It's the "Welcome to the Playoffs; We Hope You Enjoy Your Stay" Free For All Mailbag

Only two of the Giants’ seven affiliates made their league’s post-season this year — and both ended the year with the best record (by winning percentage) in their respective leagues. The DSL Giants’ year is over, falling sadly short of their ultimate goal. But the San Jose Giants get their playoff dreams kicked off tonight at Excite Park. Tonight’s Game 1 is the only home playoff game the Giants are guaranteed this year — they won’t be back at home unless they win their Best of Three against the Modesto Nuts and advance to the Cal League championship. So get out there and root them on to victory!

As playoffs mean things are almost over, we’re nearly done with our weekly mailbags. I’ll run one more next Tuesday, but after that we’ll shift into off-season mode, with three posts per week (plus some podcasts tossed in for free), and mailbags approximately once a month until spring.

But we’re not quite there yet! Today, we have questions on San Jose’s playoff run, the fate of the front office, and lots of outfield talk! Let’s dig in…

PGBreaker

Kinda late for me to be asking this (life is all about timing, isn't it?) but do you wear your Giants Orange shirt at all of the games you attend? I was looking to see if I could spot you in the stands the last couple of Richmond games.

It has typically been my habit to wear my branded orange There R Giants polos in the stadium, and, at Richmond games, you can often see me on the center field shot sitting about 10 rows up on the aisle behind home plate.

But I’ll admit I got a little lazy on the final homestand. Partly that was a result of having skipped some laundry days after almost a month straight of travel and partly I just felt like a change. Maybe I’m mentally moving on from orange polos. We’ll see how I feel about that next year.

It has been useful at times in the past for scouts who knew my work but didn’t necessarily know me to be wearing my branded merch. But as more and more people do know me, maybe I can just start dressing however I darn well feel on any given night. We shall see come March!

Scott C.

Let’s picture Farhan Zaidi trying to sell his bosses on bringing him back despite a third straight lackluster season. What should he highlight to show he’s the right man to continue at the helm? (This is a serious question!) The stated expectation for this season was to make the playoffs. Yet the team is still multiple high-level players away from even being a wild card contender, and we know the history of failing to land impact bats in free agency. The farm system has had its recent successes for sure — and maybe Bryce Eldridge can become a star — but we’ve also seen a few top-100 hitting prospects fall far off course, and Kyle Harrison isn’t yet realizing his elite-level promise. So, what’s Farhan's most convincing pitch?

I’ve said this before, but I do think there are a lot of inherent reasons why ownership should want to keep him on. Transitions are hard to get right, and always entail a long lag time while the new folks are getting to know the organization and going through the long slow process of finding their own people and processes. Trying to tweak the status quo is a much less resource-intensive and resource-depleting process that can often produce just as positive results as full-scale turnover. So, Zaidi definitely has in his corner that the bosses would likely really like to be convinced to bring him back, rather than have to start a new hiring process.

That said, yeah, I think focusing on the young talent and the many graduates from the farm that showed up this year is absolutely his pitch. As you say, I think there’s some nuance to the situation, but a club that has been starved for production from its farm system has seen real success at the major league level this year — including the end to a 40-year drought in home-grown All-Star outfielders. Between Heliot Ramos, Tyler Fitzgerald, Harrison and Hayden Birdsong, Ryan Walker, Patrick Bailey, Grant McCray, and others, Zaidi can certainly make a legitimate claim to finally getting the internal spigot turned on this season. Now, is that the core of a future playoff team? That’s a very different question that the Executive Committee will need to think about, along with the question of whether back-to-back fourth place finishes on $200+ million-dollar payrolls is something that deserves more chances for the decision maker.

Only a small group of people can answer that question (or, at least, has the power to answer it practically). But certainly, the progress that the farm system has shown this year is a point in Zaidi’s (and all of those who make up his front office’s) favor.

Barry Parkin

With the Matt Chapman signing, I was wondering who is in the farm system that is now blocked? This would be players who excel at defense at the hot corner whose glove skills would be wasted at 1b.

I’ll be honest, Barry, I mostly don’t believe in the concept of a player being blocked. The major league season is long enough that there are always going to be opportunities — in fact, I’d say that you can count on there being more opportunities than there are qualified candidates to fill them! Players who make the most of those opportunities continue to receive them and players who don’t ultimately get bypassed by the guys coming up from behind. “If the bat will play, they’ll find a way,” as the old baseball saying goes, and certainly, I don’t think the Giants’ current issue is that they have too many quality starters to find room for them all.

That said, taking your question on its face (players whose value would be lost moving to a different position), I think the obvious answer here is: no one. The only player in the farm system who really excels as a defensive 3b is Casey Schmitt, and he has been given ample opportunity at this point to prove he is a big league hitter, and hasn’t been able to show that he is. Schmitt now has more than 350 major league PA, and he still hasn’t been able to rein in his tendency to expand the zone, particularly on same-sided sliders off the outside. Pitchers know they can get him out there, and if they come into his hot zone on the inner half, it’s because they made a mistake.

I produced a list like this last year, but one year further on, the comparables have become even more damning. Here is a list of all the major leaguers who have produced an OPS+ of 66 or less, in more than 350 PA, by the age of 25. It is, let us say, a VERY discouraging list, dominated by backup catchers (hello there, Bob Melvin!) and slick fielding shortstops from the ‘70s like Giants’ legends Johnnie Lemaster and Tim Foli. You really don’t want to be on this list! Though, if you’re looking for a bright side, I suppose late-developing Rockies’ center fielder Brenton Doyle, who was woeful with the bat last year in his rookie season, but pretty good this year, is your mark.

But Schmitt is really the only guy. One could hypothesize that Marco Luciano might be able to work at the 3b position, but given that he’s never played the position professionally, and that he seems to have problems with both the speed of play in the infield and picking up ground balls, that’s hardly a given! There’s nobody else that I can think of in the system who screams plus defender at the Hot Corner. There are certainly capable defenders in the org, but nobody who at the moment appears likely to make his mark with his glove. More importantly, there isn’t any 3b from an offensive development perspective, who is likely to be a big-league-ready hitter in the next few years for the team to worry about blocking.

Trust me, Barry, if there are quality hitters in the org, this club is not lacking in places on the diamond to try and fit them!

Just as an aside, I feel like I don’t talk about the issue of same-side sliders enough around here, but this is really one of the single most important factors that any right-handed hitting prospect is ever going to have to deal with — and it’s the one factor that absolutely dims potentially bright careers over and over again.

There are so many players I watch and see athleticism, some strength, bat to ball skills, maybe some speed, hit the ball hard…and I think, “yeah, I can see this coming together. I can see this guy having a future of some kind.” But then you watch right-handers who can really throw just bedevil them with one slider after another, and these really talented players have to deal with some demon spawn pitch from behind their ears that takes a left turn at their butt and heads for the home dugout and makes them look absolutely silly. Over and over. And if they can’t find some way to defend against that outlandish offering, everything else about their game can go for nought. Whether it’s laying off the pitch, finding some way to fight it off when it’s in the zone, or simply doing so much damage against other pitches to balance things out, right-handed hitters have to find some way to avoid that pitch being their kryptonite.

I remember a game last year in Richmond, Jared Jones was pitching for Altoona. The big guy was throwing 96-97 with his fastball throughout his start, and then he just started shoving one terrorizing slider after another at the right-handers. Watching that display close up, I understood: “this is the thing that swallows careers whole. Same-side sliders to right-handers.” You can have a pile of virtues and game skills that stretches to the ceiling, but same-sided sliders can still snatch your dreams away. It’s a career killer and I have no idea how hitters ever successfully deal with it. (Lefties, of course, have the same issue, but sample size is on their side, as there are far fewer left-handed pitchers). But that’s really the hurdle that separates the guys who survive in the major leagues from all the many players who might have been. That damned same-side slider.

Dave R

Hi Roger, is there anybody in the organization who could be the next Spencer Bivens?

Well, he hasn’t played in France or the former Czechoslovakia to the best of my knowledge, but Tanner Kiest is the one guy I can think of with as many stops on his professional resume as Bivens. And, armed with a fastball that can reach 96-97 at times, I can see Kiest getting his long-awaited dream come true someday. A significant improvement in command was Bivens’ ticket to glory. If Kiest could make a similar leap in the level of his command, he has the stuff to pitch in the big leagues for sure.

Nick Yatsko

I heard Mike Krukow on KNBR this week saying that many of the Giants’ young pitchers that are coming up are not developing and using a 2-seam fastball. Has this grip fallen out of favor or is something else going on? Kruk said it’s an important pitch to use, so I’m just wondering if Giants development is not teaching it or ? Thanks much!

Across MLB, that pitch did fall out of favor about a decade ago as teams started discovering the virtues of high-rise fastballs. That was such an industry-wide trend that one major reason given for the Pirates firing GM Neal Huntington is that his organization missed the memo, and never moved away from a sinker-centric approach to pitching development when everybody else was chasing high-IVB four-seamers at the top of the zone (variously described as a fastball with “good shape” or “good carry”).

That said, I don’t think I’d agree that this is a phenomenon throughout the Giants’ player development organization. In fact, I’ve often described them as a sinker-slider development group, because, overall, I feel like I see a lot more two-seamers than four-seamers.

I suspect that this is just a matter of who is making it right now and who isn’t. Kyle Harrison’s fastball isn’t a two-seamer (though Statcast persistently calls it that), but it has such outlier shape and movement, due to his unique pitching motion, that it’s not really a traditional four-seamer either. The same could be said of Randy Rodriguez’s fastball. Hayden Birdsong and Erik Miller are traditional four-seamer fastball guys. But Mason Black throws both, as does the briefly seen Kai-Wei Teng (though he relies on the sinker most of the time) and Ryan Walker, I believe, only throws a sinker. Then you get guys like Carson Seymour (not yet seen by Kruk), who throws a four-seamer that moves like a two-seamer.

I think this really is a case where guys throw what works for them — but some things work so well as to reach the majors and some don’t. I’m reminded of Lance Brozdowski’s appearance on my podcast last spring. We were discussing different organizations’ development philosophies, and he noted that the Seattle organization threw fewer four-seamers throughout their minor leagues than any other org — and by a lot! However, he added as an aside, that was generally not true of the guys who had broken through to the major league squad: Bryce Miller, George Kirby, and Bryan Woo are all four-seam dudes who have risen to the top of a two-seam org.

Maybe the lesson there is that it’s the guys with the electric fastballs who tend to succeed, and the guys without the electric fastballs….throw sinkers (although Walker’s is pretty danged explosive!).

Henrique Goncalves

Roger, with the shortage of arms in San Jose, do you think sending a couple pitchers down from Eugene for the playoffs is an option at all? Or they’ll just go with what they have right now?

Also, with the news of Harrison going on the IL (hopefully just precautionary), who would you pick to fill in for him? A rehabbing Beck? One of the Carsons? None of the above?

MikeH

Re: SJ pitchers, I expected to see Liam Simon or Spencer Miles after their ACL appearances; any chance they're being saved for the final push?

You know, this used to be a fairly common practice for a lot of teams — stocking lower-level playoff rosters with players from upper levels. I remember specifically that Kevin Frandsen asked to be moved back down for San Jose’s playoff run in, I think 2005, after he’d risen all the way up to Triple-A during the course of the season. Frandsen had started the year with that squad and he still associated himself with the guys he’d started the year with, and wanted to be part of their run to a championship.

At some point not long after that, Minor League Baseball passed a rule outlawing players being moved down levels for playoffs (other than rehab situations). Of course, the organization of Minor League Baseball no longer exists, so I don’t know if that rule still does either. Still, I believe “playoff stocking” from above is something that is generally frowned upon in the spirit of competition.

As for Mike’s question, I don’t think either Miles or Simon is an option either. Miles, who looked incredible in his first couple of outings, had some sort of a setback in his rehab. In his final outing, his velocity dropped precipitously, and he hasn’t pitched since then (June 26). Simon has been pitching regularly, but he still has some things to work through in his rehab from TJ. I saw him on my trip to Papago last month, and there’s some mental hurdles I think he’s still working on at letting go and throwing free and loose. There’s still a lot of faith in his arm and ability, but I don’t think he’s currently in a place where it would be beneficial to put him in a post-season competitive environment.

As for Henrique’s supplementary question, I think that Beck and Black are going to be a major part of the answer, with some bullpen games possibly mixed in. As we get further into this month and possibly some other rotation members get shut down (Logan Webb could maybe use a rest, though I’m sure he doesn’t want one, and Blake Snell might be anxious to get to free agency again in a perfectly healthy situation), then the club might need to seek out some other alternatives. Teng is on the roster and starting again in Sacramento, so he’s an easy option. I do believe that Carson Ragsdale is pretty much a slam dunk for adding to the roster in the winter, so he’d make sense as a next layer of depth. Carson Seymour is probably more in a 60/40 area for adding to the roster, so it depends on whether they’ve made their minds up on him yet or not. Carson Whisenhunt is the best starting pitching prospect of the group, and they might want to take a look at him, but it’s unnecessary from a roster-management perspective, and might be a little reckless at this point to add him in the waning days of the year. Robbie Ray should be back soon, which eases some of the issue, especially with Black on the roster and pitching well.

kent iverson

Hi Roger,

It is great to see Wade Meckler hitting a few dingers and seemingly taking a step forward in Sacramento.  I am interested in your assessment of where he stands within the organization at this point - with Lee coming back, McCray holding his own in the majors, Luis Matos' relative youth and potential, where does Meckler fall in the depth chart?  What level of value do you think he has in the eyes of other organizations?

Hi Kent, thanks for writing in. I would say that the fact that he is on the Sacramento roster while McCray and Matos are on the San Francisco roster right now answers that question pretty well. He’s last on the 40-man depth chart of outfielders. Now that depth chart might get cleared out a little bit in the coming months. Certainly, Michael Conforto will be gone, and Yastrzemski’s future is conceivably in doubt as well, due to the fact that his fourth year in arbitration is likely to land him a salary over $10 million. That’s a lot for a 4th outfielder, and his ~1.5 annual fWAR the last three years doesn’t exactly scream “starter.” So we’ll see where the depth chart stands next spring.

As for other organizations? Based on conversations I’ve had (hardly comprehensive), I’d say most scouts see him as a depth type right now, maybe a 4th/5th outfielder on a bench. He’s good enough to get opportunities to work his way into more playing time, but not a guy that most teams look at as a starting corner outfielder. But, as I’ve said before, Meckler has made a lifetime habit out of upending expectations, and I wouldn’t bet against him continuing to do so.

Errol S.

You have reported on this most likely, I just can't recall - what is the current status of Reggie Crawford? thanks as always!

Crawford has been on the IL since mid-June, last having appeared in a game on June 5th. Susan Slusser originally reported (after running into Crawford at the Rickwood Field game) that the issue was a biceps impingement. At that time, Crawford implied that the IL stint was more of a load management thing than anything serious, but he’s never reappeared since then — I haven’t even heard of him pitching in any of the camp games going on at Papago. Sounds like it’s just sorenesss for now, but it’s certainly concerning that they haven’t been able to get him on the mound for any substantive regular action in two years.

Crawford hasn’t hit the 20-inning mark in either of his two professional seasons, and adding together his college time, Cape Cod League action, and work with Team USA, he’s thrown fewer than 60 innings combined over the last six years. The Giants really went easy on Crawford this year, rarely pushing him beyond 30 pitches (34 was his high for the year) and often having him throw just 10-15 pitches. In six of his 14 appearances, this year, he threw fewer than 20 pitches. For most of the two months he was active, Crawford appeared every third or fourth day. Crawford’s stuff is incredible, but it certainly is concerning that he can’t seem to push his body very far on the mound without recurrent setbacks. He’s missing needed reps and he hasn’t shown much of an ability to meet a professional workload so far.

jazz_case

This is likely better served as an offseason question, but I'd probably forget to ask it...so here we go: With the benefit of 5 years of hindsight, do you have any thoughts about the 2019 River Cats unlikely AAA Championship run? They improved from a 30 games under .500 squad in 2018 to going 6 over the next season and winning it all. Quite a turnaround! I recall Enderson Franco getting a post-Championship cup of coffee with the Giants and now see he is still pitching (2023-2024 with Fubon Guardians in New Taipei, Taiwan). Alas, just like the 2019 Nationals, the River Cat faithful didn't get a chance to revel in the achievement since covid washed away their season to reign.

The 2019 Triple-A Championship River Cats are occasionally a topic of conversation to this day between myself and Richmond Communications Director Trey Wilson. The ironic thing about that run to the top is that a bunch of the players who actually won the PCL playoffs and Triple-A Championship over the Columbus Clippers, were late-year call ups from the worst team in Richmond Flying Squirrels’ franchise history. Among the guys on the field celebrating a championship who had spent most of the summer accumulating a 55-84 record in Double-A were Jacob Heyward, Ryan Howard, Levi Michael, Peter Maris, and, of course, one of the real stars of that playoff run, Caleb Baragar, who was the winning pitcher of both the elimination game that put Sacramento into the PCL Finals AND the Triple-A championship game itself. Between those two starts, Baragar threw 10 innings, allowing just one run.

Ironically, Baragar never officially made an appearance for Sacramento that year, as he ended the regular season still on the Richmond roster. However, I do think those two starts he made in the post-season (and that high carry fastball he showed in them!) helped him get an invite to spring training in 2020, and ultimately play a role on the 2020-21 SF Giants’ staffs.

In fact, not only would a healthy portion of the worst Richmond squad ever win that championship (I haven’t even mentioned Melvin Adón, Tyler Cyr, and other members of the Richmond bullpen who took part in those playoffs), but several of them would return to Richmond when minor league play returned in 2021. Heyward (whose knee issues were severe enough that he knew they would soon short-circuit his career) and Howard (who would develop the yips on throws from shortstop, soon spelling the end of his playing career) both were back in Richmond when play restarted in 2021.

My primary thought on the 2019 championship then (because I had watched a lot of terrible ball in Richmond that summer), is that baseball is a crazy-ass game and anything can happen in a short series. Or, as my friend Grant Brisbee once wrote: “this game sure can drink.”

There were some reasonably good players on that 2019 Sacramento team. Tyler Rogers and Mauricio Dubón would go on to good major league careers. Mike Yastrzemski launched his successful Giants’ career with a terrific first half. Steven Duggar’s top prospect star had dimmed, but he’d end up being an important part of the 2021 Giants. And, of course, Logan Webb stopped by for a single start before hopping up to make his big league debut. But none of those guys were around for the crazy title run. Instead, it was a lot of the Joe McCarthys of the world who swept the team to glory.

Ironically, the best future major league career of anybody who participated for Sacramento in those playoffs might belong to Steven Okert, who was in the final days of his time with the Giants. Once that year was over, Okert became a minor league free agent. Things didn’t turn around immediately for Okert — he didn’t hook on with anybody before the pandemic shut down baseball in 2020, and spent that season on his own devices. But signing a minor league deal with Miami in 2021, he built his way into a steady left-handed reliever who has spent the last 3.5 years in a major league uniform — and a pretty good one at that (though he’s had some issues this year). Way to go, Steven!

Joseph Young

From Baggs at the Athletic: “McCray is also the first Giant to hit five home runs in 19 games to begin his career since Jarrett Parker in 2015. That’s both an impressive accomplishment and a cautionary tale at the same time. Whether it’s Parker, a short-lived big leaguer who hit three homers against Melvin’s A’s at the Coliseum in that season, or Casey Schmitt’s sizzling debut last season, or Luis Matos’ historic deluge of RBIs in May that dried up after a week, there’s a danger in extrapolating performance from a rookie’s hot streak.” Your take?

Baggs is an outstanding writer and very insightful veteran observer of the game. And yes, I would always caution against drawing too firm a conclusion off the hot streak that comes at the start of a career. I’ve longed believed that teams shouldn’t make decisioned based on “garbage time” results (remember when Emmanuel Burriss cemented a next season starting job by hitting .300 and reaching base at a .402 clip in September of 2008?). Being a big leaguer is about adjusting to the adjustments that the league is making to you. That’s not just the case with McCray — we still have to see how well Ramos and Fitzgerald continue to make adjustments after their initial bursts as well. We know that the pair will report to camp as starters in March; what they are come September of 2025 remains to be seen (as Thairo Estrada’s plight reminds us oh too well). This is a game where you have to keep proving it every day. That’s just one reason why succeeding at it is such an immense achievement.

Indeed, even the greatest major leaguers aren’t immune from this push-pull process. In 2023, Ronald Acuña, Jr. put together one of the most amazing seasons of the century, which included cutting his strikeout rate in half and doubling his Isolated Slugging. That led the league to approach him very differently in 2024, and, prior to his season-ending knee injury, he had struggled to adjust to the new attack style. His strikeout rate returned to previous norms and his power dried up. Next year, it will be up to him to make the next move.

Put it this way, probably at some point, the league is going to stop trying to get McCray out by throwing him sliders at the belt:

When that point comes, we’ll see how well he makes the adjustment in return.

That said, given how well-rounded McCray’s skillset is, simply punishing mistakes might end up being a sustainable way to stick in the majors, and he’s absolutely shown the ability to do that (honestly, that’s kind of been Yaz’s formula over the years). McCray barrels balls at the thighs and belt extremely well, and if he can continue his current rate of punishment in that location, he excels at enough other things that that alone could be a career path. After all, while major league pitchers are incredible — they aren’t perfect. They do throw sliders at the belt. And they do miss their locations. If we look at the pitch chart per zone against McCray, you can see that pitchers are trying to attack his biggest weakness — the fastball above the belt — but they’re not always getting it there.

McCray has done a good job of whittling that hole down, making it harder for pitchers to hit. If he can continue to force them away from that area, and maybe tighten up the swing decisions on breaking balls below the zone, there’s absolutely a path to success. Having a path to success doesn’t presume successfully taking that path, however. There’s a long way to go to make that determination.

Depending on how the winter goes, McCray can certainly come to camp next year with a chance to fight for a job. For a guy who was just wrapping up a somewhat middling campaign in High-A a year ago at this time, that’s a heckuva year of development!

That seems like a good place to close up the bag for this week. A week from now, we’ll be down to just one active minor league affiliate, which will push us firmly into the winter’s work. Look for at least one podcast today, and if I can get it up quickly enough, perhaps two! We’ll definitely have the return of the long-lost KROG pod today, and I’m hoping to do an interview with Joe Ritzo in time for a preview of San Jose’s playoff series as well.