Get to Know Your Prospect NRIs!
Get to know them Better, I mean!
Photo Credit: Alex Trautwig | MLB Photos via Getty Images
Happy Commemorative Birthday to George Washington, the man who basically invented the concept of the peaceful transfer of power. Good job, George! Weirdly, when he was born, his birthday was four days ago, and, by the time he died, it was next week. But, apparently, he took the change in stride. Anyhoo, if that’s not enough for you to celebrate on this winter morn, we’ve also just made it through the last weekend without major league baseball activity for the next seven and half months or so. Of course, that’s what we thought last year at this time, too! Nevertheless, baseball 2021 is now (almost) officially here and it’s time to turn our eyes to …. the future!
Along with the members of the 40-man roster, along with the plethora of various AAA depth and minor league free agents, the Giants have carved out room in their 75 players allowed into big league camp for a sizable group of prospects! And you know there’s nothing I like here at There R Giants more than a roster preview, so let’s check out the full list of our beloved minor leaguers who get to spend a few weeks hanging out with the big guys!
Generally, the Venn Diagram of non-roster invites looks like this:
You have three distinct categories of invites:
Players who could conceivably be needed as major league depth in the long season to come — most often relief pitchers;
Über-prospects, the guys who are counted on to play a major part of the future, who need the opportunity to learn how big leaguers go about their daily jobs, as well as some time spent with the major league coaching staff, whom they hope to both learn from and impress; and
Catchers. Because the huge array of arms in camp need someone to throw to in their bullpen sessions as they build up their arms.
Sometimes, though, a fourth distinct category sneaks into the invites, making the picture look like this:
And, yes, indeed, we have some Fourth Groupers in this year’s list as well. Understanding that the whole notion of a Venn Diagram is that there are overlaps between the categories, let’s break these guys down by group:
Major League Depth Potential
This is, of course, what the majority of bodies in major league camp are there for. Over the course of the long season, teams will need approximately 11 billionty relief pitchers and at least 200 starters. Most coaching staffs would prefer to have at least a passing familiarity with most of these contingency plans when they suddenly show up in the locker-room for a double-header at Coors Field. This is the primary purpose of the 40-man, and it’s why all of those minor league free agent deals include an NRI as well. Most of the players who fit under this category are coming from the MiLB Free Agent pool — guys like Silvino Bracho and Anthony Banda and Dominic Leone. Many of those folks will end up being part of the Sporcle Quiz of the 2021 Giants — remember how Rico Garcia and Andrew Triggs parlayed their time at summer camp into cameo appearances in the 2020 season?
But there are also some internal candidates for this type of role — players whose value didn’t force them onto the 40-man roster, but who are talented enough to keep in mind for the exigencies of the summer. This year, those NRIs include (names are linked to player’s Fangraphs page):
Tyler Cyr: Cyr, you may recall, was the final candidate I guessed might be added to the 40-man roster last November. I was wrong, as both Gregory Santos and Kervin Castro shoved their way past Cyr in the pecking order with their performance at Instrux. Though not on the 40-man, Cyr is a natural member of the depth category. He’s performed well in the upper minors, has experience in the Arizona Fall League, and spent all of 2020 in the Giants’ Alternate Site. The organization is well aware of what he brings to the mound. When I saw Cyr in 2019 with Richmond, he was consistently throwing his fastball in the 95-98 range, and paired it with a solid breaking ball and changeup that he could throw for strikes or in the Chase Zone. His command could be a touch sharper but there’s certainly a profile that can fit in a major league bullpen here, at least as a depth arm (overall, it’s not that dissimilar to Rico Garcia’s repertoire, for instance). Getting there is now complicated by the fact that the Giants added three younger, harder-throwing right-handers to the 40 man in front of him, but six months of baseball can create a lot of opportunity for guys like Cyr.
Sean Hjelle and Tristan Beck: Here’s where we get to the overlapping sets in the Venn Diagram. You could make a case that Hjelle and Beck belong in my Über-prospect category and no one would disagree. For me, though, the pair more rightly belongs here. They aren’t exactly the kind of elite level prospect that you want getting comfortable in the big league setting because you anticipate they’ll be a staple of your camp for years to come. Maybe that will be the case. But for right now, both of these prospects are manning the “break in case of starting pitcher emergency” glass case. The rotation is tissue thin and includes more than a few guys with injury issues in their recent history. Combine that with the fact that nobody on the team pitched 65 innings in 2020 and you have a recipe for lots and LOTS of starting pitchers. After Webb and Tyler Beede (when he’s ready to return), the options descend very quickly. Conner Menez, I suppose stands currently as the #6 guy (why yes, Mr. Harris, this team COULD use another starter or two!)? Beyond that maybe Rico Garcia? Anthony Banda? It’s not a list that inspires confidence.
If Hjelle and Beck can get off to strong first halves and push their way to AAA, they should get themselves into a prominent position to fill in in the second half of the season should injury, ineffectiveness, or trades open holes in the rotation. Though Hjelle finished 2019 at a higher level than Beck, I wouldn’t presume that he has an inside position to nab the first opportunity that pops up for the pair. While the Giants kept in constant contact with Hjelle during the summer of 2020 (they estimate he threw 110 simulated innings), his absence from both the Alternate Site and Instrux means he never got any time with the developmental staff last year. He did, however, have a very productive year on the “Life Development” front, as he both finished his college degree and became a father for the first time (Congrats, Sean!). Beck, on the other hand, was at Instrux in the Fall and got the benefit of some hands-on time with the coaching staff and a chance to show them what he’d been working on all summer. Rather, I’d anticipate that these two will participate in some spirited teammate-rivalry over the next six months, pushing each other to achieve in that special spirit of friendly competition that the minors are full of (to be honest, it’s not always that friendly, but hopefully it is in this case).
Check out this awesome MLB The Show video game profile of Hjelle. I’m not sure their graphics really convey the feeling of Hjelle’s size fully, though maybe that’s connected to the fact that his height actually exceeds the limits of the game! It’s a good summation of him as a prospect, though it is a year old.
Joe McCarthy: McCarthy’s the active President of the “Michael Reed: I Started on Opening Day but Never Collected a Hit for the Giants In My Career” Club. McCarthy’s presence here is yet another data point in the Farhan Zaidi Front Office’s appreciation for players who control the strike zone. Unfortunately, the rest of his game has really been vampired by recurring back issues that have sucked the athleticism and power out of his game. He looked pretty rough in all facets of the game in his short 2020 debut and, since then, he’s likely been passed on the depth chart by Luis Alexander Basabe and LaMonte Wade, Jr. McCarthy is likely ticketed for a long summer in Sacramento. Still, stranger things have happened.
Who’s Missing? The aforementioned Basabe seems likely to get an NRI invite as well, now that he’s somewhat surprisingly, but pleasantly, passed through waivers and been outrighted to Sacramento. Melvin Adon, who was non-tendered off the 40-man but re-signed to a minor league deal is among the minor league free agent NRIs who I’ll profile on Wednesday.
Catchers
No need for a lengthy intro to this category — “Pitchers and Catchers Report” is a thing because all those bullpen sessions ain’t gonna catch themselves. Every team, every year, invites anybody who can handle a major league bullpen session simply because they need the bodies. For this year’s Giants, they already have four catchers on the 40-man, so the invite list beyond that was shorter than normal, but it’s still exciting because it really does include the best non-40-man catching prospects in the system.
Patrick Bailey: As a 1st round draft pick selected out of one of the most competitive Division 1 conferences in the NCAA, Bailey’s inclusion at big league camp is a no-brainer. While he’s yet to make his pro debut, he spent all of last summer at the Alternate Site and finished up his year at Instrux. Giants at the Alternate Site had nothing but praise for his work ethic and makeup, and his ability to handle AAA/MLB-level stuff at the Alt Site made him a favorite among pitchers. Jeff Samardzija was particularly vocal in praising Bailey when he returned to San Francisco for his final start as a Giant. As I wrote in my “Way Too Early Roster Previews,” I expect he’ll start his pro career in Eugene and have a chance to advance to AA with a strong start. But keep in mind, catchers have, by far, the biggest workload of all prospects, AND he has two separate swings to try to maintain and improve, so I wouldn’t be shocked if it takes Bailey a little while to get in a groove offensively, even at the relatively low A+ level.
Ricardo Genoves: As I said above, anyone who can catch a big league bullpen is an asset in spring training. And Genoves, who’s already caught Johnny Cueto at the Giants Dominican facility in years past, can definitely do that. Still, he’s one of the players who I’m most tickled to see at camp. It’s been a long, slow climb for the 21-year-old who was the Giants second highest bonus signing in the Lucius Fox J2 class. He’s long been known for his defensive acumen and his ability to handle premium velocity. Though he’s matured physically the last couple of years, the defensive half of his game is still his calling card. Genoves threw out 41% of opposing base runners in 2019 and allowed just eight passed balls. He’s also got the leadership skills and baseball acumen that teams look for in catchers. Though his bat had trailed far behind his glove for years, his physical development has brought some big raw power to his game the last couple of years, and it finally started showing up in games in 2019. He’ll almost certainly be a power over hit player going forward, but with a strong glove behind the plate, that plays at the big league level. Getting to work in big league camp is another milestone in what very well could be a lengthy big league career.
Who’s Missing? No one, really. Behind Genoves the next best catching prospect in the system is probably 18-year-old Adrian Sugastey, and while he’s certainly impressed Giants officials with his maturity, catching big league pitchers still feels like enough of a stretch to keep him home in Panama for a little while longer.
Über-Prospects
Alright, I’ve held out long enough — here’s where we get to the good stuff, right? And yes, Bailey fits in here, too, but the real sex appeal comes with the inclusion of the top two non-40-man prospects in the system, and a lot of eyes are going to be on this pair in the weeks to come.
Marco Luciano: In a way, Luciano’s invite is a delightful surprise. It’s fairly unusual for even excellent prospects, even an organization’s best prospect, to get big league invites while still in their teens. Remember, this is the first year that Heliot Ramos has gotten a big league invite to spring training and he was the system’s #1 prospect all the way back in 2018. Luciano’s invite this year highlights the uniqueness of the post-2020 situation. Because the 60-player pool was the only available development option for top prospects last summer, Luciano has already participated in the Summer Camp of July, 2020. He also spent the rest of the summer working out against arms with major league experience at the Alternate Site, giving him more experience than your average 19-year-old hitter whose experience is limited to Rookie League. Still, one senses that the real reason he’s coming to big league camp is because the organization is so invested in pushing his movement as aggressively as they can this year. I suspect they would very much like to get Luciano moved as far as AA before the 2021 minor league season is over, and this is a first step in that ambitious direction.
Heliot Ramos: In some ways, Ramos occupies the most interesting position of any prospect in the system right now. Farhan Zaidi made some news last week when he pronounced that Ramos would have been on track to make his big league debut in 2020 had it not been for the lost minor league season, which hints at a desire to see him integrated into the lineup before 2021 is out. At the same time, it makes the most sense to start him out this year back at AA, where he scuffled after a late season promotion in 2019. Sadly, those two statements are working at cross-purpose in 2021. Zaidi noted last year (in reference to Joey Bart) that when he was with the Dodgers they really wanted to see their best prospects get 500-600 PA in the upper minors before pushing them to the big leagues. Corey Seager had nearly 700 PA between AA and AAA; Cody Bellinger just over 500. Certainly, the Giants would like to see Ramos get something near that 400-500 number this year in the high minors, but you can also imagine they’d love to see him line up between Yaz and Dick at some point in the year. The delayed start of AA (which won’t get going until sometime in May) and the uncertain start of AAA mean that checking off both of those boxes is going to be hard to do. The X-Factor will be those at bats against upper level arms in the Alternate Site last summer. They weren’t the equivalent of AAA at bats, that we know, but were they enough to shave a couple hundred off the number Giants officials would like to see Ramos accumulate before a promotion? A lot is riding on this: they absolutely have to get Heliot’s promotion right and have him ready to produce immediately when he does arrive.
OMG there’s one of these for Ramos, too! Can’t say they really got his physique down accurately, nor his swing, but the profile is pretty accurate I’d say (though the description of the Giants’ OF situation in this alternate reality was fortunately quite off-base).
Hunter Bishop and Will Wilson: I basically just need to “Copy-Paste” that bit about “a lot is riding on his season” because it applies to nearly every one of the Giants’ top prospects. Bishop and Wilson, two of the top 15 picks of the 2019 draft, are both still waiting to make their full-season debuts despite excellent D1 NCAA pedigree. And neither of the pair had a particularly distinguished pro debut in short-season back in 2019. Each of them has some scouting concerns about the proficiency of their hit tool, but the Giants have been consistently bullish on both. Bishop’s 2020 was complicated by a positive Coronavirus test that caused him to miss Summer Camp and the first weeks at the Alternate Site. But reports on his summer were strong, and Kyle Haines called him the best hitter in Instructional Camp. Like Bailey, I’d anticipate the pair ultimately gets assigned to Eugene, where both are looking for a second chance to make a first impression.
If you want to dig down into Bishop’s swing, this is an excellent breakdown of the mechanics he used during his breakout Junior year at Arizona State:
Who’s Missing? Luis Matos and Luis Toribio are the two most obvious omissions. Toribio was part of the Summer Camp and Alternate Site player pool last year. Matos wasn’t, but from spring camp through Instrux, he was the guy Giants’ officials seemed to be raving about all year. Normally, I wouldn’t expect a player like Matos — a player with just five official games played in the United States — to get a spring invite, but all those things I said above about Luciano sort of apply to him as well. Perhaps this is an indication that Matos and Toribio are clearly in a lower tier for the Giants (though I suspect all start the year in San Jose). Or, perhaps, there’s a numbers game at work here. Counting Jake McGee and Luis Alexander Basabe the camp invite list already has 70 players on it, and MLB has capped teams at 75. If the Giants want the flexibility to sign another major league starter or inject more competition into camp by bringing in more of the wide sea of major league free agents as NRIs, then keeping a few spots open would seem to be the wise approach.
What the Heck?
Here’s where we get to the real “prospect esoterica,” and, not surprisingly, it’s the group that delights me the most. These unexpected invites are going to get to learn from big leaguers and the major league coaching staff, and, considering the pay they’ve gotten so far in their pro careers, it’s not entirely inconsequential that they’ll be getting a big league per diem for the first few weeks of camp. Soak up the experience boys, and use it as grist for the mill!
Matt Frisbee: You could argue that Frisbee belongs in the top group as a guy who sits just enough on the periphery of the starter depth chart to Big Sadowski his way into a couple of starts. But it’s notable that he’s here and not some higher profile prospects like Seth Corry or even his San Jose rotation-mate Jose Marte. The Giants 15th round pick in 2018 out of UNC Greensboro (maybe Michael Holmes lives near him, too!), Frisbee had a true breakout year in 2019, a season that included a truly outstanding 154 K to 28 BB ratio. Apparently, the Giants don’t just love those K/BB ratios when it comes to hitters! I wrote in 2019 that you could look at Frisbee and see another Joe Biagini-type and this invite confirms those Biagini-vibes for me. This is a big league arm of some stripe if things come together.
Kai-Wei Teng: Readers of There R Giants are certainly no strangers to my love for Teng, but it’s still somewhat shocking to see a spring training invite go to a 21-year-old who’s pitched in just 9 games above the rookie league level (all in Low A). In part, this could have something to do with logistical complications involved with being the one Giant who lives on the other side of the world. Teng spent a significant portion of the summer last year in a Scottsdale apartment (along with Matos and others) before the Giants finally were able to get him sent home to Taiwan. When MLB issued the memo to teams to go ahead and prepare for a Fall Instructional camp, the Giants didn’t want to turn him around and bring him all the way back for six weeks so soon after he’d gotten home. Possibly, bringing him to camp early to work with Giants’ staff is a way to make up for the coaching he missed in the Fall. But, as noted above, he’s taking one of a precious 75 spots at camp and the Giants aren’t handing those invites out like Car Share coupons on the street corner. He’s here because the Giants love his potential and I wouldn’t be shocked if a year from now we view him in something like the light we see Tristan Beck or Sean Hjelle today.
Logan Wyatt: And here we come to maybe the most intriguing of the “What the Heck” group. I’ve spent much of the last year talking about Wyatt as a fascinating experiment in the Giants ability to develop what they value (and I think this is a topic I’m going to expand upon later in the week). The team’s second pick of the Zaidi Era, the 1b from Louisville combines a lot of the attributes that we’ve come to expect from Zaidi acquisitions. He has an absolute control of the strike zone and consistently makes quality swing decisions. His understanding of his strike zone was so complete in college that he had the reputation of having a better eye than most umpires. He led the nation in walks and ended his college career with a .305 career batting average and 135 BB to 94 K. So what’s not to love?
Last week, Fangraphs’ Eric Longenhagen hosted a fascinating “Film Room” discussion with Kevin Goldstein, the one-time lead prospect writer for Baseball Prospectus, who later became the Director of Pro Scouting and Special Assistant to the GM for the Houston Astros before getting caught up in their cheating scandal and returning to the writing world. I’m going to return to this “Film Room” session, which focussed extensively on Giants prospects, in a later post, and I’d recommend you watch the entire thing. But, for now, I’d like to focus on KG’s comments on Wyatt, which you can hear in this clip:
KG’s audio is a little hard to hear, so let me give you the salient bits. Longenhagen starts out saying he thinks he might have been a little low on Wyatt in the draft and KG interrupts him with a mirthful “I don’t think you were?” Goldstein then launches on this soliloquy:
I definitely have some experience with this guy. This guy really looks like he can hit. It’s a really good approach, an outstanding understanding of the strike zone, outstanding plate discipline, really good approach and understanding of the strike zone itself. He knows what to swing at, knows what he can get ahold of, works the count exceptionally well. And yet, I just…..I don’t know, these guys drive me crazy. This is another XXL frame, a large human being and he’s a 1b. He’s got an approach. He can get bat on ball. He just doesn’t hit balls that hard. It’s just not who he is.
As Goldstein finishes up this near-rant, Wyatt draws a walk and Longenhagen notes that the penultimate take was exceptional. And there you have the Wyatt Experience. He does everything that the Giants love to see in a hitter, but he drives an experienced (and highly successful) player development official crazy because of the low level of impact that he produces. Clearly, Giants officials are not driven crazy by him. And the question is going to be, can they take what they love about Wyatt and use that to produce the kind of high-impact results that have been missing from his bat heretofore? It’s going to be fascinating to watch. Obviously, this invite suggests that they are bullish on the possibilities for this big left-hander.
Who’s Missing? Hey it’s the WTH category — anybody could fit in here!
And there you have it! A prospect lover’s guide to Spring. Baseball is once again upon us and hope springs within the human breast. I’ll be back on Wednesday to look at the NRIs that the Giants have issued this winter to various minor league free agents, and start getting acquainted with these new-comers to the Giants’ prospect landscape.
i think this might be the best website on the internet.
every time i come here, i learn something new.
Loved this - perfect ramp up to spring training.