It’s been awhile since we sat down and chatted, Free For All Mailbag style. What with the season being over and all, it didn’t seem like we needed to do these weekly anymore. But a monthly check-in doesn’t seem out of place. So let’s see what’s on the minds of There R Giants readers as we work our way into the offseason. Not surprisingly, we have questions about leadership change, winter ball, and the Rule 5 draft. Seems about right, let’s dive into the bag…
Before I get to today’s questions, there’s a disturbing trend going on in the Dominican Republic that I want to make you all aware of. There have been repeated armed robberies at many, if not most, of the MLB Dominican Academies, including reports of teenaged players held at gunpoint within their facilities in the past weeks.
This is something that we saw near the end of the old Venezuelan Summer League (which used to exist side by side with the Dominican Summer League).
It is, of course, natural that islands of relative affluence within a sea of greater poverty makes for a target for violence, but what we’re seeing now seems to be a quickly growing trend — and obviously a disturbing one for the people involved. It’s yet another reminder that sports exists within the context of greater social realities, and also that players have a lot more going on in their lives — and taking up their intellectual and emotional energy — than just the game.
Be kind to each other seems something of a pallid phrase in the current moment, but it does have strength in practice.
Ok, on to the questions.
How much does organizational change at the MLB level affect our prospects? While I wouldn't imagine Kapler's firing to really affect any of the prospects, especially for those who haven't made it up to the show yet, how could parting ways with Farhan impact prospects? I'd imagine a hypothetical new FO would bring in their own coaches, development philosophies, and have all different points of emphasis. Is this turnover something prospects think about?
This is a great question, Jonathan! That’s why I made it my “leadoff hitter” for today’s bag.
I don’t think we should brush over the impact of changing the big league manager quite so easily — though, as you say, that probably has the most impact on the players at the top of the system. Still, Kapler and Zaidi have long promoted the idea that development continued into the “finishing school” of the majors. That philosophy was a major rationale for the large coaching staff — the idea that more voices could provide more support resources for the players and help get them to the best version of themselves on the field. In addition, it’s important for the prospects who get to take part in spring training camp or come up for the games that they interact with the big league staff and make some impressions. Sometimes new eyes see things afresh — Tyler Rogers, for instance, was clearly unvalued by GM Bobby Evans and Bruce Bochy’s staff despite years of minor league success, but Kapler and Zaidi immediately seized upon him as a unique weapon for a bullpen.
Still, as you say, the change in big league manager pales in comparison to the impact that parting ways with Zaidi would bring. Yes, when change happens at the top it ultimately filters into every nook and cranny of an organization, as new philosophies, new priorities, new value systems, and new personnel ultimately result from a new head voice.
And let me emphasize this point clearly: this is exactly why Giants fans should not wish for organizational change in my opinion! Because all of those readjustments can take years and years to have an effect. You could argue that we haven’t yet seen the true fruits of Zaidi’s priorities flowering from the player development system — and might not for some time, as the changeover in personnel is still ongoing. Bringing in a new leader ensures that time will be lost as the potential new PoBO undergoes a thorough evaluation of every player, coach, and staff member and then begins to reassess where to make changes. That is all a very slow process — and potentially valuable players can easily get lost in that shuffle, losing their prime development window because the resources they needed were in flux. There’s also always a danger for disastrous misevaluations to take place in the early days of a new regime — remember A.J. Preller trading away Trea Turner, Max Fried, Yasmani Grandal, and Zach Eflin (in return for Wil Myers, Ryan Hanigan, Justin Upton, and Matt Kemp) in a two-day period in his very first winter meetings as Padres’ GM? Can you say “oops?”
So, yes, organizational change is exactly that — it impacts every level and every member of an organization. Sometimes for good, sometimes ill. It is seismic in its ability to overthrow all.
However, having said that, I believe the answer to your final question is “No.” Despite the impact that potential change would have on their lives, players are laser focused on themselves and the work they need to do to pursue their goals. “Control what you can control” is always a mantra among players — and maybe unlike some of goals that I set for myself, they’re actually pretty good about achieving it!
Hi Roger, over the last couple months I’ve seen questions about players going to the Winter Leagues. I know it’s the player’s decision and some of that might be based on playing at home for some of the Latin players, but with the Giants new awesome training facility in Arizona, it seems like it would better for development to go to Arizona instead, especially for the higher end prospects. Maybe Luciano starts the season healthy if he goes to Arizona last year instead of playing winter ball. Your thoughts.
Actually, participation in various winter leagues is a decision that the club must sign off on as part of their contractual relationship with players. It’s a mutual decision, with many players petitioning the team to allow them to play (as you say, the Latin players who have leagues in their home countries are often eager to perform there), while in other cases the team might be encouraging a reluctant player to take part.
Andy Baggarly, at The Athletic, recently noted a few different situations affecting Marco Luciano, Luis Matos, and Casey Schmitt that illustrate the matter well. Luciano, whose rookie year in the LIDOM (the Dominican Winter League) was cut short by injury, wants to participate again this year (although his rights have been traded to Escodido in the past year). The Giants haven’t yet given approval — no doubt, fearing another injury that might delay his readiness for spring, throwing a major monkey wrench into their roster plans. However, Baggarly reports that it is expected he will ultimately be allowed to take part in the league that is so crucial to the baseball culture of his home country.
Matos and Schmitt, according to Baggarly, have diametrically opposed situations. The Giants wanted Schmitt to take part in a winter league, while they hoped to have Matos in Scottsdale for the winter, where they could supervise his weight training program. Instead, it looks like Schmitt will spend the winter at Papago while Matos plays for the Tiburones in the Venezuelan Winter League. The Giants wanted Schmitt to get high-level game experience, which can only be found in the best winter league competition, but he hasn’t hooked on with a team yet, which makes it sound like he’ll be staying stateside for the winter and working with the Giants’ instructors on his swing. Matos, on the other hand, was eager to get home to see his family, which was unable to obtain a visa to the US and never got to see their son play in the big leagues in person this year. While the Giants would very much like to have Matos close by so they can work with him to help him reach their desired goal of gaining strength and quickness, they are certainly understanding of his desire to spend the off-season with his family.
Those are the winter league decisions that make the news, but there are many, many more, as players at every level petition the club to allow them to play in the winter time. The Giants have been a little shy about approving requests lately — and for good reason. They’ve seen a number of prospects have their careers altered by winter league injuries in recent years, including Luciano, Melvin Adón, and Ismael Munguia. No doubt, however, we’ll see a few players taking part in leagues around the world, as we do every year.
For many players, however, the benefit of the winter is that they can work on their games free from the daily demands of competition. And more and more of those players are indeed taking advantage of the state-of-the-art facilities at Papago Park. When I talked with Tyler Fitzgerald last winter, he estimated that there were somewhere between 50-100 players working at the Giants’ PD HQ in any given day or week — which is an astonishingly high number! Still others work in private gyms or labs. Sam Delaplane jokingly referred to the name of his off-season gym as “My Garage.”
Everybody has their own focus and concerns in the winter time — including catching up with friends and loved ones whom they’ve missed during the long season. There are always weddings in the winter and major life changes. And everybody must decide for themselves how best to fit their work and their precious free time with family into one gratifying mixture.
Hi Roger!! I really enjoy listening to your podcasts. Your most recent one with Dennis Pelfrey really got me thinking about the manager search for the Giants. Do you think there is any chance he gets an interview? I know he’s not what many people would probably want, but his philosophy and ability to talk to players is amazing!! I think he’s more Bochy than Kapler, and would make a great big league manager.
Why thank you, Matt! Yes, Pelf is really a thoughtful person and a great motivator. Though he’s humble in accepting praise, I can tell you that his players universally love playing for him. And I don’t think it’s hard to understand why. He’s smart and funny and engaging and demanding — almost a perfect mixture for a person in his position.
As for interviewing for the top job? It doesn’t sound like that’s in the cards this time around, but I think a leap like that is maybe not so unbelievable as it might have been ten years ago. After all, we’ve seen Kai Correa was coming off two years as a defensive coach for Cleveland’s ACL team when he was hired as the Giants’ bench coach, and Mark Hallberg was the manager of the Salem-Keizer team in 2019 before being elevated to the Giants’ staff. Now both of those young men are getting a chance to interview for the top spot.
Speaking of Hallberg, I don’t think Pelfrey would mind my sharing that one of his real joys on the baseball field is coaching 3b — and it’s a personal dream of his is to become a 3b coach in the majors. Who knows? Maybe if Hallberg ends up getting promoted to the top seat, then maybe that’s a role that Pelfrey could hope to interview for?
Greetings, Roger. One good thing about the 2023 season was the MLB debut of a plethora of MiLB Giants players. They had varying degrees of success, but all showed something we can look forward to in 2024. Who are the next group of MiLB to ascend? We heard little if anything this past year about [Grant] McCray and Vaun Brown, both of whom had quickly ascended and were top ten prospects on your list. My Guy Aeverson Arteaga is likely not yet ready, but there's an opening at SS. I like Tyler Fitzgerald as a utility IF/OF guy. Can he stick? What about Mason Black, Landon Roupp, Carson Whisenhunt and Reggie Crawford?
Let me take a quick detour before answering this question proper-like. I think of myself, in general, as an advocate for these players and the organization. What they’re trying to accomplish is breath-taking in its ambition and complexity, and I find it endlessly fascinating to watch young people seek excellence in themselves. But I think I’m an advocate with a realistic understanding of the challenges involves in this path. It’s “the hard” that makes it great after all — and it’s why these players cherish the accomplishment of getting that first call, like Fitzgerald did in the final weeks of the season.
But I do think we have to be clear-eyed about the performance level that we saw from the rookie class of 2023. It’s generally a little under-appreciated how intricately connected 1) “the arrival of the young players” and 2) “the tanking of the offense” storylines this season were. While there were flashes of promise across the board, really all of the rookie hitters fell short of a level of production that will keep them successful in the majors (Patrick Bailey being the exception, since he can probably hit like Martin Maldonado and still be a productive player given how strong his defense is). None of the Giants’ young batters were league average hitters and most were far below that. And this was in a year in which rookies in general were historically good:
So the Giants’ young players did fall short of their cohort around MLB. Just in the NL West division, the Diamondbacks, the Dodgers, and arguably even the woebegone Rockies got more production from their rookie classes than the Giants. Just as development isn’t linear in the minors, the same is true in the majors. While some of these young players may step forward and improve, others will fall short of sticking as big league veterans.
Much work needs to be done still (it is ever thus). So, you ask, can Fitzgerald stick? That’s the question that can only be answered by time, right? I can tell you that if he does so, he’ll leave a lot of scouts and evaluators shaking their heads in admiration at his accomplishment (the same way Brandon Crawford once did). In one sense, he’s already beaten the odds just by making it this far, and now he’s playing with house money. But, in a much harsher sense, I heard David Villar express an almost identical sentiment last February, and now he’s slipped back down the hill and must make his Sisyphean journey back up. The hard is what makes it great — but don’t gloss over how hard that hard really is.
As for the next wave, I will presume you mean that you heard little of McCray in other outlets — he has certainly been a staple of There R Giants this year, including in Monday’s wrap up of the Eugene season.
Both McCray and Arteaga had up and down years in 2023, but certainly Matos’ example would preclude us counting them out for a big league appearance in 2024. I’d expect both to be added to the 40-man this winter, which always makes an ascension more likely if they can show improvements in Double-A. Brown, of course, simply struggled to ever be physically 100% this year. His season began with a knee issue and ended with a broken bone in his lower leg. It was a tremendous shame, because he’s absolutely one of the most electric athletes in the organization. When he was on the field, he showed a disturbing issue making contact with Double-A pitching — but whether that was a result of not feeling at his best or a larger development red flag is still to be determined. There’s no doubt about his ability to impact a baseball when he does make contact, or to impact a game with his many other elite tools. Hopefully we see a fully healthy and revitalized version in 2024.
If Whisenhunt is healthy, I would be shocked not to see him make the majors next year (indeed, I might be surprised if he doesn’t). While I wouldn’t make the same claim about Crawford (given his extremely conservative playing time in 2023), I wouldn’t put any limits on the ability of his prodigious talent. Behind Whisenhunt, Black is closest to big-league ready I believe, with Carson Seymour a little behind him. Landen Roupp’s year was really wiped out by a series of small, nagging physical issues (none related to his arm), but he was certainly awesome when he was out there. He could certainly impact a major league team.
Of course, a simple ability to count raises the issue here — it’s not likely that all of these guys are going to fit on the same roster. Which is exactly why so many have suggested that the Giants could pursue a trade this winter, dealing from their depth of quality pitching prospects to try to obtain young, controllable, big league hitters. This raises two very important questions: 1) will they be successful in this aim, and 2) who will still be with the Giants when the new season begins?
One thing I would say in general is that I’d expect contributions from new players to be focused on the pitching side next year, as there are far more pitchers who look ready to contribute than hitters. I wouldn’t expect to see anything close to the same number of big league debuts from hitters next year that we saw this year. Indeed, it’s not impossible to imagine no hitters debuting in 2024. That’s not likely. Somebody will be in the right place at the right time — Will Wilson or Ricardo Genovés or Shane Matheny might get that life-altering call in the right circumstances. But outside of Brown or McCray or maybe Victor Bericoto taking big steps forward, I’m not sure we’ll see any of the highly anticipated debuts that marked this year.
Hi Roger. I have a whole list of Rule 5 questions, but I think it’s probably too early for that? Mostly I’m looking for updates on the milb players we lost last year, and a preview of who is at risk in the minors this time so I am prepared in case there is another ambush!
Never too early. Indeed, I’m going to be starting my Rule 5 Decision series next week, as soon as the Wrap Ups conclude.
But yes, now that you bring it up, perhaps this is a good time to check back in on the various minor league players that were plucked out of the org last winter — a surprisingly large contingent of players that included several who had barely made it out of rookie ball.
As you can see, there were varying levels of success. Flores we can presume filled an organizational weakness for the Angels, acting as primary catcher for their Cal League squad. Armani Smith struggled the most of all of the players selected. The Twins released him in mid-July and I can’t see that he hitched on anywhere after that. It was a source of great frustration to Tostado’s friends around Richmond that the Nats left him in Double-A for so much of the season, but his performance in Harrisburg was more solid than “bang the door down.”
Huang was placed on the “Injured-Full Season” list at the end of spring training. Rashi, on the other hand, was able to come back from a significant shoulder injury to pitch quite well down the stretch in Double-A Texas League. Don’t be fooled by the ERA, most of that came in his first couple of rehab games on the complex. His ERA in Amarillo was 0.73 in 12 innings. Suarez, by contrast, kept his ERA quite reasonable in the High-A NWL, but was knocked around in a couple of late-season appearances in Double-A Rocket City.
As for a preview of the coming winter, sadly there’s no way to answer that question effectively. On November 14, all teams will have to finalize their reserve lists for both the major league (40-man) and Triple-A (38-man) levels. The major league roster protects players from the major league portion of the Rule 5 draft, while the Triple-A reserve list protects them from the minor league phase. But while all additions to and subtractions from the 40-man roster are announced publicly, that Triple-A reserve list is never made public and no sources outside the industry ever see it. The list has nothing whatsoever to do with where players ended the year or are expected to begin the next. It is quite simply a administrative list that protects players and little else.
Of course, we can surmise that, given the ability to protect 78 players, teams rarely lose players whose continued development they prioritize. It would take an extraordinarily fecund organization to have so much Rule 5-eligible talent on hand that 78 reserve spots wouldn’t protect them all. And remember, next year the domestic reserve maximum is going to be cut down from 180 to 165. The Giants were very rarely ever more than a small handful of players away from that maximum over the last couple of years, so lopping an extra 15 off the maximum will certainly cause them (and other teams) to be forced into letting more players go. It is truly a zero-sum game. An opportunity for one player is a door closing for another.
Hi Roger. Thanks for the posts and podcasts- really enjoying the Kerry/Roger show. I know you've said before getting news on injuries is difficult but could you offer any updates on those who went down? Giants seemed to lose a lot of arms.
Oh goodness, let me try to wrap my brain around who all would need to be included in that category! I would caveat that *all* teams lose a lot of arms — because the human body wasn’t meant to contort itself into this motion pattern, nor to put the amount of strain on various muscles, joints, and ligaments as is created when generating 100 mph fastballs and 90 mph breaking balls. It doesn’t help to think about the fact that it happens to everybody, but it does happen to everybody.
So, who went down…..
Carson Whisenhunt’s elbow soreness seems to have responded to rest. As Alex Pavlovic has reported, there were those in the organization who were concerned originally that he might be headed for TJ, but he seems to have escaped that fate for now and should be ready for a normal spring training.
Liam Simon, on the other hand, went under the knife in the summer and will miss most of 2024. That is also true of Cole Waites. His Tommy John surgery was performed considerably later than Simon’s, coming in the season’s final days, and he won’t be on a mound again until spring of 2025. R.J. Dabovich was another who underwent surgery this year. In his case, it was to repair a hip issue that had been bothering him for much of the past two years.
I really don’t know what happened with Carson Ragsdale, but he clearly suffered yet another setback on his long road back from thoracic outlet surgery. That’s sadly not a procedure that has a tremendous track record of success. Hopefully we see him again next spring, but I have nothing solid on him. The same is the case for Spencer Miles. I never heard what his issue was, but when I saw him in spring, he didn’t seem to show any telltale signs of arm surgery.
Gerelmi Maldonado was shut down near the end of the year with what was described to me as a very precautionary move. It doesn’t sound like anything major was going on there — likely they were managing his innings load more than anything. The injury that took Landen Roupp off the field for the final three months of the year was a pulled muscle in his quad or hip area — his year was just a long rash of minor little nagging things.
Reggie Crawford, Jack Choate, and Hayden Wynja all ended the year out of action, but all three have been resurrected in the Arizona Fall League. Crawford’s injury was an oblique strain — not sure about the other two, but obviously they weren’t terribly serious. Perhaps you’d enjoy a view of Crawford belting his 2nd AFL homer last night to show that the oblique is feeling fine:
…and, just for the fun of it, his Scorpion teammates giving him the silent treatment in the dugout afterwards. It’s all good fun! Look at that million dollar smile! Let’s hope this kid makes it, because there’s some legitimate star wattage levels of charisma there.
We’ve also seen some of Will Bednar in the AFL, he missed nearly the entire year with continued back tenderness, but, as noted below, he’s starting to look a little more like his old self in the AFL, which is good news.
Did I miss anybody? Probably I missed somebody. There’s always always always pitching injuries to navigate. Frustrating, but it’s part of the game that will never go away.
Many thanks for these wonderfully interesting mailbags. Not sure if the following has been asked or is more of a duh kind of question but.....with the laser focus on "controlling the zone" are the Giants missing out on good and possibly great players when drafting, trading for, etc? I can't help but think neither Pablo Sandoval nor Hunter Pence (for examples) would ever be a Giant give focus. There is so much variability among players, just make me wonder....thanks!
I do tend to think that widening their net to acquire a more diverse variety of players would probably improve the team’s fortunes. Though we shouldn’t overstate things to the point where we imagine they never acquire any player who doesn’t blow up the swing metrics spreadsheets. The best position player on the team this year was pretty clearly Thairo Estrada, and he is absolutely a different type of player — to his detriment actually, as chasing a little less might help him get to another level. Still, he stands as a good lesson for Farhan Zaidi that there are lots of different ways for players to help a team win.
When it comes to amateur players, I think things get a little murkier. Even with college players who appear to have solid swing decisions, as they climb the ladder and face better stuff, those abilities are tested. Patrick Bailey, for instance, showed tremendous patience in college and lower minors, but his chase rates were basically average at the major league level in his first season. And, of course, Casey Schmitt struggled badly with his ability to stay in the strike zone this year. So, you never know what you’re going to get in the long-run on the amateur side (needless to say, that’s even more true on the international side, where players are being scouted barely into their teens).
I am a fan of focusing on athleticism, as anybody who reads my posts knows well, and while the organization overall isn’t exactly brimming with speed, it’s not like the Giants don’t like to draft athletes. Schmitt, Wade Meckler, Grant McCray, Scott Bandura, Vaun Brown, Quinn McDaniel — they certainly like to acquire that type of player as well. In the best case, you get both types of player in one package — a real athlete who also makes great decisions at the plate and possesses contact skills. But it’s not like that type of player is hanging around on every playground in the country. Once this summer I was chatting with John Barr, and I jokingly referred to my personal fetish for drafting true shortstops who can hit, and Barr horse-laughed me and said “yeah, because those guys are soooo easy to find!”
Try and bring in as much talent as you can and hope that it gels somehow. It’s still a mysterious art, no matter how much technology lifts the veil.
Hi Roger. The KROG pods are fantastic—a great blend of MLB and farm system chatter. It’s been a strong start to the offseason for There R Giants! I’m curious about the prospects that are coming off an injury-riddled year (or years). If they were given the elixir of good health, how optimistic or pessimistic would you be about players like Pomares, Bishop, Bednar and Corry going forward? Then, on a semi-related front, Landen Roupp has been conspicuously absent from the media chatter about the org’s deep reservoir of near-MLB ready pitching prospects—when I hear Hayden Birdsong and Carson Seymour mentioned. Is that only because of Roupp’s injury-shortened second season? I’m surprised because the guy had the best Double-A numbers of any Giants starter this season in his 10 starts (topping Mason Black among many others).
The most important ability is availability and Roupp wasn’t available as much as he’d hoped last year — though, as you say, he was tremendous when on the field. Yes, that’s the reason. Sometimes you’ll see people throw his name into the group of “next wave” pitchers pushing towards the majors, and he definitely belongs in that category. But you’ve got to be on the field — either to develop or to entice other clubs to want to obtain you. As I said above, nothing Roupp suffered in 2023 was particularly serious, he just couldn’t seem to get into a healthy groove. Hopefully, next year is better on that score. He’s definitely one of my favorites in the system — and that curve is possibly the most aesthetically pleasing delivery on the farm.
As for the other quartet, well, let me see…….[heaves a giant sigh]…..hopefully we’ll see Hunter Bishop again in 2024, but it’s hard to have much optimism for a player who was so badly in need of development reps and simply hasn’t gotten them over five years now. He’ll turn 26 next year, his physical peak is slipping away, and he’s still a pretty raw prospect. In Seth Corry’s case, if that elixir came with the missing couple of ticks from his fastball this year, then he could get back on track with a healthy season — though that track still requires him to overcome his control issues, which have always been significant. Still, a left-hander who misses bats with both the fastball and breaking ball will always be a rare commodity in this industry, so, yes, I’m saying there’s a chance.
I don’t really know what to say about Will Bednar at this point, as he’s pitched so little as a pro, and has never really shown the stuff that he had in college. However, after missing nearly all year with back issues, he’s starting to see the old velo return to his fastball in the Arizona Fall League. He picked up a Save last night with a fastball that sat 94-95 and touched 96. Beyond the velo, the pitch showed excellent shape as well, with well above average Induced Vertical Break — the metric which accounts for “rise” or “carry” on a fastball. Of course, that was in a one-inning appearance — we haven’t seen this level of stuff carried over multiple innings yet, but it’s still a hopeful sign. The command has been pretty wonky in the AFL — but that seems like an expected outcome of the rust he’s shaking off at this point — and there’s still no real sign of a third pitch. Still, if he’s healthy next year and showing the kind of stuff that’s starting to return to hit pitches then he can certainly get back on track easily enough — think of all the time that Tristan Beck lost to back issues in his time in the minors, for instance. Here’s Bednar last night, K’ing top Cubs’ prospect, Kevin Alcantara in the 9th.
Someone a year ago described Jairo Pomares to me as a one-trick pony. It’s a good trick — mash the ball. But to do it successfully, he’ll need to be literally one of the best hitters in all of minor league baseball. He doesn’t run well, he doesn’t field well, he doesn’t walk. Guys with that profile who succeed in the majors tend to hit a lot better than .250 in High-A. Think about someone like Alex Dickerson, a .301 hitter with a career .855 OPS in the minors. In his worse season coming up, he hit .288 with an .832 OPS in the Eastern League (he had a lower OPS in the notoriously power-unfriendly Florida State League, but hit .295 there). And that’s a guy who hasn’t been quite a good enough hitter to stick long term in the majors (though we’ll always have 2020!). In Pomares’ case, the elixir of health will give him an opportunity to show that he can hit enough to advance. The left-hander can punish a baseball, delivering some of the most impressive exit velocities in the system. But it’s no small task succeeding with that profile.
Hi Roger,
Love these 2023 wrap ups! My question is: have there been any rumblings about trying PJ Hilson as a 2 way player?
Thanks, Kent! Appreciate the support. I don’t believe that’s on the table for P.J. Getting him developed as a one-way player has proven challenging enough so far — and I know the young man has lots of fans in the org who would really love to see him succeed. He did, however, get on the mound a couple of times this year in blow outs and looked quite sharp! Despite that, getting the most out of his talents as a position player remains the focus.
With that, let’s close up the bag for this month. There R Giants’ Post Office will next be open for business sometime before Thanksgiving. Look for another podcast coming your way tomorrow, and we’ll return to the Wrap Ups on Friday with a look at possibly the most talented Richmond roster in franchise history.
Here, have a little Dominican Instrux highlight on your way out the door. Here’s Carlos Concepcion doubling in a run in recent action. A Baseball America article recently noted that Concepcion showed average, 90th percentile, and max EVs that were all 4-5 mph above average for his age group. A max of 106.4 at age 17 is certainly impressive. Hit ball hard!
Man, poor Jairo Pomares. Only 31 plate appearances in 2023 - 28 in June and then just 3 in August and all of them in the ACL. On the one hand it would seem Winter Ball would be good for someone like him who had nearly no reps at all this year, but on the other hand what team would be interested in someone who had nearly no reps at all this year? Those Winter League clubs are fiercely competitive, they're looking to win and not interested in development I don't think.
Alex Dickerson's 12 games in the Mexican League didn't work out but he did land on his feet with the Long Island Ducks in the Atlantic League - Alex knocked out 26 HR (.965 OPS) playing with old friends/former Giants Rubén Tejada and Alejandro De Aza. Probably better cheesesteaks out in Central Islip than on the west coast too.
KROG POD ??
You might a contender. Better ring then Peanut Gallery.