It's the "No Swoon This June" Free For All Mailbag!
June is the cruelest month! That’s what purveyors of June Swoon theories would have you believe. Whether or not that’s true, it’s definitely the month that brings us to the halfway point of the minor league season (first halves for all the leagues will come to a close in another two weeks). The year is starting to feel a little longer, the sun a little hotter, and the wave of promotions usually begins to kick in in earnest (though with the massive moving of bodies that accompanied The Great IL Plague, perhaps there are fewer guys to promote this year).
Promotions are just one of the topics that were on your minds this week as we open up the ol’ Free For All Mailbag. We also talk injuries, trades, and underdogs…and as ever, people sneak in a few different rankings questions. So let’s get to it…
I believe strongly the Giants need an all star every day home grown player to compete for rings. I think we should trade Blake Snell, Jordan Hicks, Michael Conforto, plus lots of $$ to a team like the Orioles for Coby Mayo & Dylan Beavers for example. Or Philadelphia for Aidan Miller and Justin Crawford. Hicks has a TON of value and we can easily sign another solid pitcher next year. With our young staff this could be a super fast rebuild but then truly sustainable for next 5-10 years w a balanced team of homegrown guys. Your thoughts here?
Hi Dan, thanks for your comment. I have many thoughts here!
First, I need to do a little bit of guesswork. You’re talking about having “home grown every day All Stars” but acquiring them through trade, so my assumption here is that it’s not specifically the player development aspect you’re most concerned about (or that players are originally signed/drafted by the Giants and brought up through their system) so much as simply having young and cheap, pre-arb sort of All Star caliber players on the position player side. And, of course, young and cheap and super productive players are certainly a good way to build up a competitive window. I don’t think they’re the only way to do that — I can look around the most competitive teams in the game today and see some that don’t have anybody who is young, cheap, and star-level productive (after all, those players are few and far between) — but there’s no doubt that they are a big step in the right direction.
That said, I’ll be honest: I wouldn’t consider packages like you’re discussing here, and I can’t imagine many teams would either. There are a lot of reasons for this, so let me try to peel away the onion.
The first issue for me here is that there’s a bit of “the grass is always greener” about your idea. I’m certainly not going to pretend that the Giants have an upper tier farm system — or can match the Orioles for overall talent — but I generally think that most or all of the prospects from other systems that you might hit upon in these scenarios come with a lot of the same question marks that Giants’ players like Luis Matos or Marco Luciano or Casey Schmitt do — and significantly more than young players like Patrick Bailey (who may be the star you’re looking for) or Jung Hoo Lee do. I’ve seen a lot of Beavers over the past month — and I like him! But I certainly never thought “I’m looking at a future All Star” while watching him play. Could be a solid player! Maybe he could end up developing into a player as productive as Mike Yastrzemski some day, but I certainly wouldn’t say that’s a foregone conclusion. Mayo is considered one of the better power prospects in the game now, but he’s not without his flaws — most notably breaking ball recognition, swing and miss issues, and throws from 3b. Miller and Crawford are both exciting youngsters, but they’re the same ages as Bryce Eldridge and Walker Martin, and are probably on a similar timeframe of arriving in the majors some 3-4 years from now. I don’t know that I’d consider the Phillies’ pair to be a better slam-dunk for future stardom than the Giants’ pair (though the Phillies have done a better job at getting their hitting prospects transitioned to the majors lately).
The bottom line is that teams aren’t going to trade away players they think of as potential stars very often. If a team thinks it has a star, it wants to keep them, and will usually offer the players they think of as surplus depth. They want you to take the B guys, not the A guys — and I’d say that’s where Mayo and Beavers types do fall. That’s not always true, of course, stars do get dealt as prospects, but it’s really pretty rare and often involves a lengthy rebuild timeline that the current front office certainly wouldn’t survive.
And, the other issue I have with your suggestion is that I think you undersell the cost. I agree that Hicks has a ton of value. He’s the second best pitcher on the Giants this year by far, and I would expect him to be the second best pitcher on the team next year and probably the year after that as well.
But almost by definition, players with a ton of value aren’t easy to replace. That’s the value! I don’t personally believe that the Giants have some outstanding homegrown rotation ready to step in and absorb 1000 outstanding innings any time soon. I think there was a very clear distinction between Kyle Harrison and the other pitching prospects in the organization, and, as we’ve seen, Harrison still has a lot of growth ahead of him to be an above average starting pitcher, and the club is struggling to fill the gaps in what is, right now, essentially a three-man rotation. So, I don’t for a moment believe that it would be easy to create a quality five-man staff internally (or through cheap signings) going forward.
So, in essence, I guess I find fault with both halves of your calculation here, Dan. I think the players you’re targeting would take a long time to develop into something that might not be all that much better than some players we have around now, and I think the challenge of building a rotation from within are more daunting that you believe.
For what it’s worth, the Giants have done pretty well at mining “home grown” near stars on the position player side, as players like Thairo Estrada, Mike Yastrzemski, and LaMonte Wade, Jr. have all been turned up as cheap every day players who provide solid value — and all three have been quite close to All Star status at various times over the last few years. Certainly, Yaz would have been an All Star in 2020 had there been a game, while injury has probably taken Estrada and Wade out of the running the last two seasons.
Still, my sense would be to keep trying to build quality rosters one good baseball move at a time. They certainly do need stars to take this roster from the middling shape it’s been in the last few years — this weekend provided a great example of how enjoyable watching true stars perform can be — but I wouldn’t jettison years of value on a couple of lottery tickets that aren’t much better than the ones we already have in hand.
Feels like the Giants are trying out a bunch of (their upper-level) guys at SS. We have already seen Marco Luciano, Casey Schmitt, Tyler Fitzgerald, and Brett Wisely. Could you rank-order them based on just their defensive ability at short?
And in terms of hitting, at least at the moment, I'd rank them Luciano > Wisely > Fitzgerald > Schmitt. Would you agree?
I suppose my defensive ranking of the group at this point would be:
However, in saying that, I’d add that I’m not sure I really see any of them as a reliable everyday option at the position. Schmitt, to my mind, is a little short in range and Wisely is short in arm. Fitzgerald, I think, has a better balance of range and arm than either, though Schmitt certainly has a stronger arm and probably better overall actions. There are certainly others that disagree with me regarding Schmitt’s range, but that’s always been my view of the situation (and mostly Statcast tends to agree with me there). Luciano has the raw tools to handle the position competently, but I’m just not sure that he’ll ever really look fully comfortable there, and he’s never shown the internal clock that you want middle infielders to display. Though he’s an outstanding athlete, somehow that athleticism doesn’t always seem to translate to the defensive side of his game, which can look awkward and ungainly at times.
As for offense, they all have things to work on and improve, so I’d probably just leave them the way I’ve had them ranked coming up with Luciano and Schmitt in front of the other two. Your ranking does make sense — Wisely has a pretty long track record of performing in the minors, but I’ll line them up in terms of how hard they hit the ball, since that seems to be the main separator in today’s game. It’s hard to play in the majors without hitting the ball hard a good deal of the time.
Changing subjects on the prospects for a minute Roger, but has there been any talk or mention of perhaps having the PCL adding the IL to their regular season schedule? I think it would be so cool to see other teams and their prospects as opposed to seeing the likes of the same teams. I know the leagues wanted to cut down on travel, but it would be nice to see how the RiverCats for example, do against the IL.
I love changed subjects! Craw, however, I’ve never heard the hint of a whisper on such a topic and I doubt that’s anything that would ever gain much traction. Cross-league scheduling would not only create travel issues for players, but it also exacerbates the scheduling issues that already exist. The PCL playoff format only takes one first half winner and one second half winner, which makes the current divisions meaningless and interjects an equity issue since teams do play within more games within their divisions.
What I’d really like to see more is for the Eastern League to play a more balanced schedule. The Flying Squirrels play in a bigger league than any of the other Giants’ affiliates, but they spend the bulk of their schedule every year playing against the five teams in their division. Last year, for instance, the 11 full-week home series played in Richmond involved just six teams — the five teams in their division (Akron, Erie, Bowie, Harrisburg, and Altoona) and just one team from the northern division. They didn’t play the Yankees’ affiliate, Somerset, at all in 2023, and we often go years at a time without seeing some of the Northern Division/AL East affiliate teams in Richmond. New Hampshire, for instance, the Blue Jays’ affiliate, hasn’t appeared in Richmond since the pandemic and the switch to six-game series. That’s a long time to go without the home fans getting a single look at another team’s best prospects!
I will say that this year’s schedule is the best in several years. They’re playing Somerset both home and away (a three-game set), and have home series with Binghamton (Mets) and Hartford (Rockies) as well. Portland (Red Sox) and New Hampshire will be taken together on a single, two-week road trip, as is often the case.
That said, while it’s fun for the fans to see a diverse spread of competition, those long bus rides are certainly no fun for the players, so I can understand why they have arranged things this way. It’s still better than the NWL, where you spend the entire summer facing off against the same five clubs.
I see Dylan Cumming made his AA debut piggybacking Carson Ragsdale. Do you see this as his role in Richmond (akin to Eric Silva) or do you think they'll start him to get back to a more traditional 6-man rotation to prevent anyone becoming gassed from heavy outings? Or is it a precursor to Hayden Birdsong moving up?
Before I start my answer to this question, I should let everybody know about a scary moment from this weekend. Matt Frisbee was hit in the neck by a foul ball in an incident that I’m told really shook up people in the stands (and the dugout, obviously) who witnessed it. Frisbee was taken to a hospital and, I’m told, released, so thankfully he appears to have escaped the worst of what could have been a traumatic injury. It’s really impossible to overstate what a kind and gentle and friendly person Frisbee is — nobody I’ve ever met who knows him has anything but glowing things to say about him as a person. So, I hope you will all join with me in saying a little prayer for his safe recovery and return to the field.
With that said, Mike, I’m not sure that I’d agree that Silva is being used in a piggy-back role. He’s working pretty straightforwardly in a relief role — in fact, his usage is nearly always the same as Jose Cruz’, with the pair often appearing in the same game together and taking down two innings apiece.
But that aside, this is a good question. The biggest issue that Richmond faces at the moment is that a third of the rotation they have been using just went on the IL this weekend. Both Frisbee and Ryan Murphy were placed on the IL following starts this weekend, and that’s going to leave the club a little short. I do think (and have heard) that Birdsong was being considered for a call up, and but given the need to cover innings in Richmond in the coming week, that may get put off a little bit. I’d also assume that Cumming would move into a rotation spot, and potentially Nick Swiney, who has worked as a long-man quite a bit this year, might as well. They could also move Wil Jensen back down, but that would be a cruel blow for a pitcher who finally earned his promotion to Triple-A after two years (so far, Jensen has allowed five runs in 3.1 IP with Sacramento). There’s also the chance that Trevor McDonald is finally ready to end his rehab and join the Squirrels.
But leaving aside the pure exigencies of the situation, I do think it will be fascinating to see how the Giants intend to use Cumming. He’s dazzled as a starter so far this year thanks to the quality of his off-speed pitches, but you don’t often see starting pitchers at this level who throw 88 with their fastball. It’s quite possible that using him in more targeted, mid-game roles could be a way to optimize Cumming’s high-spinning, sharp-breaking repertoire. We shall see!
Can you provide an update on the health of Rayner Arias? I don’t think he’s played this year unless I’ve missed something. Will he be back in the DSL this year?
For the second straight year, Arias suffered a broken wrist attempting to make a sliding catch. The Giants have described this year’s injury as significantly less serious than last year’s, which cost Arias all but the first 16 games of the season. I was told when I was in Arizona last month that Arias was “a little behind” Walker Martin, who has already rejoined games. We’ll see how long “a little behind” ends up being. I was given to understand that mid-June might be the right timeline, but he was certainly not up to taking live BP yet while I was out there, as his fairly substantial wrist brace attested. Whenever he is ready to return, he’ll be playing in Arizona, where he is currently rehabbing, not in the DSL. With any luck, he’ll get a long enough run in the ACL before the season concludes to earn a short debut in San Jose before the year is out.
How did seeing Eldridge, Martin and Arias live in Scottsdale at spring training earlier this year change your view of them?
Hm….I’m not sure I’d say that it changed my views at all, Kam, though it certainly helped inform them. This spring was the first time I’d ever seen Eldridge or Martin play live, so I came to the experience with an open and impressionable mind. For both of those two newcomers, I’d say that biggest impression I took away regarded their size and physicality. I talk about this a lot because I think it’s the one element of player development that fans most overlook. Major leaguer players are almost uniformly huge people, and the few exceptions to that are jacked like you can’t believe. For the most part, experiencing the game through video and laptops obscures this reality, as camera framing will tend to even out players and make all of them appear to be about the same size. But walk onto any field in the minors, and you’ll immediately be struck by the differences. Those guys who are standing head and shoulders above everyone else — a lot of times, those are the future big leaguers.
Eldridge is just a humungous individual, and his power to all fields was pretty immediately evident when I saw him this spring. I was able to sneak a peek at a BP session of his, and the power generated by his A swing is just incredible. It was also readily apparent that Eldridge has plenty of room on that XXXL-sized frame to hang good, lean muscle in the coming years. He’s going to be one powerful dude when he comes into his man-strength.
The other things that I had heard about Eldridge were also in evidence — his swing is compact and relatively short for his size and he showed a good understanding of the strike zone and the makings of outstanding plate discipline, even if there’s still an understandable tendency to get fooled on breaking balls. There’s some swing and miss there, as will be true of anybody with his long levers, but he has the makings of a sky-high offensive ceiling.
Martin wasn’t as advanced in my spring looks as Eldridge — and I think that had a lot to do with missing the at bats last summer that Eldridge got, as well as different experiences in their amateur days. Martin didn’t have the same level of amateur competition that Eldridge, who was a member of Team USA, had in high school. Still, he, too, showed a very strong sense of the strike zone, and, as he started to hone in on his timing, a beautiful left-handed swing. He doesn’t have the huge frame of Eldridge, but he’s impressively physical nonetheless — and he stands out among his infield peers. It took me about half a second to recognize which player was Martin when I first watched infield practice — it didn’t take long to recognize the high school quarterback who took his team to the state finals. Though his swing looks more line drive-oriented than power-oriented, he should have plenty of strength when he grows up, too. I guess the one negative that I came away with regarded Martin’s defense at shortstop, which was a little rough. But I didn’t have the impression that he wasn’t physically capable of playing the position — more than he lacked reps to look really comfortable there at this point.
Arias, I had seen the previous year in spring where he had impressed with his ability to face much older pitchers with quality at bats. That continued this spring, where he was typically in the High-A lineups with Eldridge and Martin, and absolutely held his own there. He was as impressive as anybody I saw in camp, to be honest. He holds his own against older competition, and showed good instincts in all aspects of the game. I doubt he’s going to be center fielder long term (especially if keeps hurting himself out there), but his arm is strong enough to profile well in right field as he ages and fills out. He, too, is a player with impressive physicality and a body that should really grow into strength and power. After Eldridge, he should have the highest offensive ceiling of anybody currently on the farm.
There’s no doubt that the group is the cream of the position player crop below AAA/MLB crowd that is currently populating the Giants’ roster.
Other than AAA to majors, it seems like we're getting the first honest to goodness promotions of the season (exciting!). Aside from an individual's performance, is there a particular philosophy that the organization has when it comes to the timing of these call ups?
Let me go back to an oldie but goodie in the podcast database, and pull up the appearance of Eric Flemming, who spent decades working in the Giants’ organization, including many years as the Assistant Farm Director.
I asked Eric a question very similar to yours Max, and, as Eric is far more knowledgeable than I am on the topic, I’ll use his words to help answer your question.
Here’s what Eric had to say back in June of 2022:
There’s really two kinds of promotions. One is the necessity type of promotion. So, for instance, the major league staff is asking the Triple-A staff to hold out three arms, so they’ve only got the ability to cover 11 innings tonight. Pitching coaches always plan for disaster scenarios, so they need another four innings. Well shoot, we better get an arm up from San Jose to Sacramento for tonight’s game to make sure they’re covered. Or the backup catcher’s dinged up and we need a guy to cover that. So those are just small things where [Farm Director] Kyle [Haines] or the pitching coordinator will make a quick call: “get so and so up there to fill in for three days.”
And then there are the “earned” promotions. Those are pretty big discussions — especially if it’s regarding one of our top players. I think the key component that is often overlooked is: who is the player replacing and who is going to lose ABs?
As I say, this conversation took place in 2022, and Fleming gave a contemporary example to illustrate his point: why hadn’t Vaun Brown been promoted from San Jose to Eugene, when he was killing the California League? The Eugene starting outfield at that point included Luis Matos, Jairo Pomares, and Hunter Bishop, with Carter Aldrete, who at that point was leading the NWL in nearly every offensive category, the primary 4th OF. Every promotion means diminished opportunities for someone else. Who was the team going to take ABs away from?
Can’t let Matos lose ABs. Pomares can’t lose ABs. Aldrete’s killing it. Bishop is there. So yeah, Vaun Brown is a great player and he’s clearly better than the California League, but who’s he going to replace? That’s the key component that people often overlook. Yes, Brown should go up but you can’t have him go up and sit on the bench. He’s going to get more development by playing every day. So, it’s a huge puzzle that’s tough to fill in at times.
In the end, a series of injuries and promotions ended up easing that specific traffic jam. Luciano’s back injury allowed Schmitt to slide over to SS, and Aldrete to take regular ABs at 3b. That way, Brown was able to move in as a 4th member of an OF rotation, each of whom DH’d once every four or so days.
The current Eugene situation isn’t as complicated as that 2022 version was, but as I’ve noted before, Alex Suarez had a really difficult time getting reps this spring. Playing time was only opened up for him because the Giants’ injury wave resulted in Turner Hill getting sent to Sacramento to fill out that depleted roster. You can look at Jonah Cox and assume that he’s “ready” for the next challenge (which may or may not be true). But if you make the choice to promote him up to Eugene, playing time for all becomes a scarce resource, while San Jose is left without a true center fielder, since nobody on the complex is ready to come up and take Cox’s place on the Giants roster. Is that juice worth the squeeze, or is it better just to let everybody get reps where they are?
Beyond that fairly complex logistical puzzle, there are plenty of off-field things that play into promotion considerations, mostly having to do with each player’s preparation routines. How diligently do they work at their strength and conditioning, their defense and base-running, how much do they utilize the mass amount of data resources available to help them get better. How emotionally mature are they (obviously this mostly comes into play for the younger kids)? Are there areas of frustration to the coaching staff when it comes to taking direction? Those are all parts of the puzzle, too.
And then there are the data markers that are harder to see through the box scores. As Flemming concluded his discussion:
[A player] on the surface may look like he’s having success, but he’s swinging and missing in-zone way above average, and he’s too old for the league he’s already in. So, until he can bring that down to average, we can’t promote him to a higher league. Yeah, his average and on base look fine and he’s hitting dingers, that’s great, it looks exciting, but he’s got to fix that issue. Or now with how in-depth analytics are on pitchers, a team might say, we can’t promote this guy to High-A until we get more ride on his fastball because it’s just not playing correctly. Yeah, he’s throwing 98 and guys at Low-A can’t catch up to it, but at High-A they’ll catch up to it if we don’t get the ride we’re looking for and he’s going to get lit up.
There’s a lot that goes into it. Sometimes promotion discussions will be ongoing over texts for weeks before the final decision is made.
There you go, Max. It’s complicated!
Dan Schaffer
Hi Roger, quick mailbag Questions:
Do MiLB players on 60 day or full year injured list count against the organizational 165 player limit? If so, does this make marginal injured players more likely to be cut?
Hi Dan, that’s a great question! The quick answer is: ‘No.’ Players on those two lists don’t count against the 165 domestic reserve list maximum, and that’s why clubs like the Giants make copious use of both of them during the season.
There’s obviously a delicate balance in play with use of the longer-term injured lists. Obviously, foremost on Farm Director Kyle Haines’ mind on a day-to-day basis is having enough players to field all five minor league clubs, as Eric Flemming noted in my excerpt above — and there have been more than a few cases in the last couple of years where that was a challenge that came with a razor-thin margin. In some cases, that might require signing free agents and moving other players onto long-term injured lists where they don’t count against the domestic reserve cap. On the other hand, you don’t want to artificially, or administratively, take players off the field longer than their rehab requires. There’s a lot of grey area between an injury that requires 7 days and one that requires 60 days for full recovery. The Injured-Full Season list, quite naturally, is exactly what it says, so teams are very careful about which players they place on that list, as there will be no option for putting them into games at any point the rest of the year once they’ve received that designation.
There’s also a hidden administrative twist involved in these machinations, because, while placement on the 60-day IL means a player doesn’t count against the 165 domestic reserve player limit, there is also a limit placed by MLB on the number of 60-day IL slots a team can use. I don’t know what that limit is — I’ve been told that it can change from year to year. The Giants currently have 11 players on the 60-day, which isn’t as high as I’ve seen that list before, so it figures there’s some wriggle room there — but not too much, as we’ve seen the Giants move players from the 60-day to Full season lists quite recently. Blake Rivera, for instance was moved from the 7-day to the 60-day IL on April 29, and then 10 days later was moved further to the Injured-Full season list. The only logistical reason to do this is to create more room on the 60-day list.
It would make sense that MLB might also cap the number of players who can be on the Injured-Full Season list, but I’ve never been told that that is true. So it’s conceivable that that’s one loose end where MLB allows teams to spend whatever they are willing to on players. It perhaps needs to be said that all of these player limit restrictions are motivated by a “least common denominator” philosophy. There are some (many) teams whose owners want to cut down on player development costs, but those teams also don’t want to fall behind other clubs whose owners are more liberal on the topic. They manage this by getting the ear of the commissioner’s office and forcing restrictions on the teams that would, if left to their own devices, spend more. (A different way of putting this is that owners want to limit the behavior of their own baseball ops teams without having to take the personal responsibility for those restrictions, since no actual baseball ops people like these rules).
It’s exciting to see Dylan Cumming and Trent Harris thriving as undrafted free agents. What have they done to raise their profiles so much in a short period of time? Is the Giants’ “pitching lab” a driving force here? What do you know about how the organization targeted and signed them?
That’s an interesting question, Michael. By coincidence, I was talking with a scout at Papago Park one day this spring who asked me if I knew Harris (at that point I had yet to see him pitch live), and then mentioned that he was Harris’ coach at High Point and we had a short conversation about his development. In Harris’ case, I really think a major part of his development came when he began to focus solely on pitching after having been a successful two-way player throughout his college career. As is often the case, that change brought more power to his arsenal, because he wasn’t using up energy between appearances by playing the infield (ask Paul Skenes about that), and allowed him to focus all of his energy on improving his stuff.
Cumming, I remember seeing in spring in 2023, when he was coming off a winter of work with Tread Athletics. His sweeper was the most impressive pitch to me that day, and his ability to really spin it generally was what stuck out about his pitching.
Generally, though, we’re seeing that small school pitchers who come into pro ball can often experience a real leap in their development once they get into professional development infrastructures. These players are often being exposed to things like Edgetronic cameras, biometrical technology and data, force plates, and so forth for the first time in their lives. Similarly, the weight room facilities are typically far beyond anything they’ve experienced before, with dedicated trainers on hand to give them individualized strength and conditioning programs.
Under those conditions, it’s not that surprising that we see some of these guys take off each year. Think of the way that Birdsong has increased his velocity and the power and shape of his secondaries, or the way that Landen Roupp took a good curve and turned it into a great curve, while also adding power to his sinker. The iterative benefit of data resources (that pitch had X spin and Y movement when you gripped it a certain way; do that all the time from now on!) is simply incredible, and allows a lot of these players to become the very best versions of themselves — versions they’d never previously known existed. No matter how dedicated coaches are and no matter how much a school is invested in its players, most small colleges simply can’t match the financial investment of any pro player development program, so pro ball is a brave new world for a lot of these young men. And if, like Cumming, they are also able to take advantage of a private lab in their winter’s work, all the better! There are so many paths to improvement for pitchers these days, and so many resources out there to help them get better. They just have to find the right one, and certainly, the Giants have shown that they have the ability to help these guys unlock their potential.
I really enjoyed your offseason piece that ranked/ tiered the org’s age-25-and-under players, including big leaguers. Would you do a hitters-only update, a top-10 or so? I’m curious where Heliot Ramos sits, whether Hunter Bishop makes the list and more.
It’s a true measure of how much misfortune Bishop has suffered in his career that, though he is still a strapping young man of 25 as of the writing of this post, in terms of baseball age, he’s considered to be in his “age 26” season — that is, his in-season birthday comes before July 1st and not after it. He’ll be turning 26 in just a couple of weeks, so if I were considering revisiting that list at the All Star Break or mid-season point, he wouldn’t actually qualify for it! Still, I’ll honor the spirit of the question and include him for this exercise. I will, however, omit Jung-Hoo Lee, who is in his age 25 season (his birthday comes in August) but will be 26 the next time we see him on a baseball field.
This is, I have to say, an excruciatingly difficult exercise — so good job, Scott! Essentially, I’ve got a handful of players in the major leagues, trying to show that they belong at that level, and I have to pose them against a group of players who have barely begun their professional journeys, and won’t be at the same stage as players like Ramos and Luciano for many years now. That is a real apples-to-oranges type of comparison, and I’m always on my guard of rewarding players with higher rankings simply because I haven’t seen them fail at higher levels yet (I’m always on my guard against that, but I don’t always successfully fight it off).
While there are many things to love about Rayner Arias, he’s a young player with just 16 games of professional experience — none of them in the United States — who has spent the majority of his career so far on an injured list. There is a very real possibility (if not probability) that he will never at any point in time have as much of a career as Matos or Ramos have so far. Martin has a lot of good qualities, but I know for certain that Wisely is a major leaguer (and may turn out to be quite good there). It’s really hard to balance those extremes.
Here’s the best I can come up with:
There are two big movers here from my off-season list: Bailey and Ramos. Bailey, I think is obvious — he’s going to be a big league starter for a long time and quite possibly has star potential. Right now, he’s playing like a Gold Glove quality catcher whose offense is 35% above league average. We’re a third of the way through the season and he’s been close to a 2 WAR player already. There’s no other player in the organization that can match that level of value, even if you close your eyes and dream a good bit.
Ramos is a much tougher call, because there are still clear question marks about his game. As good as he has looked over the last month — when the Giants were essentially forced against their will to give him every day playing time — he’s still striking out 34% of the time. There are some players in baseball who have managed to survive with that level of whiff about them, but they dinger oft and hard! If Ramos is going to strike out this much, he’s going to need to do more damage to stick as a productive part of a major league club.
Still, he looks more comfortable than we’ve ever seen him on a big league field, and he’s played his way into more opportunities and more time, and, at this point, I can see him working his way into a steady career. He might never be the player we had hoped for — it’s just hard to strike out as much as he does and be better than adequate — but he’s starting to look like someone who could stick around a while. Putting him over Matos is probably an over-reaction to the last month, but I think it’s clear that Matos does not belong in center field at this point, and he still doesn’t hit the ball anywhere nearly as hard as corner outfielders do. That’s a tough combination to make work. Matos’ exit velocity, hard hit, and barrel rates are all in the “blue zone” on his Statcast page. So even though he makes much more contact than Ramos, Ramos makes much more impactful contact when he does get the barrel to the ball. I’m getting to the point where my answer to every question is: when in doubt, go with the guy who hits the ball hardest.
I don’t know, that Ramos-Matos comparison is becoming a really tough knot to unwind for me. Matos still has a lot of important data points in his favor, but I’m getting less and less sure how he profiles.
It’s probably an over-reaction to have Ramos in front of Matos. It’s probably an over-reaction to have Ramos in front of Matos.It’s probably an over-reaction to have Ramos in front of Matos.It’s probably an over-reaction to have Ramos in front of Matos.It’s probably an over-reaction to have Ramos in front of Matos.It’s probably an over-reaction to have Ramos in front of Matos.It’s probably an over-reaction to have Ramos in front of Matos.It’s probably an over-reaction to have Ramos in front of Matos.
…..
Ok, so let’s return to your question about Bishop. The last guy on my list is McCray, and I think McCray and Bishop offer much more of an apples-to-apples comparison. They have similar skill sets, similar virtues, and similar weaknesses in their game. At their best, both can be impactful two-way center fielders with power and speed leading their offensive games, but both have a history of swing and miss that can compromise their offensive ceiling. Given the gap in their ages (Bishop is turning 26 this month, McCray will be 23 all year), McCray is the easy call at the 10 spot for me.
However, I will say that once off this list of 10: “there be monsters.” Other than the currently injured Aeverson Arteaga (making the relatively uncharted comeback from thoracic outlet surgery), there is no clear #11 or 12. The next guys on my top 50 are either fairly low-impact hitters like Diego Velasquez, Adrian Sugastey, and Onil Perez, or big swing and miss guys like Victor Bericoto and Jairo Pomares. Seventeen-year-old Jhonny Level, who briefly made his professional debut in the Dominican yesterday, could make a legitimate argument to top this group simply because scouts believe that he could be a “true shortstop.”
Given all that, could Bishop sneak into my #11 spot on the list? It’s possible! Of course, by next March when I actually get around to doing this list for real again, he’ll be 26 and will have fallen out of consideration.
Time is a real bastard, ain’t it?
And with that, we say good bye to the There R Giants’ Post Office for another day. I’ll be back with more answers (assuming you’re back with more questions) next week!
Enjoy the ball, everybody!
Thanks for the hitter ranking Roger. I keep waiting for the Ramos bubble to burst, but he's coming up on 100 ABs for the year and is sitting at .295/.361/.828, and with strong defence - let the good times roll!
Another enlightening and informative mailbag, thanks Roger! But don’t you think you are probably over-reacting by putting Ramos in front of Matos??