Meckler and Luciano Help Bring the Fun Back to Funnville
SF Giants Minor Lines, June 23-25, 2023
What an incredible season this feels like! I don’t ever remember writing about so many players on the minor league side who ended up having real impact on the major league side so soon in the year. As we hit the season’s halfway point, there’s an argument to be made that Patrick Bailey is the Giants’ best, or most important player— or both! His 1.6 fWAR is 4th highest on the team despite having played less than half as many games as any of the players above him on that list — and despite the fact that WAR doesn’t do a great job of capturing all the value a catcher provides. His presence almost instantly seemed to settle the entire pitching staff down, just as Casey Schmitt’s and Luis Matos’ presence rejuvenated the lineup and brought some energy to the entire team. And that’s before we even get to the important innings the team is getting from Tristan Beck, Ryan Walker, and now Keaton Winn. It’s not star performances, but this is still feeling like the Year of the Farm System around Oracle.
The tagline around these parts has always been: “There R Giants stirring, suggesting a leisurely and slow process. But not in 2023: “There R Giants Rising” should be the motto for this season! And hopefully later in the year: “There R Giants Conquering!”
I mean, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but when you get the team PR staff putting out little nuggets like this, isn’t hard not to get pretty excited:
That 1987 homer? It was the first in the major leagues by a 21-year-old Matt Williams, who, if I recall correctly, turned out to be pretty good (though there were a couple of years of back and forth from Phoenix to San Francisco that were still needed). Williams was 21 years and 142 days old when he connected with the first of 378 career home runs on April 19, 1987. That bests Matos, who was 21 years, 147 days old when he hit the game winning shot on Saturday.
The list of SF Giants who have hit their first homer younger than Matos is, by the way, a fairly short list — and a fascinating tour of Giants’ history! In addition to Williams, you have: Ken Henderson (20 yrs, 98 days), Orlando Cepeda (20 yrs, 210 days), Cap Peterson (20 yrs, 289 days), Jack Clark (20 yrs, 305 days), Johnnie LeMaster (21 yrs, 75 days), and Tom O’Malley (21 yr, 135 days). Quite a variety of career outcomes in that list! Other SF Giants who homered before turning 22 include Willie McCovey, Chris Speier, Gary Thomasson, Hal Lanier, Steve Ontiveros, Don Mason, and George Foster (Gary Matthews and Pablo Sandoval, who both appear on the Stathead search that I linked above, came up in their “age 21 season,” but not until after their 22nd birthday, in the second half of the year). Man, that is one incredible “remember some guys” list right there. That is a lot of the Giants Fandom of my youth in one paragraph!
But let’s turn from Giants of yore to Giants of …. uh…. before? I don’t think we’re done yet with introducing those kids you gotta like for the 2023 season! So let’s find some more likable candidates.
HITTER of the WEEKEND: Wade Meckler (Ric), 7 for 12, 2 2b (9), 4 RBI, 5 R, SB, 2 BB
PITCHER of the WEEKEND: Mason Black (Ric), 4.1 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 2 BB, 5 K
Yep. Definitely gotta like him!
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