"Let's Get the Second Half Rolling" Free For All Mailbag
The first half of 2024 is now in the rearview mirror. How did that happen? Feels like guys are just barely getting their seasons going. July is already peeking in the window, and with it comes All Star festivities, talk of the trade deadline, and a headlong descent into that War of Attrition known as the Dog Days.
Feels like we should have some things to talk about! So let’s dive in to the bag and see…
Barnaby Feder
Roger, what do you make of how well Brett Auerbach is doing with the River Cats as he nears his 26th birthday? To expand my question just a bit... Is there any plausible path to a Major League moment for him as a player or is he really auditioning for a future role as coach or manager in the Giants organization?
Barnaby, Mike Yastrzemski spent five seasons in Double-A — and most of them weren’t that good! Now departed Trenton Brooks spent five years toiling away in Triple-A. Anybody who would say absolutely that any player in the upper minors has no plausible path to the major leagues is simply closing their mind to the realities of player development.
It really is difficult for me to know what to make of Auerbach’s success in Sacramento — which has been genuine — because I watched him really struggle for three summers in Richmond. He batted .202 over close to 700 PA with Richmond, while striking out more than 30% of the time. It’s really hard for me to get my head around the idea that the underlying faults that led to that level of production — and often, just weeks on end of rough games — simply disappeared upon flying west. I would imagine that it’s hard to find many major league players who have that kind of Double-A resume in their past. And yet, is it inconceivable that, given a mental break from the Eastern League, Auerbach might begin to make whatever adjustments might be necessary to have success at the next level? Certainly not “inconceivable.” After all, Heliot Ramos’ time in Double-A, though much shorter, wasn’t all that great! And he did figure things out about his swing over the next two or three years.
I think the inflated numbers of the PCL and the deflated numbers that Auerbach produced at lower levels (his High-A numbers aren’t that great either) make skepticism over his Triple-A success unavoidable. And yet, the longer it keeps going on, the more the possibility arises that a big league call up could be in his future. He still brings the kind of versatility that the Giants love, and which can fit on a roster in innumerable ways. He brings energy and passion and work ethic and a well-rounded skill set that can help a club in a lot of different ways.
It would be a pretty great story to see Auerbach recover from the last couple of years to ultimately build himself up into a major league caliber player. I guess if you want a cautionary tale, you could point to Brooks, who has been just about as good a Triple-A hitter as Auerbach over a three-year period (he initially got to the level to start the 2022 season, with Cleveland’s affiliate), and before that he was a tremendous hitter in Double-A, and we’ve seen that that success hasn’t really translated over to the majors.
But who wants to think on cautionary stories when there’s such an engaging player as Auerbach to root for?
What's the latest word on Landen Roupp?? I know he is playing in ACL.
Russell, you’ve answered your own question. That is indeed, the latest word! And in his latest outing on Saturday, he looked awfully good, throwing the curve and power change past rookie ball hitters with abandon!
I don’t know that I can add much to that. There are two things that have been persistently true about Roupp the last couple of seasons in the minors: when he’s on the mound, he’s been dominant; and, he’s had trouble staying on the mound. The Giants were attempting to build him back up to a starter’s length in Sacramento in May — and, had they succeeded at that, he’d likely have made a start in San Francisco by now. But after reaching the four-inning mark in back-to-back outings, he began to feel elbow discomfort, leading to another month’s shutdown.
That’s kind of been the story the last two seasons for Roupp. He’s had setbacks in both springs, and when he’s returned to action, he’s worked diligently to stretch out only to have a series of niggling health issues take him back off the field. He’s been extraordinary when in action though. He posted a minuscule 1.74 ERA in Richmond, and a 2.79 ERA in very short time with Sacramento. Even more exciting, his signature curve ball produced a whiff rate of nearly 60% with the River Cats, and his newly found power changeup was almost as effective. Those numbers are beyond elite….which makes it all the more frustrating that we can’t seem to see more of him in action.
I’d expect he’ll be in the ACL for a little while to start working his way back into form before a return to Sacramento is in the offing. He’s not a candidate to help the Giants’ pitching woes for the time being.
Planning a trip to spring training next year with my dad. We haven’t gone since I was about 10 (so…decades). Do you have any suggestions? Best way to enjoy the games, places to stay or eat, other activities in the area, etc. Figured your answers might be of interest to other readers. Thanks for considering!
Oh, this is a great question! I love giving travel tips.
My #1 suggestion is to stay somewhere in Old Town Scottsdale. That area is very walkable, and it’s just a much nicer experience to my mind to be able to walk from your hotel or AirBnB or whatever to dinner and then have a nice walk back again — or to walk down to Scottsdale Stadium for the game (which is very easy to do). Old Town places get very expensive in spring and they sell out quickly, so I’d suggest you lock something in on the sooner than later side.
The great thing about spring training is the easy access to players, so you’ll want to go to games early — as early as the gates open (which is maybe an hour and half before game time?). There’s plenty of autograph or hey, hello time to be had with players who are generally in a gracious mood. You’ll see plenty of fans waiting outside the stadium to catch players coming from the clubhouse as well. I also love wandering through the Dugout Store before games (there’s also a Baseballism store in Old Town).
For seating, I’m old so I’m always cognizant of shade — which, to be honest, isn’t plentiful at Scottsdale Stadium. There’s none in the lower bowl, but some to be found up by the press box. The party deck actually looks like a great place to hang out, but when I’ve been there, it’s seemed only available to groups that have reserved it. Sitting in the grass beyond the outfield is nice as well — left field has more shade — but you are a lot farther away from the action. And don’t forget to go over to Papago for some minor league games! They are free and available to the public, beginning at 1:00 pm on most days after about March 15.
Depending on what you folks enjoy outside of baseball, there is a lot to do in the area from hiking (the classic hike is Camelback, but it gets pretty crowded; I actually love hiking the Papago Bluffs just across the street from the Giants’ minor league complex), to shopping (Old Town is chock full of artists’ shops), to golfing (there are several courses in town, as well as the Talking Stick resort just north of Old Town), to just relaxing and enjoying the local bar scene. My wife and I are birders, so we really enjoy going to the Scottsdale Desert Botanical Garden (which is only about half a mile from the Papago Park complex as well). Even better, if you’re up for a bit of a drive, is the criminally unknown Boyce Thompson Arboretum, about 40 minutes west of Scottsdale. Just a bird lover’s paradise!
As for food, you absolutely want to get breakfast at Arcadia Farm — it’s popular, so make reservations or get there early in the morning! Everything is great there, but their home baked goods (like the strawberry scone) are to die for. We’re also big farm-to-table foodies, so if you’re into high end dining with delicious local produce, don’t miss FnB. Almost literally, the first thing we do after getting airline tickets and a place to stay is to lock in a reservation some night at FnB. For a more downscale but still very wonderful experience, check out Los Sombreros for great southwest cuisine and margaritas. Yummy! And, if you’re into Thai food, there is an amazing little Thai place wedged into a little strip mall near the Albertsons at Thomas and North Scottsdale Street. I don’t even remember the name of it (“something” Thai) — I just go there and get ready for amazing food. It’s easy to miss, but hard to forget!
A really basic question, and my apologies if you have already written about this, but can you list who you think are the top 5 prospects who will be contributing at the major league level this season and next? Don’t count Ramos, Wisely, and Harrison. But instead, who else should we as fans be focusing on as contributors to the Giants (hopeful) success going forward.
I can’t speak for all fans, but I need to know who to root for and why we should be hopeful about the future. Churn and burn, platoon or one year and a player option contract FAs deals aren’t doing it for me. Who can be our guys?
Travis, I’ll answer your question, but I do think that we should take a moment to recognize how many of “our guys” the Giants have on the team right now. Bailey, Ramos, Wade, Estrada, Ramos, Yaz, Slater are all player development success stories and long-term key pieces added to the lineup over the last few seasons, while obviously Logan Webb, Harrison, Camilo Doval, Randy Rodriguez, Erik Miller, and others can make the same claim on the pitching side. The amount of short-term, player option types on this roster is quite limited at this point — and there’s never, ever going to be a roster that doesn’t have any of those guys. Heck, the 2010, 2012, and 2014 World Series champions were chock full of them, even though the substantial homegrown core presence occupies most of our memories. So spare a nice thought for Jorge Soler and Wilmer Flores and Michael Conforto — who knows if one of them will have a Cody Ross or Juan Uribe or Edgar Renteria moment at some point in their Giants’ career. Those are all “our guys,” too, aren’t they?
But with that said, I think we can answer this question fairly easily, because, looking at my Top 50 from this winter, I find a whole bunch of players who are currently in Sacramento and close to helping. And honestly, since Triple-A often includes players with exhausted rookie/prospect status, I can find even more candidates by taking the last two seasons together. The players most likely to contribute (if not traded sometime in the next six weeks), would, according to my rankings, be something like this:
There are others who are likely to be part of the mix as well: the previously discussed Roupp, Mason Black, Tristan Beck, or Carson Seymour, all of whom I can see succeeding in Sean Hjelle-esque relief roles eventually (and Roupp could have a future as a starter if he can prove that his body can hold up to the workload). Carson Ragsdale could well work his way into a starter’s role at some point, or power relief as a fallback. Since you didn’t say I couldn’t count Rodriguez or Miller, let’s add them in here as well, since I think both can be part of the late inning relief corps for several years. And, of course, you have guys like Hunter Bishop and Grant McCray in the mix who bring a lot of athletic ability, even if questions about the quality of their hit tools continues to plague them in scouting reports. Still, I would say the five at the top are the five most likely to break through and contribute to the team in the coming year.
Put a different way: with only a couple of exceptions (Whisenhunt, Birdsong, Crawford, maybe Ragsdale), you’ve seen the major players.
One last thing about “our guys.” The experience of watching a vocal sentiment of Giants’ fans quickly turn on players like Yaz or Austin Slater (who is arguably the Giants’ best player development success story among hitters of the 2010s), or Tyler Rogers, or even Harrison, makes it apparent to me that, for a lot of fans, if someone turns out to be just good or useful, rather than a “star,” he’s often treated like an encumbrance. Don’t be that fan! Getting to be a useful and consistent major league player is an incredible achievement! Celebrate these dudes and appreciate all the work they’ve put in to get to where they are. There aren’t many real stars in the game, and there never are — but players who can make a living at playing ball are awesome, too!
I know it’s way too early to tell, but how would you grade the most recent draft class so far?
Pretty well! It certainly looks like they’ve nailed the top pick, which is the single most important thing to do in a draft. Bryce Eldridge is having a very loud full-season debut, and is zooming up prospect charts around the game. Behind him, Walker Martin and Joe Whitman have both gotten solid scouting reports on their underlying skills, even if the game performances have been somewhat uneven. Scouts I’ve spoken with don’t really believe in Martin as a shortstop long term (isn’t that always the way with things?), but they do like the swing and the hit tool, despite the alarming amount of swing and miss he’s had so far in his young career. It’s still pretty hard to try to evaluate what the Giants have in Maui Ahuna, given his problems staying on the field so far, but he’s twitchy as all get out, smooth and athletic, and has a surprising amount of pull side pop for his size.
Outside of that group of four, I think we’re mostly talking about solid minor league inventory, rather than any big pop-up sorts, which means “slow and steady and we’ll see how things go.” But that’s still a pretty good crop of talent. On top of which, I think that they picked up some interesting undrafted signings, particularly right-handed pitchers, Trent Harris and Cody Tucker, who fit in nicely with some of the interesting Day Three arms they drafted, like Josh Bostick, Dylan Carmouche, and Ryan Vanderhei.
It’s an interesting group of talent led by a potential star-level player and a lefty starter who can touch 97. That’s not a bad haul! Now, we’ll see how it all plays out and who rises up.
The stolen base issues at the Major League level are well-documented, but wondering if you can shed any light on why the Giants seem so hesitant to develop base-stealers at the Minor League level. From the outside, they seem to be actively moving *against* stealing bases: Quinn McDaniel came out of the gates swiping bags this year, and after a month quit almost cold turkey, while Grant McCray has attempted 9 stolen bases in 57 games, a year after attempting 62 in 127 games (I know his lowered OBP is a part of that, but that only explains so much!).
Furthermore, it really feels like a waste to have not tried (or at least it appears that way from the outside) to turn Wade Meckler and Heliot Ramos into threats on the basepaths. MLB is full of players slower than those two who are regularly swiping bags! Hell, in 2022-23, Tyler Fitzgerald attempted just 56 stolen bases in 246 Minor League games. Why?!!!?!?!
It feels like there has to be a development explanation beyond "they don't value this thing that every smart, modern organization really values." Wondering if you have any clue what that explanation is.
Thanks for writing, Brady. For those who aren’t aware, Brady manages (and does most of the writing) the great Giants’ site, McCovey Chronicles, the original site of my work on Giants’ prospects. He does double duty, as well, since he’s also the manager and primary content provider for the Golden State Warriors SBNation site, Golden State of Mind. Brady’s work is always of the highest quality and insight, so having him drop by with a question is a real treat for me! I just wish I could answer it.
To be fair, when McDaniel was tearing around the base paths, he was also reaching base at a .463 clip in April. That number fell to .308 in May, which has something to do with those stolen base attempts. Jonah Cox, after all, has continued at the same furious pace (16 attempts in April, 12 in May, and 13 so far in June). But you’re absolutely right that some heretofore reliable sources of base thefts — notably McCray and Hunter Bishop — seem to have a lot more red light this year than in years past.
It really is hard to nail down an explanation. I don’t believe it’s outright antipathy, and I certainly don’t believe the organization is discouraging players from attempting to steal bases (Cox is a pretty obvious rebuttal to that idea). I guess I really do fall back on organizational DNA and simply putting focus and energy in other places.
It seems like every year in the end-of-season presser, this subject comes up, and Farhan Zaidi talks about the need to get faster and more athletic. And every spring we see a club that isn’t terribly fast or athletic. Some of that is the lack of development success and the need to rely on older players acquired as free agents, but a lot of it would seem to highlight organizational priorities. With a couple of exceptions (again, McCray, Bishop, and Vaun Brown) they generally don’t draft fast and athletic players or use the top of their bonus pool on such players.
Farhan values swing decisions — specifically not swinging at pitches outside the strike zone — and that value tends to filter down through player acquisitions, and, I would guess, it filters into work regimens and preparation. They can talk all they want about needing to close the gap in stolen bases, but until we see them get better at either running themselves or holding the opposition on base, those statements tend to ring hollow for me.
I can’t really explain it. Anybody watching these games (including our All-World broadcast team) can see what an apparent competitive disadvantage this situation is creating on a game-by-game basis. They are costing themselves runs and, ultimately, games with an issue that seems imminently fixable (by the coaching staff AND most specifically by the pitchers themselves). But at some point in time, you are what you do, right? They keep talking about it being an issue, but they aren’t doing anything obvious to fix it.
Focus and preparation and work are manifested in the games….and the proof is ultimately right out there for everyone to see. As hard as it is to accept, I think Occam would tell us that benign neglect is probably the simplest way to explain this bizarre and frustrating issue.
These mailbags have been outstanding lately. Thanks for doing them, Roger.
You’re starting to get me excited about the oft-injured pitchers who are back in action. It’s tricky to gauge what to make of Will Bednar, Spencer Miles, and Liam Simon because of their very limited pro track record. Would you provide a breakdown of what you see in them? Given health going forward, how do they stack up against the Giants’ arms that we’ve seen so much more of?
It’s certainly great to see all of these guys healthy and throwing again. What these young players are attempting to accomplish is so amazingly difficult and takes such focus and work and resiliency to come close to their dreams — and there’s no bitterer pill for them to swallow than the notion that they were never given the opportunity to chase their dreams because their bodies betrayed them. Simon and Miles have gone through surgeries in the last year, Bednar hasn’t, which has made his situation a little more vague and harder to pin down and really rehab. But all three are back on the mound now, and hopefully moving forward.
First, let me say that I’ll defer answering the second half of your question. It’s not really fair or accurate to try to compare guys who are throwing one or two innings in rehab mode to other pitchers who are handling much heavier, and more normal, workloads. I know that Miles can touch 98 when he’s out there throwing to four or five batters — but no one can know what he’ll look like throwing three, or four, or five innings. Not just yet.
But let me attack the first question, and give you a quick breakdown of the three pitchers:
Bednar: After more than two years of development time lost to a stress reaction in the back, Bednar appears to be throwing free and easy again. This, in itself, is amazing to me, because I watched him in person trying to throw through obvious discomfort just eight months ago, and at that time, I feared for his professional future. As is the case with all three of these pitchers, the most important thing he can do this year is get to the end of it, still feeling pretty good. The second positive sign is that his fastball velocity has perked up a bit for the first time as a pro. He’s been sitting 93-94 and touched 96 and even 97 one time this year — albeit in two inning increments. The slider, which was his signature pitch coming out of college, has looked sharp, and he’s added a pretty interesting looking splitter as well, giving him a true three-pitch mix. I know people want to ask about potential roles for all three, but I don’t think that’s really a fair discussion until 2025. For now, just keep doing that for two and a half more months, and the year will be a success
Miles: the biggest “wow” stuff of the group. Miles has been throwing 96-98 with his fastball again, just as he was two summers ago, before his own back woes (and eventual surgery) began. He adds to that an incredibly sharp, explosive breaking ball with downward bite, and a new pitch, a cutter that comes in at 90-92 mph, which would have been an elite fastball not that long ago in this game! Miles was not a great strike thrower in college, but in his very short looks as a pro, he’s had certainly adequate command. Miles has some very exciting power stuff, some of the most exciting in the system.
Simon: Hard to remember now, but in April of 2023, Simon was neck and neck with Hayden Birdsong as the biggest breakout arms in the system. In spring camp, Simon had been one of the first players that Kyle Haines pointed out to me as having a great camp. He was pounding the strike zone with a fastball/curve power combination that really missed bats. Sadly, that didn’t last long, as he tore his UCL and underwent Tommy John surgery in May. He’s not yet throwing as hard as Miles, nor has he shown as good a feel for his breaking stuff. It seems like he’s still getting comfortable on the mound — but that’s not especially unusual for initial outings after TJ. He’s hit 96 in his first outing, and is working on getting the snap back on his curve. It’s all about getting reps and getting comfortable in these initial outings.
Wendy Thurm
Hi Roger!
Is there anyone at AAA or AA that the Giants could realistically call up to start instead of Keaton Winn? Or is it a waiting game until Snell and Harrison get back and either Ray or Cobb is ready?
Hi Wendy!
Wow, it’s Awesome Fellow Writers’ Day here apparently. Wendy is a wonderful baseball writer (and Giants’ fan) as well, whose work can be found at hangingsliders.beehiiv.com. I highly recommend folks wandering over there and checking out her work.
It’s a pickle, isn’t it? Winn’s performance was, I believe, what prompted Wendy’s question, but since his most recent disappointing start at Rickwood Field, we’ve learned that he’s returned to San Francisco for a reoccurrence of elbow inflammation — something that has shut him down now three or four different times over the last two years. Winn throws harder than any other starter in the system — and maybe more importantly, throws an offspeed pitch that is harder than any other starter’s in the system, and that really puts stress on the infrastructure! In addition to the frequent health concerns, Winn now sports a 6.81 ERA in his career as a starting pitcher, and, as much as the Giants really like him and his arsenal, it just might be that trying to turn lineups over is not going to be his best use in the long run. It could be that his stuff will ultimately be most impactful in late-innings relief.
But that, of course, isn’t what you asked, is it?
Mason Black hasn’t proven ready for the majors, and he’s been struggling enough lately in Sacramento that I’m starting to wonder about his health as well (he hasn’t been able to hold his fastball velocity in particular much past the 1st inning of recent starts). Landen Roupp has made a rehab appearance in the complex league, as noted above, but he’s probably further away from being able to start than Blake Snell, Alex Cobb, or Robbie Ray, so he’s not really part of this conversation. And, I think we have to acknowledge, it’s been something of a recurring issue for Roupp as well to get him (and keep him) stretched out without some health issue cropping up.
That doesn’t really leave us with much in the way of options. Those that exist are, in order of likelihood: Carson Whisenhunt, Carson Seymour, Tommy Romero, Hayden Birdsong, and Carson Ragsdale (currently assigned to Double-A, but I believe that will change in the next few hours). Let’s me just say right up front that I don’t think any of these are great options, or likely to staunch the immediate wound. Romero is the one I’ve talked about least in the Minor Lines, because he’s essentially a Triple-A fill in sort of arm, but he is having quite a fine season with Sacramento, and could be turned to under duress without having to worry about him taking up a 40-man spot long term (that’s harsh to say, but he’d be imminently waiveable if he came up and got knocked around a la Daulton Jefferies or, frankly, Raymond Burgos).
Because I don’t want to push this mailbag from the typical five or six thousand words to an ungodly ten thousand, I’ll refrain from detailing each of these pitchers’ strengths and weaknesses at the current moment. But let me note a few overarching themes:
Under normal circumstances, I doubt that the team would look at any of these guys and think that they were ready for the majors — and obviously Birdsong and Ragsdale are particularly short on experience and in need of more minor league seasoning;
Related to that point, though all of these pitchers have clear strengths, you have to consider that replacing Winn with one of them is just exchanging one learning curve for the another. I don’t know that I’d say any of them are as ready for competing in the big leagues as Winn was at this time last year, for instance.
None of them are on the 40-man, and that’s a serious consideration with Cobb, Ray, Tristan Beck, Austin Warren, and maybe Tom Murphy all needing to be added back onto the roster in the coming weeks. Putting another new pitcher (who might not be ready for duty) on the 40-man just adds to the stress that already exists there, and tempts repeating last year’s (IMO) mistake with Wade Meckler.
But the situation is certainly dire, and something is going to have to happen soon! In addition to the negative impacts of trying to survive the current stretch (ie: losses piling up), the team is creating a clear downstream issue for themselves by wearing the bullpen down to a nub before they’ve even gotten to the end of June. We’re not even to the long part of the year yet and smoke is starting to pour out of some of these very important relievers’ shoulders. Imagine what August is going to look like! If they somehow survive this current dearth of starters, it might only be to run into a bullpen iceberg later on.
All winter we talked about the huge gamble that the Giants appeared to be taking with their pitching staff — where are the innings going to come from was a question I asked repeatedly. It’s only June 23, but that question just keeps getting louder and louder and louder. If this season goes down in flames, it will likely be due to the team’s inability to find a workable answer to that question.
All of that said, there’s an immediate need that absolutely has to be dealt with in the next 2-3 weeks that could result in any of that group of five being turned to for an answer. It may be time for Whisenhunt or Seymour to try their hand at being a solution. I don’t think any of the options are great, but the team is going to have to start trying things.
Birdsong and Ragsdale probably have a bit more work to do before they’re ready for the challenge, but don’t sleep on their chances of ultimately being the best of this group.
Hi Roger. Just read a post proposing a trade with White Sox for Luis Robert, Jr. & Chris Flexen, with the Giants sending 4 top 20 prospects in Luciano, Wisenhunt, Seymour & Meckler. Do you think the Giants would entertain giving up such a haul?
Oh goodness, more trade scenarios. Didn’t I say last week that I’m lousy at these?
My initial response looking at this is that it’s not nearly enough for Robert and Flexen, and some other club would be able to beat that offer. But I did read an article on The Athletic this week that suggested Robert’s market might be cooler than anticipated due to the combination of his big strikeout rates and his tendency to get hurt and not be on the field. I can see that — and I think both of those factors would absolutely cool any ardor Zaidi might have for such a deal. Honestly, it’s hard for me to imagine him being all that interested in a player with such poor swing decisions, unless Heliot Ramos’ success has caused some sort of “road to Damascus” event in Farhan’s mind (extremely doubtful!).
All that said: yeah, I’d probably do that deal. I think Robert is probably the best player in that proposed deal, and he’s under contract for three and a half more years. He’s having a bad season this year, but he was a 5 Win player last year and has averaged that level of value per 162 games over his entire career (though that “per 162 games” part skates over the fact that he’s only played 100 games once). Generally, a team that gets the best player in a deal wins the deal (famous last words).
It was disappointing to see Reggie Crawford hit the IL after a strong beginning in Sacramento. Setting that aside, I’m intrigued by how the Giants might gradually try to turn him into a starter. Assuming Crawford debuts as a reliever limited to an inning or so — hopefully this season! — could you sketch out how that build up might work in the coming years? Also, Fangraphs put a timeframe on that transition in their Giants’ prospects rankings 2 months ago: “Crawford’s 40-man platform year is 2025, so realistically the Giants have through 2026 or so to build his innings count and help him polish his repertoire and command enough to start.” Do you agree?
The way I read those Fangraphs comments, they were written in anticipation of a “normal” development process, with the underlying assumption that the Giants would work Crawford in a modified starter’s role this year and work towards building up his innings load. Crawford, a 2022 draftee, becomes Rule 5 eligible following the 2025 season, so you can see the standard thinking behind that comment: by the end of next season, Crawford would need to have built up enough and shown enough progress to earned addition to the 40-man, and from there, the options clock would start ticking, so he’d need to be built up to normal starter status in the year or so after that.
But a few months later, we can toss that idea of Crawford’s development aside. The Giants are not currently treating him as a starter in short bouts (the way they are with Bednar, for instance), and instead have been very publicly and vocally attempting to get him to the majors (and on the 40-man) this year as a high-impact reliever.
With that thinking, I would say the notion of gradually building him up to a starter at some point goes out the window. IF he ever becomes a starter, the model will be Garrett Crochet or Jordan Hicks — leave one season as a reliever and open the next as a starter, with an offseason to prepare for the change.
The problem there is that, unlike either Crochet or Hicks, Crawford has literally never gone out and thrown 5 or 6 innings, and nobody knows what that would look like, even if he ever proved physically capable of it (which is a whole separate problem without much evidence to support it). We’ve seen his velo drop pretty significantly this year when going back out for a second inning of work. Who knows what it might do in a third, or fourth, or fifth. His upper-level gas from the left-hand side is one of the primary aspects driving enthusiasm for the pitcher, if he’s more of a 92-94 mph pitcher when stretched out as a starter, is he as exciting?
The answer to all of this stuff is: we’ll see. What we need to see first is just some indication that his Adonis-like body can stand up to a professional workload — even in relief. We’ve never seen him throw on back-to-back days (or even on one day’s rest). We’ve never seen him go past two innings or 35 pitches. He’s never thrown 20 innings in a calendar year to my knowledge. A lot of his work at Triple-A this year has been throwing 10-15 pitches once every three days. He’s been doing so with incredible stuff, but major league relievers have a workload much heavier than that — and they have to manage that workload without a reduction in stuff, command, or execution. I really don’t believe people properly appreciate how hard it is for relievers to manage their bodies (and their minds) through their near-constant work over six months.
Right now, I’d say that getting Crawford to that point — where he can use his incredible stuff in the majors in an impactful relief role — is the primary objective. And if that is successfully managed and he works his way into a sustained big league career, anything else the team gets from him above and beyond that will be gravy. Crawford is an incredibly impressive young man, physically and mentally, so one would be foolish to put any accomplishment beyond his reach. But I’m sure everybody understands that there are major obstacles ahead of him in ever transitioning fully into a major league starter.
Can you help me understand how the minor league player rating system works? For example, Joe Whitman has been given the following ratings: Fastball, 55; Slider, 60; Changeup, 50; Control, 50. But his overall rating is 45. Why is it so low?
Hi Gerald, it looks to me like you are using a portion of Fangraphs’ rating system in this question, so let me start by saying that Eric Longenhagen (and, when he was there, Kiley McDaniel) has done just about as good a job of making their process transparent as any site in the business. They have a ton of explanations of their ranking process over the years, this one for instance, to help clarify their system. You can really get lost in Eric’s writing, which is wonderful both for his delightful imagery and his clarity of thinking.
Beyond that, I need to say that there is no single minor league player rating system. Every public site has a different way of doing it, and, within the industry, there are many variations used by different teams. Taking that further, the various scouts and evaluators employed by those teams will take a slightly different approach to their system, and, of course, see players in their own unique way. This isn’t a science or a math problem, and there’s no one answer waiting to be found. No QED in this field!
But I think to answer your question, there are two critical points to make. The first is that you are only looking at half of Fangraphs grades in your example. Whitman’s complete grades by Fangraphs’ estimation, actually look like this:
Those two different numbers listed for each pitch represent a current and future grade. If we were to translate this numerical system into a sentence, it might say something like this: “right now his command is quite poor (35 grade), but I can see him getting it to average or above (55 grade future value) in time.” There is a development gulf that needs to be traversed for the player to get to those higher future grades, in other words, and the uncertainty of such a path will make overall future grades tend towards conservatism — it’s not at all certain that that gulf will be crossed over with full success. So excellent future projection grades on individual pitches won’t always mean that the player is graded, in total, at the highest of those pitches. That’s especially true if the command grade is lighter than the individual pitches, as nothing can scuttle a pitcher’s success like an inability to throw pitches where he wants.
As I’ve written time and again, failure is always the most likely outcome for prospects, because the task they have taken on for themselves is so difficult, even for the greatest players in the world. Another thing you can find in Fangraphs’ various prospect work is some great work on the historical distribution of outcomes for prospects, and the mathematical likelihood that two 60 FV prospects (to take one example) will both meet that potential. History tells us that there is a significant “bust” potential for every prospect — even the very best prospects — as well as significant potential for lower outcomes. Jurickson Profar, for instance, has had a long and enviable career, but he’s not had the career that prospect followers expected from him when he was the #1 prospect in the game and strongly considered to be a 70 FV player. Injuries mostly got in the way of that outcome, with some flaws in his game contributing. He’s still a major leaguer! But he’s not a 70. That happens all the time, and for pitchers, who perform with the constant Sword of Damocles of arm injuries hovering above their heads, it’s fairly ubiquitous. Good systems always bake the mathematics of distributions (or likelihood of outcomes) into their overall grades.
And then the second major point I want to leave you with is: 45 is not low! If you look at the link I posted at the top of this answer, a 45-grade starting pitcher, in Fangraphs’ system, is a back-end major league starter. It is very much in line with the careers we’ve seen so far from Black or Winn or Beck, for instance. For a 22-year-old in A-ball who is really only just starting his professional journey, looking like a useful big league pitcher is a very enthusiastic scouting grade! The idea that Whitman has a decent chance to develop into someone who can usefully make big league starts is quite a high evaluation, not a low one. And, if that command and changeup can make the treacherous journey from 30 to 50 over the next couple of years, maybe there’s even a little more to get to for him, and grades might be adjusted upwards in time (Eric and Tess are also extremely diligent about explaining why and when they change FV grades on players. They’ve got a pretty awesome process going on over there, for which I have great admiration).
Time to close up the bag for this week. By next week we should know who’s heading to the Futures Game, have more All Star game info, and probably should have an idea of how the Giants are answering Wendy’s question above, though Brady’s might linger far longer.
Many thanks for the kind words, Roger. Your mailbags are my favorite bit of Giants writing!
Thanks Roger for answering my question. Now I know who to keep an eye on from the minors for the next 12 months or so. BTW- I didn't mean to set off any alarms with the term "our guys". I can most definitely appreciate the contribution of productive role players developed from within or through acquisitions. Cheers!