New Year's Free For All Mailbag, Part 1

Let's ring in the new year proper!

I was originally planning to open the very first mailbag of 2024 on Friday, but you folks sent me such a flood of good questions — or I answered them all so voluminously (no real cause to seek out the true culprit), that it seemed like a good idea to break the bag in two this month, lest I come in contact with the dreaded 10,000 word mark. Anyway, this feels like a good time to take a little pause, with the Depth Charts and the most recent IFA class behind us, and the Top 50 looming directly in front of us. So, the rest of this week is a free for all, with half of your questions today and half on Friday.

Enjoy. free subscribers, and welcome one and all to 2024! I know there’s been some grumbling from Giants’ fans regarding the team’s moves on the free agent market, but from a player development perspective, this season is setting up to be one of the most important and exciting seasons in team history. The top two prospects in the system, Kyle Harrison and Marco Luciano (both Top 100 type players, coming in at 43 and 44 on Baseball Prospectus’ just released Top 101), are set up to be starters from opening day on, and, along with former KBO MVP Jung-Hoo Lee, put the Giants in serious contention for some Rookie of the Year candidates this season (and potentially an extra draft pick to come with them, should Harrison or Luciano win the trophy).

With Luciano, Lee, Harrison and Keaton Winn taking the lead (and others like Tyler Fitzgerald, Carson Whisenhunt, Mason Black, and Erik Miller lurking behind), it isn’t hard to imagine the Giants giving more than 1,000 PA and maybe 300-400 innings to rookies in the upcoming season. That’s without even considering non-rooks like Luis Matos or Tristan Beck. Heck, even the big money vets the team has signed are development stories, with Lee transitioning to MLB from Korea and Jordan Hicks chasing a starter’s role.

So rejoice in the new year! There’s a lot of ways for the 2024 season to go — but it shouldn’t be boring! We’re going to learn a lot about the club’s ability to mine big league gold from minor league talent this year.

With that, let’s open the bag, and get to your questions.

Giant Jim

Roger, thank you for all the work you do keeping us informed about the Giants prospects. I do appreciate all the details you go in to. I have a question I hope you can answer. Everyone’s always looking at war, and I understand that means wins above replacement. My question is in theory if you had major league team composed only of replacement players, what would the theoretical won-loss record be for such a team. Thank you for your response and have a wonderful 2024.

Jim, it’s my pleasure! I should say that every time I see your user name, I somehow transfigure it in my mind to “Gentle Jim” which then puts me in mind of Gentleman Jim, a old movie about an even older boxer named Jim Corbett. That, in turn, leads me on to thinking about Jim Gentile, which at least brings me back in the way of baseball. Gentile’s nickname, sadly, was “Diamond Jim” not “Gentle Jim,” which would have been more poetic I think.

Anyway, what were we talking about?…..oh yes, WAR!

There are, of course variations on WAR (or WARP, as Baseball Prospectus’ version is called), and calculations for each of them is slightly different, but the answers all seem to fall in the neighborhood of 50-55 wins, with 52 seeming to be a particularly popular one. There have been a variety of studies done that have shown projected WAR ends up with a strong correlation to real win totals, although, as with all probability projections, large error bars are to be expected. And WAR is not without its critics, including, maybe most famously, Bill James, who has long criticized the way WAR disconnects player performance from team wins. Russell Carleton, who writes for Prospectus, has written a number of articles suggesting that the positional adjustments that are part of the WAR calculation (where shortstops and center fielders are given a mathematical boost while 1b and DH are given demerits that bring their score down) are in need of adjustment.

Just last year, we saw a pretty good example of the way that WAR might bend performance into unfamiliar shapes, when Kyle Schwarber scored 108 runs, knocked in 104, posted a .343 OBP and slugged almost 50 home runs as a leadoff hitter for the 90 win Phillies, while WAR viewed him as a well below average starter and one of the worst players in baseball with 600 PA (1.4 fWAR).

In general, I find WAR a good thumbnail sketch for viewing the full player, but I like to view it in correlation with other value systems (I’m big on the StatCast data kept on Baseball Savant) and keep an open mind to areas where any one number might have biases or blind spots.

Barnaby Feder

Roger, As I sit up here in Vermont wearing my "Let Pablo Pitch" sweatshirt, it occurred to me that it would be fun to know who you think are the best bad ball hitters in our system and who are the candidates for hilarious but surprisingly effective relief pitching in blowouts.

Solidarity, dude! I’m not wearing my “Let Pablo Pitch” hoodie currently, but I sure had it on when I hoofed over to the gym in the snow earlier today!

I have two different guys that spring to mind for this answer, and, like Pablo, they can both cover both halves of your question. Adrian Sugastey and Onil Perez are similar in a LOT of ways. One of those is that they swing at nearly everything …. and make some contact with most of it! Sugastey had a crazy high chase rate north of 40% last year — and if that number isn’t wild enough, check out his out of zone contact rate of 70%!!!! It’s hard to read numbers like that and not flash back to the time I saw him hit a home run in spring training while falling down.

Perez’ chase rates — at least in Low A — weren’t as high as Sugastey’s (just 31%, though that is above average as well), but he, too, had a crazy high contact rate outside of the strike zone, at 77%. Of course, making contact outside the zone isn’t really a skill that the Giants encourage, so I would imagine they’ll try to get both of these contact-mavens to hone in a little of their bad ball hitting talents along the way up.

As for pitching, the only real problem is that both feature plus-plus arms, so they probably won’t bring the comic stylings of Pablo Sandoval on the mound — maybe they’d be more along the lines of Brandon Crawford’s power pitching arsenal!

MCS

Baseball America recently did a Giants top 10 prospects list. Josh Norris said our depth of our farm system is not the deepest, especially after Harrison and Luciano graduate. Specifically, he said player development has gone sideways. Some of our picks have been fine. We have some talent but we don’t develop well. Do you agree with his assessment? How many years has this been an issue? Thx! Love the podcast and KRoG shows.

Let me first say, since Josh is an acquaintance of mine and I don’t want to him to suffer from misunderstandings, that I think some of what you say needs correction. It is absolutely true that Josh said the farm system was not terribly deep compared to the other clubs he works on (which I know includes the Yankees and Rangers). In the upcoming Prospect Handbook BA has the Giants’ system ranked 22nd, which is the fourth consecutive season that they have moved down the farm rankings — definitely not an encouraging trend. AND he did indeed say that once Harrison and Luciano both graduate (which should happen about a month into the season), the system will take another big step backwards, which, I suppose, goes without saying when top talents graduate (though compensatory steps forward from players like Bryce Eldridge, Whisenhunt, and Rayner Arias can help off-set the losses, one hopes).

But the question of whether the Giants can help develop their talent received a more nuanced discussion. It was host Kyle Glazer who put forth the theory that the club has not shown the ability to help their hitting prospects get better. Josh’s response was to push back on that a bit and point to Patrick Bailey, who had a successful rookie season (if not a great offensive one) and Luis Matos, who showed some encouraging signs in the big leagues, especially versus LHP, and absolutely demolished the upper minors, as counter-examples. Both of them agreed that the Giants have shown an ability to develop pitching talent.

Anyway, I don’t want to spend too much time explicating some one else’s content, especially from so venerable a source. I’d recommend that folks listen to the discussion themselves. As with all of BA’s work, it’s smart and well-informed work. There’s a reason the prospect industry was formed in their considerable wake.

I also don’t want to dodge your essential question: do I believe that the Giants’ are doing a poor job of developing the talent on hand?

First off, I’d say that the Giants are doing a very good job in helping their pitching talent improve. They’ve turned low round picks into very legitimate prospects (think Landen Roupp or Hayden Birdsong) and high round picks into shooting stars (think Harrison, Whisenhunt, or Black). They haven’t been an org that boosts velocity upwards — in fact, that seems to be something they steer away from, with a steady diet of sinkers for many of their pitchers. But I think it’s clear that they’ve been ahead of the curve in pitch design, and do a great job of improving off-speed shapes, identifying pitchers who will adapt well to splitters (Keaton Winn being the exemplar there) and working with seam-shifted wake (as for instance, with Logan Webb’s incredible changeup). I know I’ve written before that I think the Giants might value some of their pitchers more than other organizations do, but I haven’t said that they’re wrong to do so. That’s an issue that has more to do with usage patterns and innings limits — essentially how much they’re letting external scouts see their pitchers perform. From a pure development perspective, I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Giants are helping guys improve.

As for hitting instruction, that’s a more complicated area. It’s also one where recency bias has a major impact. None of the rookies the Giants had on their roster in 2023 posted a league average batting line, and that sticks in our heads as “Case Closed” against the team’s ability to develop hitting. The human mind is very easily tempted along the path from frustration to criticism, and I think that’s a temptation we should make efforts to shy away from.

Beyond the recency bias, two major issues complicate evaluation of the Giants’ hitting development. First, they had a run of drafts that were heavily weighted towards pitching. Remember, 10th round pick Vaun Brown was the highest selected hitter in the 2021 draft, and 8th rounder Wade Meckler the only hitter selected in the first 12 rounds in 2022. If you’re not bringing in much high level talent, it’s going to be hard to churn out a row of big league hitters. Exacerbating the relative imbalance of several drafts has been a string of unfortunate injuries that have beset the progress of, among others, Luciano, Matos, Brown, Pomares, Grant McCray, and, most critically, 2019 1st rounder Hunter Bishop. Sadly, after four almost totally lost seasons, we are left to simply wonder what the Giants might have been able to help Bishop become without such dreadful health issues.

This year, however, really does set up to be a crucial data point in evaluating the org’s hitting development. Not only are a critical mass of young talents going to be going into their second year of MLB, but in the lower levels of the system, Eldridge, Walker Martin, and Rayner Arias are giving the team the kind of low level hitting stars that we haven’t seen since Luciano, Matos, and Pomares were tearing up the lower levels. Assuming the 1st round injury bug takes a breather this year, this should be a great opportunity for the Giants to turbo-charge the next wave of hitting talent. Personally, I’d withhold trying to make any grand statements until I see how some of these stories play out.

I will end this by saying that I am going into the season with an intention of focusing on how hitters in the org do against fastballs. As I mentioned on my recent podcast with Robert Orr, the numbers I’ve seen suggest that the Giants’ minor leaguers are much more passive against fastballs than many of their peers. And last year, at least, they didn’t produce great results against them in terms of Exit Velocity data (while their performance versus sliders was arguably the best in the minor leagues). Correlation does not imply causation, of course, but this is a topic that deserves bearing down on a little more, and I intend to have some conversations on hitting philosophies in the coming year.

Jeff

Hello. In your previous mailbag, I was taken aback by the following passage about the struggles of Giants hitting prospects:

“… I’ve had people inside the org point at some hitters whose success really stalled and simply shake their head in wonder at what went wrong.”

This is…troubling. I understand that player development is non-linear, often entailing pitfalls over a many years. However, the Giants inability to develop hitters is hardly a new phenomenon. The above quote suggests that the Giants player development staff is confident in its process and approach, but is genuinely confused by the lack of results.

How common is this? Is there a reason for these shortcomings that the Giants are either unable or unwilling to recognize?

On a related question, I am curious as to how Kyle Haines still has a job. Again, I understand that building a good farm system can take many years. In fact, I think Farhan and crew have done a pretty good job improving the farm system the last five years. However, I suppose that’s more of an indictment of the state of the farm system when Farhan first took over the team.

That being said, Kyle Haines had been with the Giants for years before Farhan took over. In fact, I don’t think he’s ever worked for another Major league team. During that entire timespan (before Farhan and after), the Giants track record of developing prospects into Major League players hasn’t been good. The farm system had done such a poor job that it contributed to the firing of Farhan’s predecessor, Bobby Evans.

How has Haines managed to keep his job? How is he regarded in the industry? Is his job in danger if the Giants young prospects don’t take a step forward in 2024? Was the hiring of Pete Putila last year an early signal of some more changes ahead for the Giants player develop staff?

I’m not entirely sure that everybody’s on board with my whole, “rejoice in the new year” mantra here!

Jeff, I really didn’t intend that to sound dramatic as maybe you read it. I would say that I’ve heard some version of that statement from scouts about players all over baseball — even ones that play for the clubs with the best development reputations in the industry. Players careers often don’t go how evaluators imagine they will. It’s just the reality of the business and I wouldn’t make too much of it. Failure is ubiquitous in the game of baseball and seeking to rise up to becoming one of the best 0.0000001% of players in the world is always more likely to end in failure than in success. There are many things that neither organizations nor players can control (as, for instance, the aforementioned health woes).

I’m currently reading a delightful book by Margaret Renkl, and just last night I found myself underlying the phrase: “Nothing in nature exists as a metaphor, but humans are reckless metaphor makers anyway.” The wisdom seems as applicable to prospect development as to bird watching. We seek to extrapolate meaning from the unique and apply it to the generic, finding patterns everywhere we look, whether they exist or no. Drawing broad conclusions from narrow data points is a perilous journey that only the very brave or very foolish should embark upon.

I do want to address your comments regarding Kyle Haines. To start with, I think you’re somewhat confused about his timeline. While it’s true that he was employed by the Giants prior to Farhan Zaidi coming into the organization, he was NOT employed as the Farm Director prior to that — it’s Zaidi who hired him to this position. Prior to being named Farm Director he had spent one year as Assistant Farm Director (which is predominantly an administrative position focused on logistics), and two seasons as a minor league manager (including being named the top managerial prospect in the Eastern League during his year helming Richmond in 2017).

I think it’s also important to say that it took several years for Haines to have anything like a “normal” year in his new position. He’s had much more on his plate than simply improving a faltering farm. He was originally named Farm Director in very late January, 2019 — later into the winter than we are now, in fact — when David Bell rather suddenly left the Giants to take the Cincinnati Reds’ Managerial position. That thrust Haines into something of a catch up role for that first year, mostly working within the framework of Bell’s preparations and designs I would imagine.

If Haines had hoped that his second year would prove more normal, then he was sadly disappointed. When COVID shut down the baseball industry, he was forced to go massively ad hoc, designing developmental processes without any minor league ball. It was his job to create and run the “alternate site” in Sacramento for the summer, while also keeping tabs as best as possible with all of the other players in the organization, many of whom had very little connectivity. Late in that year, he had to diversify even more, simultaneously running both the alternate site and an instructional camp in Scottsdale that had been greenlit by MLB just weeks beforehand. On top of all of that, he was overseeing the design and construction process for the Papago Park facility that came online the next year. Even in 2021, as you may remember, there was confusion for most of the spring as nobody really knew when or if most of the minor league levels would begin (ultimately, Triple-A started with the major league season and the other “full season” levels kicked into gear about a month later).

Despite being thrown into three years of sheer chaos at the start of his term, Haines has overseen a system that is starting to provide a good amount of internal solutions to the top club. Logan Webb, Camilo Doval, Tyler Rogers, Mike Yastrzemski, David Villar, Ryan Walker, Luis Matos, Kyle Harrison, Keaton Winn, Tristan Beck, Casey Schmitt, Marco Luciano, and Patrick Bailey were all, at some point, non-40-man prospects under his care and development who have gone on to provide value for the big league club (outstanding value in a number of those cases). So I would say that your implication that it’s somehow surprising the Giants continue to value Haines and his staff is pretty far off base.

My impression is that Haines is very highly regarded, both internally and externally. Near the end of his time as a player, he spent a year in the Cleveland organization right about the time that Chris Antonetti was working his way up to GM and reshaping the player development side of the organization into one of the most progressive in baseball at that time. Haines has told me that that year was an influential one for him, opening his mind to new ways of thinking about baseball and player development. He’s restlessly inventive, creative, obsessive about details, and passionately cares about the fate of every player under his care. I know there have been other organizations interested in hiring him before he rose up to his current position with the Giants. I suspect it wouldn’t take him long to find a new home if his time with the Giants ever came to an end. Of course, every job in baseball is ultimately measured in terms of wins and losses at the major league level, and that’s true from Zaidi on down. And I think that everybody both inside and outside of the organization has experienced some frustration at how long it’s taking to turn things around, but talent is percolating up to the top of the system and beginning to impact the team. This year I would say that homegrown talent will be the most important element in determining the team’s fate, and it’s been many years since any Giants’ fan could say that.

Travis Bickle

I'm a Giants fan who has been waiting 40 years for another outfielder as good as Chili Davis to come through our system. Is there any outfield prospect in the system currently that should give me hope?

It feels like this is the appropriate question to append to the previous ones, as the answer is surely, “yes, but….” At the top of the ladder, Matos (who could start on the Opening Day roster) should certainly give you hope, and, at the bottom, Arias (who should start in the complex league) should absolutely give you hope. In between, there are some other capably interesting OF prospects scattered around, including McCray, Brown, and Victor Bericoto. At least for the time being, it looks like last year’s top draft pick is going to be manning the outfield as well. So YES, there is hope to had, possibly including the very immediate future.

The “BUT” part of the answer, however, directs us right back to something I said above: failure is a ubiquitous part of player development. It’s incredibly hard to become a really good major leaguer, and most won’t get there. As any long time prospect watcher knows, you have to work your way through an awful lot of examples of “man, I thought that guy would really turn into something” before being rewarded with a Chili Davis (which really IS a high bar).

That said, I don’t want to imply that it’s normal to go 40 years without developing a good homegrown outfielder. The Curse of George Genovese has had an uncommon amount of persistence in these parts, and we’re certainly overdue to have one of these guys hit at some point. But while it’s true that the Giants’ search for a homegrown outfielder has reached almost historical, if not exactly comical levels of futility, I’ll end by dropping another pearl of wisdom from Ms. Renkl: “What more could anyone ask from a new year than the promise — or just the hope — of renewal?”

And with that, I’ll close the bag up until Friday, when we return with a wider variety of questions, and hopefully somewhat briefer answers….