For folks who were wondering about missing questions (and anything that seemed generally hard to understand), some of the questions apparently got garbled in publication somehow and vanished from the post. I have now put them back in.
From The Athletic there is a nice article on Randy Winn, the Giants VP of Player Development. The anecdote that stood out for me was: "The goal isn’t to steal 100 percent of your bases. The goal was that when I got to the big leagues, that I’d understand how to steal bases." E.G. they gave him a goal of ATTEMPTING 100 base steals at a level where failure was OK. Kinda like my own personal philosophy (useful in raising teenagers, too) where it is OK to make a mistake, as long as you learn from it.
Thanks for the article, Roger! It may just be my browser but it appears about three questions in the middle didn't format in properly, and thus the answers are a bit lacking in context.
Hmm, I'm on my computer and accessed the article directly from https://rogermunter.substack.com/, and am not seeing the questions from Small Winged Yeti, Dennis, and Mike.
Yeah, actually, I'm looking at my copy and the same thing has happened. Not sure what's up with that. It happened once during editing as well and I went in and replaced them. Has something to do with cut and pasting from the original all one piece mailbag. I'll go in and try to edit it so people can actually read the questions as asked. You'll need to read it on the site rather than from your email though
It kinda surprises me that the name you mentioned that excited me the most was not Meckler or Matos but Jerar Encarnation who I understand has had a strong off-season. I do love me some Big Bopper. I suspect he will be a guy gobbled up by someone if he doesn't survive spring training with the Giants. He seems to me to slot into an everyday DH role quite nicely while still being able to put in capable time in a corner position. Or if Blake Sabol's season-ending tear was legit, maybe there are two guys who could conceivably come out of almost nowhere to give me that power-hitting warm fuzzy.
Thanks Roger. The 10HR for Matos in Venzuela sort of jumped out at me. We know that the Giants wanted him to add strength, but on the other side it's a) a relatively small sample size, and b) a different level of competition (with smaller fields??). Is there enough here for your ears to prick up?
I always say that it’s better to have success on the field than not. But beyond that I don’t tend to read too much into winter ball numbers. Good to get reps.
LVBP is a hitters league. League average ERA this season in VZ was 5.24 (2024 MLB: 4.07). That said the HR/9 of the two is similar: 1.1 MLB; 1.0 LVBP. That said, half the ballparks in VZ have a higher elevation than any non-Coors ballparks in MLB.
As Roger says, it's better to have success than not, but the pitching in VZ is mostly isn't on the level of MLB—but then, nowhere is!
Great content, Roger! My takeaway is we are possibly going to get the “let the prospects play” season some have been asking for the past few years. The problem is that the offensive prospects aren’t that great!
I think most of the starting roles should be taken up by established players, at least to the degree of say Ramos and Lee and FItzgerald being established. So mostly prospects will be filling in as needed (though what they're going to do to be able to put a reasonably competent hitter at DH most days certainly isn't clear. I'd also say that the last two years have seen a ton of prospects playing and overall the results haven't been that great! We'll see.
For folks who were wondering about missing questions (and anything that seemed generally hard to understand), some of the questions apparently got garbled in publication somehow and vanished from the post. I have now put them back in.
From The Athletic there is a nice article on Randy Winn, the Giants VP of Player Development. The anecdote that stood out for me was: "The goal isn’t to steal 100 percent of your bases. The goal was that when I got to the big leagues, that I’d understand how to steal bases." E.G. they gave him a goal of ATTEMPTING 100 base steals at a level where failure was OK. Kinda like my own personal philosophy (useful in raising teenagers, too) where it is OK to make a mistake, as long as you learn from it.
Yeah I thought that was a great story.
Thanks for the article, Roger! It may just be my browser but it appears about three questions in the middle didn't format in properly, and thus the answers are a bit lacking in context.
That happened to me on my phone connecting to the link via my email. However using my laptop and connecting directly to the article worked OK.
Hmm, I'm on my computer and accessed the article directly from https://rogermunter.substack.com/, and am not seeing the questions from Small Winged Yeti, Dennis, and Mike.
Yeah, actually, I'm looking at my copy and the same thing has happened. Not sure what's up with that. It happened once during editing as well and I went in and replaced them. Has something to do with cut and pasting from the original all one piece mailbag. I'll go in and try to edit it so people can actually read the questions as asked. You'll need to read it on the site rather than from your email though
Thank you!
Ok, see if you can read them now. Thanks for alerting me to the issue, Chris! Sometimes technology is less amazing than other times.
They have appeared :D
It kinda surprises me that the name you mentioned that excited me the most was not Meckler or Matos but Jerar Encarnation who I understand has had a strong off-season. I do love me some Big Bopper. I suspect he will be a guy gobbled up by someone if he doesn't survive spring training with the Giants. He seems to me to slot into an everyday DH role quite nicely while still being able to put in capable time in a corner position. Or if Blake Sabol's season-ending tear was legit, maybe there are two guys who could conceivably come out of almost nowhere to give me that power-hitting warm fuzzy.
Dinger Derangement Syndrome is a serious thing!
Jerar has been playing a serviceable 1B with Aguilas this Winter as well which could help his cause.
Thanks Roger. The 10HR for Matos in Venzuela sort of jumped out at me. We know that the Giants wanted him to add strength, but on the other side it's a) a relatively small sample size, and b) a different level of competition (with smaller fields??). Is there enough here for your ears to prick up?
I always say that it’s better to have success on the field than not. But beyond that I don’t tend to read too much into winter ball numbers. Good to get reps.
LVBP is a hitters league. League average ERA this season in VZ was 5.24 (2024 MLB: 4.07). That said the HR/9 of the two is similar: 1.1 MLB; 1.0 LVBP. That said, half the ballparks in VZ have a higher elevation than any non-Coors ballparks in MLB.
As Roger says, it's better to have success than not, but the pitching in VZ is mostly isn't on the level of MLB—but then, nowhere is!
Great content, Roger! My takeaway is we are possibly going to get the “let the prospects play” season some have been asking for the past few years. The problem is that the offensive prospects aren’t that great!
I think most of the starting roles should be taken up by established players, at least to the degree of say Ramos and Lee and FItzgerald being established. So mostly prospects will be filling in as needed (though what they're going to do to be able to put a reasonably competent hitter at DH most days certainly isn't clear. I'd also say that the last two years have seen a ton of prospects playing and overall the results haven't been that great! We'll see.
Understood! Yes, the term prospect is a bit ambiguous given the short tenures of some starters at the major league level.