It's a Star Spangled Banner Edition of the Free For All Mailbag

Photo Credit: Richmond Flying Squirrels

Ok, ok, so it’s only the 1st of July, not the 4th. Still, if the first is here, may the fourth be far behind? Of course not! We’ve arrived at the great tentpole of the baseball season — a day of fireworks, hot dogs, heat, and baseball. I don’t know how it got here so quickly, but I’m gonna do me some grilling for sure!

Before we get into this week’s bag, it’s a good thing that nobody followed up on my prompt and asked who I thought would get selected for the Futures Game, because word came yesterday afternoon that Carson Whisenhunt would represent the Giants at Truist Park in Atlanta next weekend. Oddly, the River Cats’ release said that Bryce Eldridge had also been selected to be a representative, but obviously that could only be ceremonial representation, since he’s currently on the IL back in Papago, and based on the Giants’ prospect twitter count release, which mentions only Whisenhunt, I suspect some wires got crossed (likely Eldridge was on an initial list before getting hurt).

It’s obviously a well-deserved honor for Whisenhunt, who is heading to his second Futures Game appearance, but I will note a small twinge of disappointment. While repeat appearances at the Futures Game are not verboten, the folks who select the rosters do tend to look for new candidates — because the hope is to keep getting fresh sights at new, young talent. And I’ll say, from a couple decades of watching these games, when teams send players for a second time, there does tend to be an underlying message about the lack of top alternatives in that system, which is a discouraging thought. (Not surprising though, there really aren’t Top 100 candidates right now in the Giants’ system beyond Eldridge and Whisenhunt).

But we’ll put that one aside for now and simply wish Carson #1 the best on his trip to Atlanta. Hopefully, he can add another highlight to his reel:

Ok. On to the mailbag…

Kent Iverson

Through the halfway point of the minor league season, what is your feeling about the Giants' organization's overall level of prospect performance in 2025: good (Landen Roupp, Hayden Birdsong, Jhonny Level, Bo Davidson, etc.), disappointing (Rayner Arias, Sabin Ceballos, Aeverson Arteaga, Josh Bostick, etc.) or about what you expected.

Hi Kent, thanks for the question — though I’m afraid to admit that I am not going to answer this in quite as much depth as you might hope to see. I am planning an entire post around this very topic in a couple of weeks when we arrive at the All-Star Break (my annual content-filling week where I name first half All Stars and Gold Glove winners, and do a quick mid-season re-rank), and don’t want to give away the entire thing just yet!

With that said, my view this winter — which I hope came across clearly in the various Depth Charts, Roster Previews, and Top 50 posts — was that this was a fairly thin system that dropped off quickly after Bryce Eldridge and James Tibbs III on the hitting side of things, and Carson Whisenhunt on the pitching side of things.

While there have been a number of positive development stories on the farm this year — particularly on a fascinating ACL squad — nothing has happened to really move me off that view of the farm. There haven’t really been any Birdsong-equivalent pop up stories, and, while the San Jose squad has a lot of strong performances going on to take note of and be happy and excited about, there’s still a lot of work ahead for all concerned — enough so that I’d stay away from raising my excitement levels on any of these fine performances to the degree that I did for Eldridge last year, or even Birdsong in 2023 or Casey Schmitt in 2022. These I think are different, more modest steps forward.

I do think that players like Roupp, Birdsong, Randy Rodriguez, Heliot Ramos, and even Christian Koss (who has obviously exceeded my 35+ expectations on him from the winter) have all taken exciting and important forward strides — but as all of those advances have taken place under the aegis of major league playing time (and none but Koss were still officially “prospects” coming into the season), I guess I’d put their improvements into a different bucket from the Player Development department.

All in all, “about what I expected” is probably my answer for now.

David Jaulus

I just finished listening to your interview with Joe Ritzo on the podcast (which was phenomenal by the way). When you were talking about Dakota Jordan, I couldn't help but draw a comparison to a young Mike Cameron. Do you think I'm completely off-base? The skill sets and the flaws seem to match up fairly well.

David, I’ll thank you for Joe’s part of the pod — he makes it awfully easy on the host!

That’s a fascinating comp. I tried to look up old scouting reports of Cameron on Baseball America, but, though I can see he was their #31 prospect on the Top 100 way back in 1997, they no longer have his report archived on line. My potentially faulty memory, however, tells me that Cameron was considered more of an elite, maybe 70-grade defender in Center Field — maybe something along the lines of how Kevin Kiermaier was considered coming up.

And, in fact, Cameron did live up to that — by the old defensive metrics on Fangraphs (admittedly, the data gets shakier the further you go back in time), Cameron was an even better defender than Kiermaier, and would go on to provide most of his career 50 fWAR on that side of the ball. That sort of premium impact on defense will give players the playing time opportunities they need to figure out the offensive side of things — Brandon Crawford would be a good example of this kind of player in Giants’ recent history.

I would say that the Giants consider Jordan a player who has the physical tools to develop into a quality center fielder, but I don’t think anybody considers him a defensive savant in the style of those other players. In college, he actually played a lot of the corners, and many scouts going into the draft saw that as his eventual path to success. Obviously, if Jordan can work his way to becoming a strong presence on that side of the ball, it will give him a real benefit when the time comes (hopefully) to transition to MLB. Corner OFs are always competing with a lot of other potential candidates, and really have to hit to survive. Guys who prove they can provide value in CF will get more opportunities and more time to prove themselves.

To me, that’s the key differentiator in your very thought-provoking comparison. Thanks, David!

Patrick Karraker

How much has the promotion of Damon Minor adversely affected the Triple-A club this year? Without looking into the year-by-year numbers too heavily, it feels like this is the weakest the Sacramento offense has been since the mid-2010s.

That’s an interesting question, Patrick.

My initial response is — it certainly has to have had some effect. Minor spent 10 years honing his coaching chops at the Triple-A level, and, over that time, has turned himself into a widely respected hitting mind. That’s why he’s a major league coach today. I’ve heard very high praise for Minor’s work for several years, both from internal and external sources, and it was little surprise to me that he finally got the deserved promotion.

It’s reasonable to imagine that people stepping into that position would need to go through the same growth process themselves, though it’s worth noting that Minor’s replacement, PJ Pilittere, comes to the team with actual big league staff experience himself (three years on the Colorado Rockies’ staff), along with several years as a hitting instructor in the widely respected PD environment of the Rockies’ system. So, I wouldn’t want to discount his knowledge or positive impact.

I don’t disagree with you that the River Cats’ offense has been a real problem this year. While in 2024, the team was a little below average offensively (not unexpected given their league and less homerific home stadium), they weren’t the absolute bottom of the barrel — three whole teams separated them from the basement in terms of runs scored! That’s not the case this year, when their 4.54 runs per game is by far the lowest in the league, and nearly a full run and half lower than the average. They are clearly struggling to score runs.

The interesting thing about this is that there’s been a lot of continuity on the 2024 and 2025 versions of the team. Players like Grant McCray, Luis Matos, Marco Luciano, Brett Wisely, and Wade Meckler have soaked up a lot of at bats on both incarnations. And while several of those players have seen a decline in production so far this year (Matos is actually the only one of that group whose wRC+ hasn’t gone down somewhat significantly), I’m not sure it’s fair to blame the hitting coach for that. I’m pretty sure that “hit worse” isn’t advice he’s given anybody.

Generally, I’d say you have a combination of a few things going on. One is, the full story of this season hasn’t been written. The spring was somewhat abnormally wet, and the PCL hasn’t really gotten to its full-throated heat of the summer fever pitch just yet. There’s also an underlying question of whether the ball is different this year — Triple-A uses the major league ball, and the major league ball this year isn’t traveling as far, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. It’s entirely possible that that could have more impact on a club with an offense-neutral home environment. There’s also the issue of their schedule, which has been heavy on travel. Zack Bayrouty pointed out on the podcast this week that the club has played more than half as many games in Tacoma this year (18), as at Sutter Health Field (33), and overall, only 40% of their schedule has been spent at home so far. That kind of travel can make some bats start to drag as well.

And then the last element is that the team has lost some of its more impactful hitters from last year to the next level. Though they weren’t necessarily in Sacramento for extended stays, the best hitters on the club last year were Heliot Ramos, Jerar Encarnacion, Tyler Fitzgerald, Thairo Estrada, and Trenton Brooks. Even Donovan Walton was pretty good. And, though 2024 certainly wasn’t his best season, losing David Villar hits the depth of talent a good bit, too. By and large, all of those guys have departed this year, and I think that taking the top end off the roster is having a cumulative effect — especially as there’s been nobody really standing up and filling the void so far.

At the risk of stumbling into some of the same hot water that old friend Davey Martinez has found himself in lately, ultimately it comes down to the players’ performances.

Jake Waddell

I know a big part of Bryce Eldridge’s growth right now rests on getting reps and strengthening his defensive prowess at first base. My question is: why first base? I remember reading somewhere toward the end of last season that all the work at first base was really taking a toll in terms of fatigue. Having to constantly bend down every at bat to be in an athletically ready position at first would be hard on that tall frame, I would think. And being a former two way player, I’d imagine he has a great arm, which would get very little use at first. I know he’s not known for base stealing, but some cursory research suggests he’s pretty fast for his size. My armchair expert brain sees him ranging in right, gunning guys down at the plate a la Rick Ankiel. I’m sure there is a ton that goes into determining what position a player like him should be converted into, but what do you think the determining factors are for Eldridge? How much of it do you think has to do with organizational depth; trying to mold players into a position where the team has a weakness?

Jake, meaning absolutely no disrespect to the acuity your mind’s eye, my physical eyes actually beheld Eldridge taking outfield practice multiple times during the late summer and fall of 2023, and “rangy” is definitely not the word that comes to mind when I think of it. (Not to take any untoward potshots at the talented kid, but the word “lumber” is beginning to take form in the back of my mind).

The Giants are certainly never going to say as much, but the quick change the following spring to focusing on 1b was a tacit admission that what they saw from Eldridge as he tried to master the outfield was a project that wasn’t likely to provide enough return to justify the expense. Eldridge’s enormous strides naturally can gobble up some ground, but it can him a take a bit to get wound up out of the blocks and up to cruising speed — and the deceleration process can be a bit arduous as well (and dangerous, as we saw a week or so ago!).

Considering how much time would have been required to work on reads and routes — an incredibly complicated skillset that we tend to really discount as fans simply because major league outfielders have mastered it so entirely — had they tried to keep him in the outfield all year last year, I think it’s highly questionable whether he ever would have been moved up to Eugene, much less levels higher than that. I think that it’s a fairly likely outcome that keeping him in the outfield would have retarded his overall development process (at least in terms of speed of promotion) without necessarily delivering a quality outfielder in the final analysis.

First base is the right spot for him to try to master in my opinion (and obviously the Giants’ as well). So let me try to replace your mental image with a different one. I can think of another prep pitcher who was considered such a prospect on the mound that he was actually drafted twice as a pitcher (once out of high school, and again out of JC). Arm injuries forced him away from the bump, and to 1b, where for many years he was one of the finest fielders at the position in the major leagues. And, despite not getting much time in the outfield (more lumbering) where he could really unleash throws, Brandon Belt’s arm did prove to be a real weapon for him over the years, particularly when attacking sacrifice bunts. In fact, I’d be willing to say that Belt is the best throwing 1b in Giants’ history. Maybe that’s a mark that Eldridge can go after in the coming years.

Here’s the thing: Eldridge’s value is going to come from what he does in the batter’s box. You certainly want to get the best all-around player possible from everybody, but his legacy is going to rest on his power ultimately, and that’s where our focus really should go, even while much of his and his coaches’ current focus is on getting his defense up to major league speed.

PGBreaker

As usual I've got another 'heavy hitting' question. The San Jose games have something called a 'Beer Batter'. It gets mentioned but somehow never explained in the broadcasts I've seen. Regardless, are the players themselves aware of it and do the battery-mates adjust what they throw accordingly?

PG, this is an excellent, excellent question, because what goes together better than beer and a ballgame. And though many minor league teams probably employ the Beer Batter gimmick — in which a member of the opposing lineup is designated the game’s “Beer Batter,” and discounted beer is offered to the crowd whenever that batter strikes out — it’s my opinion that nobody does it like San Jose.

A large part of the wonder of San Jose’s Beer Batter experience is actually the work of the fans, who generate a lot of the excitement themselves. There is a gentleman — a pure fan, not a team employee — who as far as I can tell has attended every San Jose game for many years. He will stand up on the 3b side of the stands once the Beer Batter has come out to the on deck circle — and in a booming voice that reaches the entire stadium, he loudly ponders the rhetorical question:

Hey! Who’s on deck?

To which the crowd will lustily respond in chanting form:

It’s the Beeeeeeeeeeeer Batter!

Once the batter stands in at the plate, the crowd will start chanting: beer! beer! beer! beer! building in anticipation and volume as the at bat goes on. Each time a strike is thrown, the Giants’ production team gets into the act, playing a quick audio clip from the Beer Barrel Polka (Andrews Sisters’ rendition, I believe). It’s not the same clip, of course! Oh no! With each new strike, they move through the song, so it’s: strike 1 (“roll out the barrel”), strike 2 (“we’ll have a barrel of fun….”) and on through any subsequent foul balls, hopefully leading to the expected extended play (“…cuz the gaaaaaang’s allllllll heeeeeeere!”), if the Beer Batter does indeed strike out — and a mass exodus from the stands to the prepped and waiting beer stands on the concourse (I believe fans have 10 minutes or so to take advantage of the Beer Batter’s whiffery).

Are players aware of this, you ask? Well, even accounting for professional ballplayers’ extraordinary ability to focus in on the task at hand, I would have to say that it would be virtually impossible to ignore — though that’s a great question that I’ve never asked any pitcher yet, and will put on my card of things to get into. As for altering what they’re throwing? I’m sure everybody would answer “no” to that one — you follow the game plan and the plan for the pitcher’s night always.

And yet…..there is no doubt that players feed off the energy of their crowds. You hear that repeatedly, and the bigger and more engaged the crowds — the more that transfer gets juiced up. And there are very few places in the A-ball environment where you will have more energy coming from a crowd than San Jose Giants fans show during a Beer Batter at bat. Even if a pitcher did manage not to notice that it was going on, I’m sure that there is some sort of adrenaline rush that accompanies it regardless, because the intensity in the stadium picks up so noticeably during those few moments.

Mighty Joe

Hi Roger, I so appreciate what you do. I have a question about how “option years” work. First, I understand that Marco Luciano is in his final option year. He has not, as yet, spent any time this year on the Giants’ active roster. If that holds all year, would that mean that no option had been exercised, and he’d get another option year in ‘26?

Second part of the question: If Luci’s final option year is exhausted, what is the practical impact of that? He becomes a free agent, able to sign with whom he chooses? If that does happen, what are the chances he sticks with the Giants for another year? And regardless of where he signs, would the same “out of options” rules apply, where he’d have to clear waivers if he is removed from an active roster?

Obviously this applies to Luis Matos as well, although he has spent time on the ‘25 active roster. Who else is in this bucket?

Hi Joe, I appreciate the kind words. Thanks for your questions.

Options do seem to be a source of great confusion and they are so crucial to player development and roster management that they are something of a “must know” topic, so I’m happy to try to explain. Fair warning: it’s a little convoluted.

In your example of Luciano, the exact option is actually the case. Many people think that it is the business of calling players up and down to the majors that uses up options, when the simple truth is that any player on the 40-man who is not on the major league active roster is considered to be on “optional assignment,” and thus, using up an option year. The way to go through a year without using an option, therefore, is to never be optioned down to the minors. Casey Schmitt is actually an example of what you’re asking. He, too, came into the 2025 season with one option left, but, as of yet, he has never been optioned to the minors (he did appear in Sacramento on a short rehab assignment at one point), and consequently, he currently still has a remaining option left. Carson Seymour and Carson Ragsdale, on the other hand, have used up their first option year simply by being in Sacramento for the past three months.

This is really the crucial point, so I’ll repeat it in TL:DR form: it’s spending the entire season in the majors that saves players their option years, not spending the entire season in the minors. (Mike Yastrzemski, for instance, who has been on the major league roster since the day he was placed on the 40-man, has never used an option).

For your follow up question, no, players do not become free agents once their options are exhausted — at least not immediately. We’ve seen this process play out many times — most recently this year with David Villar, who came to spring training this year with no remaining options. Once he did not make the Opening Day roster, the Giants were forced to remove him from the 40-man because they could not send him on optional assignment to Sacramento (that’s what being “out of options” means). He was Designated for Assignment, removed from the 40-man, and placed on waivers, where any of the other 29 teams could have claimed him and placed him on their major league active roster. But, since none did so, the Giants were then able to “outright” him to Sacramento — which means they assigned him to Sacramento on a minor league contract, no longer as a part of the 40-man roster.

Teams can do that without a player’s consent one time in their careers (as long as the player doesn’t yet have three years of major league service time). When Villar was suddenly needed due to a series of infield injuries in late April, he was placed back on the 40-man for a few weeks, but as the other players returned to active duty, he was once again DFA’d (because he still couldn’t be optioned), went through the waivers process again, didn’t get claimed by any other team again, and at this point, because he had already been outrighted one time, Villar had the right to elect free agency when he was outrighted a second time (he signed a minor league deal with the Mets).

And finally: yes, once a player is “out of options,” they are out of options forever. The Giants cannot option Jerar Encarnacion, Joey Lucchesi, or Andrew Knizner to the minors at this point, because all have long since exhausted their three option years. Players who have exhausted their final options this year (meaning, they will not be able to be optioned in 2026) are Luciano, Matos, Brett Wisely, Sean Hjelle, and Osleivis Basabe (no longer on the 40-man, but he did use up his final option). Players who have one option remaining but who have not yet exhausted that final option (because they’ve been on the major league roster either the entire season or since being placed on the 40-man) are Schmitt, Randy Rodriguez, and Daniel Johnson. It is still possible for any of these players to exhaust their final option this year.

By the way, Fangraphs has a great page that keeps track of these kind of things called Roster Resource. It’s comprehensive, and, with few exceptions, usually very accurate (though it does think that Wade Meckler will also be out of options after this year — he won’t, but that’s because of a different arcane rule I don’t feel like getting into just now).

Hope you could follow all that, Joe. I know it’s complicated!

MikeH

Hi Roger. What’s your thoughts on the Giants’ catching depth? Patrick Bailey's been up for a couple of years now and we still don't seem to have a strong contender for backup. Jack Payton for instance was a top 10 draft pick (I think) yet seems to have played more in other positions than catcher.

It’s not great. The Giants, like every team in baseball, draft catchers every year and sign a bunch of Venezuelans on the IFA market every year, but so far haven’t had a ton of success at getting guys up to their upper levels with a strong arrow-up — especially if you’re looking for a two-way guy, which I suspect you are (who isn’t?).

I do believe that Adrián Sugastey’s skills behind the plate have improved to the point where they could get him some big league time. He’s really gotten solid in all phases of his receiving, framing, and especially throwing. He told me earlier this year that getting a lot of time in big league camp this spring was a big deal for his development. Onil Perez is behind Sugastey in most of those defensive skills, but he’s got promise as a receiver as well. But I think that hoping for much of anything in terms of offensive impact from either involves some heavy wish-fulfillment and quite possibly some sort of lantern to rub — although it is good to see Sugastey starting to get to his game power this year.

Beyond that pair, you’re right that the org doesn’t really seem to view Payton as a catcher, since he plays mostly 1b or DH. I am sort of interested in Drew Cavanaugh’s power development this year. As I wrote last week, if 10 years from now we saw that he had an Austin Wynns (Fresno State alum!) sort of arch to his career, it wouldn’t be the most shocking thing in the world — he can really catch and throw.

But still, not much of this is really moving the needle. I don’t personally think that backup catcher is the most important thing in the world — it certainly didn’t bother anybody that Eli Whiteside or Hector Sanchez or Chris Stewart or whoever was around during the Posey years — but you don’t want to have positions of weakness in the org at such a critical position. It’s one of the reasons I have an eye on whether Ike Irish is still on the board when the Giants’ 13th pick comes next weekend.

One interesting thing to me from my Eastern League-centric perspective is that I’ve seen some guys who were considered to be great two-way catching prospects come through — obviously Adley Rutschman being the top example — and the demands of the position are such that the bat can go from “sensational” to “what happened here?” in an awful hurry. On the other hand, the Somerset Patriots (Double-A affiliate of the Yankees) always seem to have catching prospects that make scouts say “I’m not convinced he can really catch, but he sure can hit.” And while both sides of those predictions have often turned out to be true, they all seem to be providing major league impact — I’m thinking of Ben Rice, Agustín Ramírez, and Austin Wells, all of whom I’ve seen with Somerset in the past couple years (and only one of whom is much of a catcher, defensively speaking). So maybe we need to be turning this on its head and looking more for the guys who can really hit and figuring it out from there. (Of course, that same line was used for Henry Davis, proving that it doesn’t always work out that well!)

Which I suppose is all a way of saying that catching depth is something that every team is always trying to improve. There’s a good reason why guys like Wynns and Andrew Knizner and Curt Casali keep finding jobs. It’s also why the Giants just signed the 35-year-old, recently DFA’d Austin Barnes (he’s been assigned to the ACL for intake duty). You can never have enough guys who can handle big league pitching.

Dan Shaffer

Hi Roger,

Curious about timing of when MiLB players engage with agents? Do top prospects have agents throughout Minor Leagues following signing, while marginal players go without representation?

Hi Dan,

Agent representation in the minor leagues is universal, actually. All players have agents — even the tiny young kids way down in the DSL. Now when exactly players engage with agents as amateurs is a good question, but virtually anybody who believes they have a chance of being drafted (or signed afterwards) has representation, and the teams go through the agents to communicate with the players — even though officially it’s illegal for these amateurs to have agents and they are instead called “advisors” at that point. (I wonder if that will change going forward with all the changes in the college landscape). This extends to whatever margins you want to think of — if you listen closely to podcast interviews where I’ve asked about draft day experiences, even late round guys who signed for tiny bonuses (Vaun Brown, say, or Ryan Murphy) mentioned that they got a call from their agent prior to the pick asking if they’d be willing to commit to that number.

Bottom line: professional players have professional agents helping to guide their careers. And those agents have a lot of roles beyond just negotiating signing bonuses. They act as sounding boards and collaborators and thought partners in helping players define their career paths and development goals. If you’d like to hear a little more about the behind-the-scenes process, I actually had an agent join me on the pod a year or so ago, and it’s a worthwhile conversation to listen to, I think.

There R Giants Pod-155 with Alex Hinz

John M

Roger, Hunter Bishop seems to be really heating up in the last few weeks. Does he have any chance of a shot with the Giants or is he playing for a trade chip or Rule 5 pick?

John, Daniel Johnson was signed out of the Mexican League as a 29-year-old after producing just a league average offensive line in the International League last year — and he’s playing for the Giants! Christian Koss was virtually given away by the Red Sox (probably for less money than I currently have in my wallet) after producing a 56 wRC+ in his first shot at Triple-A back in 2023 — and he’s playing for the Giants! Mike Yastrzemski, back in 2017, was demoted from Triple-A after a lackluster performance in his second chance at Norfolk, and sent back down to play a fourth consecutive season in Bowie — and he’s enjoyed one of the best careers of any Giants’ outfielder in the last 40 years. Heck, I can do this with other clubs, too. One of my favorites, Will Wilson, hit just .215 over three seasons with Richmond, and ended his Sacramento career hitting .188 last year — and he’s spent a month in The Show enjoying bell hops and per diems this year with Cleveland!

If you can show big league skills at the highest levels — you have a chance to put on a big league uni. And, as Johnson and Koss both showed, it doesn’t necessarily have to be some huge sample size of compelling data, either. Showing the right skills at just the right time can be very meaningful. That goes for every MLB club — and certainly, a team as desperate for answers as the Giants currently find themselves would be unlikely to eschew any potential solutions.

Yes, there is certainly a non-zero chance that Bishop could find himself on the receiving end of the same sort of happy conversation that Johnson and Koss have had this year. And you are correct; he has been having success recently. Bishop had his most productive month as a River Cat in June, hitting .302/.362/.528.

Now look, there are some murkier undersides to those shiny numbers. They’re highly BABIP driven. The big walk totals he used to compile at low levels have never really translated to upper-level pitching, nor is he getting to his big raw power with much regularity. And the strikeouts, which have always been his biggest obstacle as an offensive player, have continued to pile up, even during this hot stretch (36% this month).

Still, my basic answer is the same: if we were to watch Bishop undergo the same kind of transformation at Triple-A level that we’ve seen in the past from Yaz or Jerar, then, yes, he could don a Giants’ uniform someday. And, if that day were to come, I can assure you that there would be some folks in the Giants’ PD department literally weeping for joy.

I’ll correct you on the end of your question, however, John. Bishop has no real trade chip value at this point and is very unlikely to be a Rule 5 pick, but he is playing for future opportunities with other clubs. At the end of this year, he will become a minor league free agent (unless he’s been placed on a 40-man roster) and will start searching the industry for his next opportunity (potentially back with the Giants, but not necessarily).

Lyle

If you were to re-rank the prospects here at the half-way mark, how much higher would you rank Jacob Bresnahan? Thanks!

“If?” Why you know perfectly well, Lyle, that I will be doing my time-honored mid-season re-rank in the next couple of weeks! I’ve just started playing around with my order on that, so I can’t give an exact answer. But I had Bresnahan at #33 this winter in the Top 50, and I do foresee pushing him up from that level. Bresnahan has had an outstanding start to the season, and I really liked what I saw from him in spring.

The question really is going to be whether the stuff justifies jumping over either guys in front of him at higher levels (say Josh Bostick or Mason Black) or holding off guys coming from behind him at lower levels (Keyner Martinez, Luis de la Torre). Bresnahan attacks with a fastball that has good tilt, but it mostly sits in the low 90s (I believe he topped out at 94 in his last start), and scouts I’ve talked with are split on how projectible his body is at this point. Still, he should add some strength as he comes into his 20s, and there are the makings of some interesting secondaries.

I’m going to guess that at the end of the day, it’s going to come down to how I order Bresnahan and de la Torre, because they’re likely to end up pretty close to each other. My back-of-the envelope guess right now is that he’ll jump up some dozen spots?

And with that, we’ll close up the bag for this week. The mailbag is going on a bit of a mid-summer vacation, as I’ll have quite a few special features coming out the next couple of weeks. But keep a look out for the next appeal for questions!

Have a great 4th, everybody! Enjoy the ball.