I’m worried he’s not seasoned enough and could become a 2022 Joey Bart or 2023 David Villar.

Kam, that is THE $64 million dollar question, and as big as some of these other winter decisions are, maybe nothing impacts the Giants’ future as much as the answer to that question. Luciano has played a total of 56 games in Double-A and just 18 in Triple-A, and despite flashes of that enormous ability of his, neither stop exactly qualified as an unmitigated success.

Certainly, there were positive signs. The way Luciano moved at shortstop was as good as I’ve seen in his career, raising hopes that he would be a capable defender in the middle infield — where his huge arm and sneaky good foot work definitely play best. There was also the quality of the contact he made, which was extraordinary everywhere he went. Luciano’s 90th percentile EV was over 110 mph at both Richmond and Sacramento, and over 107 mph in his brief taste of the majors. Pretty elite company!

It’s hard to stand and watch a Luciano BP session and watch balls fly out of the stadium one after another without getting a tingling sensation thinking of how that power might play in games. I was there the day he hit a ball off the top of the defunct scoreboard in RIGHT-CENTER FIELD in Bowie this year, and I’m here to tell you that that type of power out of the shortstop position can definitely play.

But the idea of handing the keys to the Maserati to such an unproven and, in some other ways, problematic talent certainly has to come with some level of trepidation. Dave Flemming, on this week’s podcast (which you should definitely listen to!), made it clear that the Giants’ decision makers definitely took note of the team’s middling success with the rapid promotion strategy last year. The total failure to help their best hitting prospects transition into successful big league hitters last year was a disturbing continuation of some troublesome player development trends we’ve seen the past few years. Both Joey Bart and Heliot Ramos have gone from being Top 100 prospects on the rise (top 20 in Bart’s case) to after thoughts who seem to be on the verge of leaving the organization. Luis Matos is another Top 100 prospect who failed to launch in his inaugural run.

I don’t mean to hyperbolize, but the Giants simply can’t afford to have a similar failure befall Luciano in his rookie year. There is a LOT riding on his overall success. This is the best hitting prospect the team has had in lo, these many years, and they need to get an impact player, or at the very least, a good regular, out of his development prospect. That may or may not come from Luci himself — I still don’t think it’s out of the question that the Giants might use Luciano’s potential in a trade and look to solve the shortstop situation in a different way.

But if they go into 2024 with the strapping Luciano doffing his cap as the opening day shortstop, a lot of the future direction of this club depends on some level of success from his season. He doesn’t have to be 2023 Bobby Witt, Jr., but some approximation of 2022 Bobby Witt, Jr. (a 98 wRC+ and averagish shortstop defense) would make everybody in this organization — and its fans — breathe a lot easier about where the PD process is heading.

Daniel

Which upper minors reliever is most likely to contribute to the 2024 club and be next years’ version of Ryan Walker? Thanks for all the great work.

Before taking a stab at answering your question, I want to stop for a moment to truly appreciate the unlikeliness of Walker’s professional journey. He is certain at this point to be the lowest drafted player (by round) to ever make the majors for the Giants going forward. With the exception of Nick Avila, taken in the 26th round the following year (2019), Walker is probably going to be the last player taken after the 20th round by the Giants to play for the team (Jacob Lopez, whom the Giants took in the 26th round in the same 2018 draft that they selected Walker, also reached the majors this year with the Rays).

Walker wasn’t in Baseball America’s top 500 draft prospects. He wasn’t in their state lists, either, that added on a further few hundred names. And, as the 916th player selected in that draft, he signed to play pro ball for the grand total of $2,500. You can sell a ten-year-old Toyota Celica for more money than that. And, through a dogged and determined pursuit of self-improvement, he has built himself up to the point where he is very likely (if not absolutely certain) to provide the Giants with more baseball production than either their 1st (Joey Bart) or 2nd (Sean Hjelle) round picks taken at the very top of the draft that same year. In fact, from that draft described at the time by Brian Sabean as an epically important opportunity to reshape the Giants’ organization, it now appears that 31st round pick Walker could be the best talent they brought in (though 5th round pick Keaton Winn still has much to say about that particular title).

So one extremely valid answer to your question is: “nobody.” There will never again be another version of Ryan Walker’s story in franchise history. He’s put together an inspirational and impressive rise through a sensational combination of hard work and good funk.

Now, setting aside my little paean to Ryan’s rise, if we’re simply asking which rookie reliever might be stepping from the minors to a prominent role in the Giants’ bullpen this year, there are plenty of candidates. The list starts, pretty obviously I would say, with the big lefty, Erik Miller. As it stands at the moment, he would seem to be the #2 left-hander in the bullpen. I would imagine that won’t still be true once pitchers and catchers report, but Miller should get plenty of opportunities to show off his “big equipment” (to borrow the late great Dick Tidrow’s great phrase for big pitchers with big physicality and equally big stuff).

Beyond Miller, Randy Rodriguez is now on his third and final option year, and should at least be given a look see to see if he’s ready to take down some major league innings, in preparation of his “out of options” fork in the road come 2025. Rodriguez’ path has been a bit fraught the last couple of years, as he’s dealt with changing roles, some mysterious health issues, and the control troubles that come with his side-winding delivery. But he also can feature some of the most electric stuff in the system, with his hard running fastball and nose-diving slider. It wouldn’t be the most shocking thing to see him go from a Triple-A question mark to an MLB exclamation point in much the same way Camilo Doval did three years ago.

But if you want me to go a little further off the beaten path for a candidate, then there are a few pitchers who have a chance to take a big leap. Right-hander William Kempner comes straight out of the Walker School of Funk, with a side-armed fastball that can come in in the high 90s with all manner of nasty movement. A little refinement in command and he could move fast. The same could be said of Ben Madison, who has a major league curveball, but still sprays the fastball around a little much. R.J. Dabovich should be healthy and ready to compete in a way he really hasn’t been the last two years, and could jump right back onto the fast track he was on in 2021. Like Madison, keeping the fastball in the strike zone to set up that killer curve is the crucial next step for Dabo. Juan Sanchez doesn’t offer up the plus pitch of any of the above arms, but he throws strikes with three different pitches and his slider/change combo can absolutely keep guys off of his repertoire — he’s basically succeeded at every level he’s seen and is still just 23 years old. And, if you want a real wild card, as I noted in Wednesday’s look at the lefties in the system, if the Giants wanted to see how much of an impact Reggie Crawford could make in short relief, he could absolutely be a part of the 2024 picture.

Andy

If the Giants have a penchant for bringing in players with local connections, are there any candidates out there now that the team might consider (e.g., Corbin Burnes, Andrew Vaughn, Nico Hoerner, Cal Quantrill, Tommy Edman, etc)? Based off positional need, tradeable assets, and organizational fit, would any of these trades make sense for the Giants, and would their current teams even consider it?

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Giants have made serious inquiries on Burnes and Edman, both of whom are perfect fits for their current needs. But I also don’t think that either Milwaukee or St. Louis are in a position to do anything other than demand an “overpay” to move either. The NL Central might not be quite the tire fire of its AL counterpart, but it’s certainly an eminently winnable division, and Milwaukee probably isn’t ready to waive a white flag before the season even opens. St. Louis knows how valuable a player Edman can be over the long haul of a major league year, and would want an equal right now major league value in return. After all, the Cards aren’t going to be willing to suffer a second straight losing season for the first time since 1994-95 (let us all pause for the appropriate level of envy for that streak of success). There’s a possibility for match ups in both cases, but neither is a slam dunk opportunity.

I don’t think the other three are likely for various reasons. Hoerner is essentially the Cubs’ version of Thairo Estrada, and way too valuable for them to be thinking of moving without a huge major league haul in return. The Cubs were competitive last year and certainly intend to be again this year. Vaughn could probably be had, but I wouldn’t think the Giants would be too focused on yet another DH type (they could almost certainly reel in a different local kid and noted Giants’ fan, Rhys Hoskins, if they want that profile). Quantrill, who has seen a real decline in stuff the last couple of years, has already signed a deal for the new year with, gulp, the Colorado Rockies. Let us all say a prayer for his future.

Kevin Smith

In one of your season wrap ups you mentioned there was a looming deadline not just for the Rule 5 candidates, but the international or academy players as well in terms of possible roster cuts.  Were those made and what are your thoughts on them if so?

Hi Kevin. I’m not 100% certain I remember what you’re referring to, but I’ll take a stab and say it’s the connection between the lowered domestic reserve number this year and the size of the rosters in the DSL academies which feed up to that domestic roster.

This year, as negotiated in the minor league CBA, the maximum number of players on the domestic roster that each club can have will decline from 180 in-season (190 during the offseason) to 165 (175 in the offseason). There’s a ton of arcane administrative rules connected to those numbers. For instance, during the season, members of the 40-man who are on optional assignment to Sacramento count against that number, while players on the minor league 60-day IL do not. Once the calendar flips to the offseason, however, the exact opposite becomes true, as both optional assignments and the 60-day IL cease to exist.

You don’t need to know or follow all of that, however. What really concerns us here is the pressure this places on players down at the complex level. For several years, the Giants (along with many other teams) have fielded two different squads in both the Arizona Complex League and the Dominican Summer League. The reduction of the Domestic Reserve List makes two ACL clubs logistically impossible. Just run the numbers: the four affiliate clubs have active rosters accounting for 116 players (30 for the A-ball clubs, and 28 in Richmond and Sacramento). Add another 30 or so for one ACL roster, and you’re at 146. Now factor in the various players on 7-day IL stints, the players rehabbing in the desert, and a few sitting on the Development List awaiting an opportunity to play somewhere, and you can see there is simply no way to stay under that 165 number and fill up a second ACL roster.

Now the DSL players are not subject to that 165 number — the MiLB CBA doesn’t cover foreign players owing to the differences in labor law between countries — but they are affected by it. For most of the year, until the new draft class signs and starts integrating onto squads in the closing month, ACL teams are by and large made up of players who have worked their way up from the DSL academy. A reduction from two teams to one means that half the opportunities for those players to advance have been closed off. The question then becomes: does it make sense to be maintaining two squads in the DSL, relatively few of those players are ever going to have the opportunity to be promoted to Arizona. There’s no official word on this as of yet, but from what I’ve heard, I do believe we’ll see the Giants cut back to one DSL squad this year, too.

The Giants have had a huge group of Dominican players feeding their two squads the last couple of years — with total rosters running more than 70 players. If they do cut back to one team it won’t be practical to have nearly so many players in the academy, with playing time opportunities again being cut in half. Thus, the Giants (and other clubs) will almost certainly be forced to cut down the size of players on hand in the Dominican Academy.

Some of that has started already. The Giants released 16 players from the DSL rosters in November. But they still have more than 60 players officially rostered in the Dominican by my count, and are set to add more next month when the new international free agent class is officially signed, typically adding another 12-20 players to the total.

That’s not specifically a “deadline” per se, but the inevitable roster logic points to a fairly large cut down prior to the open of the 2024 DSL season.

Chuck Reed

Do the Giants have plans to improve the ballpark situation in Eugene? I’ve been to Richmond and San Jose (enjoyed both) but not Eugene. From what I’ve read it sounds like an awkward fit at the University.  

The Giants have no plans with regards to the Eugene stadium situation. That’s in the hands of the management of the Eugene Emeralds, who are working very hard to find a solution. They have a new development plan that they are working to push through the various hurdles of local government, but haven’t quite reached 100% of the estimated financing needs. Major league teams are actually prohibited from providing funding or overt support for minor league facilities — that is strictly the purview of the minor league management. I believe that calculation that has changed a bit since MLB took over running the minor leagues, but not significantly. Were the Giants so inclined to simply build a minor league stadium in Eugene and gift it to the Emeralds and the community, they would not be allowed to by rules governing the MLB-MiLB divide. The same is true in Richmond, where the efforts to get a new stadium built go back to the days when the Diamond was still housing the Richmond Braves.

So yes, the current situation in PK Park is an awkward fit, and they (like Richmond) have received an ultimatum letter from MLB letting them know that the clock is ticking for them to bring their facilities up to MLB’s standards “or else” — though, as I’ve noted before, what exactly that “or else” could actually mean is very much in question, as it’s not like there are mid-size cities all over America with state-of-the-art minor league facilities going unused. Alan Benavides, Emeralds’ GM, has been consistently positive whenever I’ve spoken to him that the situation in Eugene will have a happy resolution. It finally appears that the situation in Richmond might be heading towards one as well. Neither has made it through all of the hurdles yet (including getting MLB approval for a new development timeline that will take them past MLB’s 2025 deadline), but having spent many years myself involved professionally in large municipal capital projects, I can say that they tend to slouch towards completion at a slow stumble, not a rush.

Gerald

I was disappointed to discover that MLB.com currently ranks our farm system 21st out of 30. On top of that, we have gone what seems like an eternity without drafting and developing a star position player. Despite the plethora of pitchers we have drafted, we seem headed in the wrong direction. What gives?

Oh Gerald, you’ve touched on a something of an existential crisis point for me. This is a notion I spent a lot of time thinking about, as I mentioned at the end of my most recent podcast. I spend a lot of time trying to get to know these players, I advocate for them, and hope for their success, but I also try to communicate the challenges to their development, the areas that may trip them up or need improvement for them to advance. But I acknowledge that my full-throated enthusiasm for their success probably impacts my readers more than my more careful and nuanced critiques. I will only ask my readers to always try to leaven enthusiasm with an understanding of the unlikeliness of success that all of these players ultimately face. This is the danger of looking too deep into a single subject — we tend to lose an appreciation for the context in which it adjoins the world.

But, my moral crisis isn’t really your question — the Giants’ player development is. And yes, I think I’ve been trying to push back (gently) on the notion that the Giants’ current system was particularly deep or rich within the greater MLB industry. There are good players here for sure — almost certainly major leaguers of some stripe. But, if you’ve been following along with the Depth Chart series, you may have noted how few 50s — representing potential major league starting players or rotation members — I’ve handed out this year. It’s a real question right now whether there are more than 3-6 future starters in the system. There are a lot of potential relief arms, a few potential utility players, but it’s not a system rich in starting big league tools.

The key question is your last one: what gives? Is there something systemic that’s the matter? I don’t personally believe there is. In fact, I think we’ve seen some real successes on the pitching side, with turning very anonymous amateur arms into intriguing prospects — guys like Landen Roupp, Hayden Birdsong, R.J. Dabovich, Tyler Vogel, Ryan Murphy could all find themselves pitching in the major leagues at some point, and none of them would have been names of special commendation on the day they were drafted. Things haven’t gone nearly as well on the hitting side, in part due to a couple of seriously pitching-heavy drafts and some unfortunate health from guys like Hunter Bishop and Vaun Brown. But I don’t want to excuse away all of the failures — I’ve had people inside the org point at some hitters whose success really stalled and simply shake their head in wonder at what went wrong. Clearly, there’s still more work to do to implement their ideas with a more thorough level of success.

Still, my ultimate answer here is one I know will leave you unsatisfied: I think more time is needed. When Farhan Zaidi came in before the 2019 season, he began a long process of assessing and almost completely overhauling the organization’s methods of Player Development — a process that has involved increased investments in personnel, facilities, and R&D. Following the lost 2020 season, there was almost nobody acquired under Zaidi’s watch who had risen even to the level of Low-A ball. Three years later we’ve started to see the first waves reach the major league shores, including the club’s first ~3.0 WAR position player that they’ve drafted since Matt Duffy, way back in 2012.

So, I will say that part of “what gives” is that the process of building a system from scratch is a painfully and frustratingly slow one — one that isn’t helped by having a player like Bishop simply never be healthy enough to develop (a situation repeated two years later with Will Bednar). So patience is part of the answer. However, as stated above, that doesn’t excuse their inability to turn hitters considered among the best of their peers into successful major leaguers. It doesn’t help to have high upside tools in A-ball if they’re going to keep turning into subpar production in the majors. And I would assume that inside the organization there has been a lot of self-reflection and assessment as to the causes of those failures. We’ll see. That’s all that can be said for now. But I do think that slowly things are starting to get better. Luciano having a big year would help the general perception, for sure.

Having said all of that, there is no doubting what has put the Giants where they simply can’t attract the type of talent they desire. As succinctly put by Steve Berman below, the Giants’ have put themselves in this bind by a complete inability to get value out of the draft over the last decade, a situation that hasn’t gotten appreciably better yet under Zaidi’s tenure — and three of his five 1st round picks have barely touched the field. And as much as patience is part of the answer, it’s going to run out pretty soon.

PGBreaker

What do you think are the odds that Bryce Eldridge will be in High A by the time you make your west coast swing through the system?

Hmm….I typically head to Eugene for a needed break from the Richmond heat, somewhere in July or early August. I’ll put the odds at 32%. Maybe Eldridge gets off to the kind of start that forces a move, but he’s also barely turned 19. The Giants won’t be recklessly aggressive with him. Giving a young player a chance to get settled in and comfortable in his first year is always part of the calculation.

Perhaps the blueprint might be something like Luciano’s age-19 season in San Jose. He was promoted to Eugene on August 4th — as it happened, right in the middle of one of my West Coast swings, and I saw one of his final games with San Jose along with his first game in Eugene. So maybe history will repeat itself this year.

MikeH

Assuming Jung-Hoo Lee signs, does this put the likes of Grant McCray, Matos, etc on the trade block rather than being seen as the CF of the future? Also who is your early tip for No 1 prospect? (My money is on Walker Martin whom I've got a really good feeling about)

Obviously, this question came in before Lee’s signing became official, so we no longer have to assume anything. Which is nice.

But to answer, let me give you three words: Protect. The. Inventory! This phrase represents a near obsession among front office types and an apparent irrelevance to most fans. I’ve had a few conversations with scouts lately regarding Bart and Ramos where the fact of Ramos’ remaining option continually comes up. An option IS a value in an of itself, separate from the virtues of the player the option is attached to. Major league talent that can be optioned up and down is something that front offices always value very highly (and very precisely, there are literally mathematical equations in front offices that calculate how option years should be valued in any trade talks).

Fans have a tendency to obsessively hyper-focus their attention on starting players and consign every other kind of player to an irrelevant background. But that’s not how front offices think. If Matos and McCray convince the Giants that they have abilities that can help in a major league setting, then they can be useful elements of the 40-man roster to be nurtured. Simply having a good starter in front of them doesn’t mean the Giants need to trade them as if their talent is burning a hole in the front office’s pocket. We need only think back to the days of Andres Torres and Gregor Blanco to realize how valuable non-starters might end up being.

None of this should suggest that the Giants won’t trade Matos, McCray, or even Wade Meckler. They certainly could if the right proposition appears. But they don’t need to trade any of them, so long as they have options remaining in front of them, simply because Lee exists.

(Oh, and my money is on Eldridge for next year’s #1).

Small Winged Yeti

Jung-Hoo Lee's swing looks really funky to me. But if the Giants are willing to hand him 113MM maybe I shouldn't worry about it too much. Do you think he'd need to retool his swing? And would you have data on how often players coming from another country would do so?

More Lee content! This is great.

In the parlance of the internet, I would say that Lee’s swing is a feature, not a bug. His ability to cover the entire strike zone — and more! — is a large part of his appeal. From an aesthetic point of view, it’s also something of a delight, as Eric Longenhagen evoked so memorably in a recent Fangraphs article:

His swing is incredibly cool and fun to watch, as Lee’s open stance comes closed very early before he takes a huge stride back toward the pitcher and unwinds from the ground up.

Or, if you’re more of a visual learner:

Anyway, as it happens, we do have a definitive answer to your question. In preparation for his posting, Lee actually DID attempt some swing changes at the beginning of last year, looking to loft the ball more and present himself as a more typical sort of MLB hitter. But the experiment didn’t take. He was uncomfortable with the attempted new swing, unhappy with the results, and quickly returned to the swing that had made him so successful before. At a press scrum in Korea (returning from his introductory press conference at Oracle Park), Lee was asked directly about future swing changes in MLB and gave this response:

Joseph Young

Hi Roger! It seems like there is a big kerfuffle going on questioning whether San Francisco is a desirable location for major leaguers who have a choice. Most of the recent discussion is about how “safe” the city is, given homelessness and drug use. But I have also heard about an aversion to playing in a “liberal city” by some players with a different political point of view. I think much of this is overblown, but as Buster pointed out, perception becomes reality.

My question for you is how much of this (if any) bleeds into the minor leagues. Are these guys just happy for an opportunity anywhere?

I would say that not only are they, of course, thrilled to get their opportunity in the big leagues regardless of where it is, but when you talk to the kids who have gone to the mini-camps in Oracle and run over the Golden Gate Bridge, and hung out at Ocean Beach, and been around the City, their experiences are almost wholly positive. San Francisco is a gorgeous city, and the Bay Area writ large is pretty hard to beat, and I think people who really experience it will take that stunning beauty away as their predominant memory.

I’d add that that’s true in general of travel. Several of the Giants’ prospects who have traveled down to the Dominican Republic the last couple of years with the team have told me what an amazing experience that was for them, and I’m sure at least some of them had stereotypes or broad-brush generalizations in their minds about what they would encounter there that were dispelled with the real-life encounter. Getting out and seeing the world first hand is a marvelous educator and a pretty good counterpoint to propaganda. Sunshine really is the best disinfectant!

Small Winged Yeti

I don't remember ever reading an explanation for this... why did they set the AutoUmp in AAA to call high strikes as balls? I can't think of any reason to intentionally deviate the strike zone there from the major's.

It’s not something that MLB has been eager to talk about! Indeed, we wouldn’t even know that it had happened were it not for the outstanding journalistic digging of Baseball America’s Editor-in-Chief, J.J. Cooper.

I had heard rumors from scouts for a couple of years that MLB was interesting in experimenting with a reduced strike zone, and the institution of the Automated Ball Strike system (ABS) pilot provided them with the perfect opportunity to do so. Using the ABS allowed MLB to avoid the messiness that would necessarily come with working with veteran umpires to try to call new strike zones — they simply had to program their desired changes into the technology. As with all of the minor league rules changes, the reason was to collect data, test waters, and see if this was a viable change to make in the major league environment.

The idea of a reduced strike zone is another attempt to redress the serious imbalance that has come into the MLB game which has put pitchers in the ascendancy and hitters in a hole (as evidenced by last year’s league-wide batting average of just .248, and league-wide strikeout rate of nearly 23% illustrates. Since most teams have moved towards pitchers with big inverted vertical break (IVB) who pitch at the top of the strike zone — what used to be called “rising fastballs,” or fastballs “with hop” — it seems that MLB decided that was the area to target. Consequently, they brought the top of the zone down slightly in the ABS system, causing most of those rising fastballs to be above the zone, an issue that Kyle Harrison, Cole Waites, and many other “high fastball guys” struggled with. That, of course, highlights one of the obvious issues with the rules experiments that MLB has been conducting in the minors the past few years — it necessarily impacts young players livelihoods and development work. Which is not to criticize MLB — there’s no other way to gain an understanding of the real-world impacts of these ideas than to try them out in a real-world environment.

I spoke with a couple of players this year who had played in the Triple-A environment, and I think Will Wilson expressed the results best when he told me, essentially, that he loved it as a hitter because you could just wait until the pitcher got himself in a hole and then go hunting, but as a baseball fan, he thought the product was pretty bad. That seems to be the predominant sentiment from people watching this year’s model of the Triple-A game, so I don’t think that the experiment delivered quite the results MLB was hoping for. Still, I do think that a change in the strike zone of some nature is on the horizon for MLB.

Michael Boroff

Would the Giants’ pitching prospects like Mason Black and Hayden Birdsong be held in higher regard if they were in a system like the Yankees or Dodgers? Is there really that large of a separation between the Giants’ pitching prospects and the prospects in those systems?

Michael, your question would seem to imply that the various MLB team front offices, with their extensive R&D departments, full of sharp young analysts writing every manner of new software programs and computer code, ultimately form their opinions upon the flimsiest of generalizations. Teams, like fans, vote with their feet, as the saying goes, and hardly does a winter or summer pass without showing that the Dodgers’ and Yankees’ pitcher development programs are the industry standards. Pitching staffs all over MLB are seeded with arms from these two organizations.

Just this month, we’ve seen the Yankees’ pitching pipeline key the acquisition of superstar hitter Juan Soto, while the Dodgers’ largesse of power arms helped them net the oft injured, but dynamic Tyler Glasnow. The first two picks of the Rule 5 draft, meanwhile, were pitchers taken from the Yankees’ Triple-A roster (and three of the 10 picks overall). Ryan Pepiot, the key cog in the Glasnow deal, was one of 12 different rookie pitchers who appeared on the Dodgers last year. He threw more than 40 innings, compiled a 2.14 ERA, while striking out 38 batters and walking just five. He was deemed expendable, in part because the Dodgers have every reason to believe they can make another Pepiot out of another mid-round talent. It’s a well-demonstrated institutional ability.

The Giants do not yet have this demonstrated ability, though if some Roupps and Birdsongs want to blossom into valuable major league arms over the next couple of years, it might help push things in that direction. Until then, a better question might be: would Black or Birdsong or any other Giants’ pitching prospect actually be a better pitching prospect were they in the Yankees’ or Dodgers’ systems. That’s maybe a more interesting question to ponder. After all, long before Michael King was considered the kind of pick up that a team like the Padres could plug straight into their rotation, he was an extremely anonymous Marlins’ prospect (not even in their top 30) whom the Yankees acquired for Garrett Cooper and Caleb Smith. It was the Yankees that helped King turn himself into a guy who could throw more than 200 innings of sub-3.00 ERA baseball in the tiny parks of the AL East over the last three years. So, it’s a reasonable question: would the Yankees have been able to find another gear in either Black or Birdsong’s development?

In those two cases, I’d say not, given that those are two of the best development stories in the Giants’ system over the last two years, and Birdsong, in particular, has been an amazing scouting and development story. That doesn’t however, mean that the two are without flaws that cause them to be generally evaluated in the industry as promising but not necessarily scintillating. Black’s sinker is about average or slightly below in terms of velocity (compared to the majors) and his command of it could stand to sharpen up. He also suffers from a somewhat limited repertoire and could stand to improve his changeup to give him a solid third look. Birdsong, even by his own admission, has work to do on his command, and his feel of his slider was inconsistent in his otherwise outstanding third year. They are both very promising and should hopefully have big league careers in front of them, but I don’t think either is suffering from being under-appreciated in the baseball world at large (where both are, in fact, quite well appreciated!).

Here’s something to consider when it comes to the Dodgers’ pitching development. Last year at the All-Star Break, I saw a stat that was generally stunning. Looking at the average velocity across an entire pitching staff, the Dodgers’ organization had four of the 10 hardest throwing staffs in baseball — the Dodgers themselves, along with their Triple-A (Oklahoma City), Double-A (Tulsa), and Low-A (Rancho Cucamonga) affiliates. Now take a moment for that to sink in. This wasn’t simply compared to their levels, it was all of professional baseball taken together. Meaning that the Dodgers’ Low-A and Double-A staffs threw harder on average than at least 24 of the pitching staffs in major league baseball. Velocity isn’t everything, but it certainly helps! So, yes, it is fair to say that the Dodgers’ ability to identify and develop pitching is in a very different place from most clubs.

MikeH

Crystal Ball time Roger, and just for the fun of it: now the first draft top 100 (and first mock) has been posted who is your first pick for the Giants ( I'm going Brody Brecht)? Aside from the 'best player available' mantra, do you see any potential leaning towards pitchers or position players based on what us in system at present?

Oh goodness, I’m a long ways from paying too much attention to the draft class (I find that I’ve been paying less attention to the draft as I’ve become more focused on spending time around the minors). But far be it from me to run away from a fun question. It would be poetic if Vance Honeycutt, whom the Giants selected with their final pick in 2021 but couldn’t get signed, fell to them at 13. But Honeycutt’s college career has been loud enough that he should rise out of their reach.

My first-blush, and rather vague, gut instinct is that this year’s top pick will be a college hitter, but I’ll stick to my personal brand and go after a high school shortstop with a stick. Let’s say Harvard-Westlake’s Bryce Rainier gets the call.

As for draft leans, nah, they’ll go with the top of their board, pitcher or hitter agnostic, though it would be nice to get more top bats into the org.

Scott C.

Happy holidays, Roger! Let’s talk tools. I remember your bemoaning the big club’s lack of players with dynamic tools in a KROG pod early in the offseason. (BTW, I dig the brutal honesty that comes out more in these pods.) I believe you feel the farm system also has very few position players with game-changing tools (or tools-in-the-making) and that emphasizing the development of prospects with big tools would have notable benefits. What’s the biggest reason for the dearth of such prospects? Would you give an example or two of a different decision you would’ve liked to have seen to prioritize a tools-centric approach? And most significantly, how do you think the brass views this topic, particularly in terms of talent acquisition going forward?

Nick Yatsko

Roger - really enjoying the position reviews. And wow Center Field is really lacking below AA with undrafted players, etc. Is this related to the Giants taking so many pitchers over position players? You alluded in your post to their need to focus on this in the next draft. Just kind of wild when you look at your chart. Thank you.

I’m not sure I want to be remembered as “brutal,” but I’ll take the compliment and thank you for the loyal listening.

I’ll take these two questions together, as I think they’re asking the same general thing. I want to make clear that my preference for big tools, and my belief that tools play at the major league level, is hardly some radical concept of disruption. It’s shared by every scout, draft director, and front office executive in baseball to greater or lesser degree, including those in the Giants’ front office. And one consequence of that is that it is extremely difficult to find big physical tools paired with any kind of game skills much beyond the 1st round. If the Giants are in search of more athleticism for their system, I’d guess they’re in good company around the industry.

Certainly, the Giants have made attempts to find plus athletes with Day 2 or 3 picks — Grant McCray (3rd), Vaun Brown (10th), Dilan Rosario (6th), and even Donovan McIntyre (11th) are just a few of the swings the Giants have taken at that particular piñata, with distinctly different levels of success. And this year, they made a big investment, spending $3 million on their second round pick, Walker Martin, and a big reason why they did so is that Martin had some of the highest Loden scores in the draft class. Loden Sports has designed an evaluation system based around explosive athletic movements, which they define as “a concise, easy-to-understand series of metrics that provide an overview of the raw athletic profile.”

So, I don’t want to leave the impression that the Giants’ front office doesn’t appropriately appreciate big tools — naturally they do. While I certainly think they have a draft model that tries to hone in on things like swing decisions and performance, that most often comes up when seeking out lower round dart throws. This is an organization that made Hunter Bishop the first pick in Zaidi’s administration, after all, and has famously sought out the athleticism on display in two-way players Reggie Crawford (an incredible physical specimen in every way) and Bryce Eldridge (ibid) the last two years.

I don’t mean to dodge your question, though, I can give you some examples where I wanted to see them go a different direction — they just don’t happen to make me look very smart. I desperately wanted the Giants to nab the incredibly toolsy and athletic Khalil Watson in 2021, rather than Will Bednar. But Watson, an undeniably electric athlete in the middle of the field, has seen his star dim substantially the last couple of years amidst serious concerns over his makeup. I was also somewhat critical in these pages over the pick of Patrick Bailey (who I think it’s fair to say was more of a “performance-based” pick) rather than Tyler Soderstrom (though Soderstrom wasn’t actually a big tools guy aside from his arm and power). I would say that neither of those stances necessarily reflect well on my scouting acumen.

Certainly, the Giants’ front office has shown a preference for players with proven performance track records over guys with big tools detached from an ability to control the zone (the Prelander Berroa for Donnie Walton trade will always stand as the perfect illustration of that preference). And I think we can say that, for whatever reason, the club hasn’t had great success at bringing explosive tools into the org through the international free agent route of late either. But it would be a mistake to believe that the Giants’ decision makers are in any way cavalier about the importance of physical tools in playing this game.

East Coast Giants

If it's not too late, how does the addition of TJ Hopkins from the Reds affect the corner OF depth chart? Is he someone who's just there to fill at-bats or is there a real chance we'll see him on the 40-man at some point? What is there to know about him that we can't get from his BRef page?

Not just “at some point,” at this very point here! Today! Hopkins is, indeed, a member of the Giants’ 40-man roster, a consequence of the Reds’ need to clear a space for, presumably, old friend Austin Wynns.

But as for Hopkins himself, he adds to what is already an incredible OF scrum — the Giants have an almost inconceivable 11 OF on their current 40-man. Which means that Hopkins is probably in contention for a role as an optionable platoon-oriented bat against the likes of Heliot Ramos and Luis Matos.

As for things you can’t get from his B-Ref page, I’d say the most important is that he is a pretty tooled up dude, which brings us back to the discussion above. He was considered a plus-plus runner with average or better power during his career at South Carolina, so he brings some real physical abilities to the table. A more in-depth perusal of his B-Ref page (or some of the ancillary pages at least) would show that Hopkins made substantial performance improvements in 2023, with tremendous gains in his walk rate, K rate, and ISO (all things which ring the Pavlovian Farhan Bell when trolling for improved depth options). You might also find that those improvements were particularly sharp when it comes to platoon situations — Hopkins simply destroyed left-handed pitching in Triple-A last year, which likely is what caused him to fall on the Giants’ radar. Austin Slater isn’t getting any younger, and it’s time to think about having a long-term replacement for the team’s pinch hitter and lefty killer deluxe.

All that said, it wouldn’t be shocking if either Hopkins or Devin Sweet (acquired a few days earlier) soon finds themselves subject to the ol’ claim/waive/outright gambit whenever the Giants sign their next free agent.

Rae

On B-Ref a few days ago I stumbled across the regular phenomenon of the shared affiliate in the old VSL and (less commonly) the DSL. As the Giants could probably put together three outfields in the ACL but will instead be reduced to one, and I assume some other org could say the same about having too many infielders, do you think the joint affiliate could return in 2024? If you can run two ACL teams with a contract limit of 180, running 1.5 with 165 seems appropriate.

Indeed, shared affiliates used to be quite common around the baseball landscape. Nearly all the time I was growing up there would be at least one Cal League team that was shared between two affiliates (there also used to be teams in the Cal League that were unaffiliated with any major league team, essentially indy teams within the parameters of affiliated pro ball.

I don’t know that that’s likely to be a solution we see in the complex leagues — there the writing really does seem to be on the wall. Last year, for instance, none of the franchises in the Florida Complex League kept a second team, while in the Arizona league only the Giants and D’backs kept two squads last year (where previously the Brewers and Royals had as well).

But, returning to the question of Eugene’s facilities’ issue above, I do wonder if this is a potential solution down the line to MLB’s “or else” ultimatums to various minor league teams. If facilities that are not deemed to be “up to code” can’t be replaced in some cases, might they be combined? Also, MLB has been sniffing around a further 30-team reduction of the minor leagues. Would this be best accomplished by eliminating another whole level, or consolidating teams down a bit?

Interesting questions for interesting times….

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And with that, let us all turn to our festivities, our mysteries, our relaxation and rest, and our eternal hopes that the new year will bring with it something better than the old.

And on that score, let me leave you for the year with the wisdom of Andy Dufresne: remember, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever truly dies…

Merry Christmas to all! We’ll see you in the New Year!