"On My Way Out the Door" Edition of the Free For All Mailbag
Photo Credit: Richmond Flying Squirrels
I am quite literally packing my bag for my upcoming assignment, but before I leave you all in capable hands for a couple of weeks, I can sneak in a couple hours at the Post Office and see what’s on all your minds.
The answer is: quite a wide variety of things! We’ve got questions on the major league lineup, player development technology, the inevitable promotions questions, and a throw-back question to a Giant of yore. Pretty good collection of questions you guys delivered this week!
Before we get to that, let’s give our best There R Giants’ cheers to Carson Whisenhunt and Shane Rademacher, who were named Pitchers of the Week for the PCL and NWL, respectively. For Rademacher, that’s two consecutive weeks he’s taken home the honor. Whisenhunt was very nearly perfect over six innings — and Rademacher was perfect for five innings. Pretty, pretty good, fellas!
One thing I am hearing Eno Sarris and Mike Petriello talking a lot about lately is the importance of bat speed. Namely, that it can make up for a lot of other profile deficiencies. I recall, for example, a discussion about how one of the things that makes Ohtani so good is that his bat speed can make up for swing holes by allowing him to make contact “late in the zone”, or as the ball gets closer to the catcher. Turns out, bat speed seems to be super important. And it’s improvable! To that end, I am curious if you sense this to be important in Giants player development policy. The Red Sox famously were early to weighted bat training and that seems to be working out well for them. As far as I can tell, the Giants don’t have a clear policy to making technical, batting improvements beyond standard approach/strength training goals (or if they do, it’s not clearly working). As a second part to this question, I have observed that the last several international amateur classes have landed players who are either conspicuously short or physically mature for their age.
I’m going to start with a question from last week. I originally left this one on the cutting room floor, because I feel like the issue of bat-speed training is one that I have written about a good deal over the last couple of years, and I didn’t feel the need to revisit the topic, and probably just repeat myself.
But in the last week, The Athletic produced a huge — and hugely important — article on bat speed and other bat technology or metrics improvements in recent years. That caused me to revisit this question, if for no other reason than to point those of you who have Athletic subscriptions to go read it — it does a great job of capturing both the advances and the nuance and uncertainty in the space of hitting development.
I do think the Giants’ institutional culture has always been keeping certain things close to the vest, and I think technology fits in that bucket a lot of times, so I’m not 100% certain of what the Giants are or aren’t putting to use. We know that the club has purchased a couple of the new Trajekt machines — that mimic the release point and specific spin and movement of any pitcher in the major leagues — for their big leaguers to take batting practice off of. And we know they use force plates to measure the amount of energy hitters are able to generate from the ground, using their base. But I’ve not seen evidence that they’ve gotten on board the bat speed training train as of yet, and, as I’ve written, I’ve seen a few anecdotal things in the past that have suggested to me that they haven’t.
I actually spent some time this spring trying to nose around this question with folks in the Giants’ organization who are responsible for hitting development, and I ended up in some really fascinating conversations about why hitting development is so complicated. As one Coordinator Level coach put it, every hitter is a puzzle that coaches have to try to help solve. One player needs mechanical adjustments, one player needs more physicality and strength. Some players crave data and others don’t really know what to do with data. Some need a shoulder to lean on and some need a kick in the butt. The secret to unlocking every player’s swing is different.
Jason Ochart, the Red Sox’ Hitting Coordinator — who has done so much to put them at the forefront of bat speed training in the public imagination — gets to the heart of that variation in the Athletic article mentioned above:
“Hitting is so dynamic, and by having access to the biomechanics of all the world’s best hitters, you learn pretty quickly that there’s no one magic pattern that we should be striving for. And there’s just a lot of variance on the swing-to-swing basis between the single player and a population of players.”
Ochart also told the authors that, while bat speed is definitely important for all hitters, it’s not equally important for every hitter. “There’s plenty of minor leaguers with enough bat speed to be good that aren’t good.” At the same time, he noted, “nobody gets worse by swinging harder.”
Still, I do think that there are still enough questions surrounding all of the new technology in hitting development to make us at least pause to consider if other approaches aren’t still viable. After all, the Red Sox are the current standard bearer of bat speed and bat path training, but they aren’t the original standard bearers — that title probably goes to the Orioles, who were where the Red Sox are now a couple of years ago, and it is worth considering that we’re just starting to get to a moment where we’re hearing whispers around the industry about why so many of these Orioles’ super prospects don’t seem to be really landing in the majors (of course, the answer as always: it’s almost impossible to hit in the major leagues).
Another consideration when it comes to the kind of bat path optimization the Red Sox are pursuing is that it tends to create a lot of very similar hitters, and potentially leaves behind players whose hitting strengths might lie elsewhere. Not everybody is a “pulled fly ball” type of guy at his core. A Pro Scouting Director for a very analytics-forward organization told me a couple of years ago that they really do question the wisdom of chasing data in their hitter development, because it can leave you with one-dimensional players whose one dimension is fairly easily exploitable in playoff situations (because data optimization can be weaponized against a player as well).
Ochart actually nods in the direction of this himself in that Athletic article when he notes that he’s learned that you can’t be 20% in on any philosophical trend — you need to teach everybody or nobody to really get results. We’ve seen that in the recent past in baseball — the Dodgers and Yankees, for instance, were famous a few years back for making every pitcher in their organization throw sweepers, figuring that the ones that picked it up well would provide a break-even point for the strategy. But that type of approach can leave behind a lot of pitchers who aren’t really built for sweepers, and it hasn’t taken long for big league hitters to catch up to that once miracle pitch, and reduce its effectiveness greatly.
I think that, from a programmatic POV, what the Giants don’t want to do is get caught up in treating every hitter they have in the organization like the same guy — or like widgets in a machine that is set to produce just one result. What we’ve heard from Randy Winn and Buster Posey suggests that they want to meet players where their strengths are and produce a well-rounded set of skills from their organization. And I will say that I think that’s admirable, because it’s a much harder approach to player development than the “everybody is going to do this” approach. And I think it’s also harder to see improvement across the board that way, because there’s no one simple metric to follow.
At the same time, nobody gets worse by swinging faster — so I do hope that some of that is going on behind the scenes as well.
I will, however, take exception to your remark that whatever they’re doing clearly isn’t working. I think clarity with hitters takes a long time, and we have seen positive growth from a good number of players in this organization — from Tyler Fitzgerald and Heliot Ramos to some outstanding early season work from the newly-promoted Victor Bericoto. Never forget, when you’re watching this game, how hard it is to hit the stuff that modern pitchers are throwing.
Roger - I would like to get your take on your rankings after reading the Down on the Farm analysis of rankings. Any changes you would make or are there players who came to mind as you read through it? I was thinking about the last point about surprise hitter successes and was day dreaming about someone like Charlie Syzkowny finding his game power consistently and taking off as a product.
Hi PJ, thanks for bringing up Down on the Farm’s excellent work which I highly recommend everybody read. Man, I’m doling out reading suggestions like a librarian here today!
As for your second question, I don’t know if this is really going to answer it, but it’s something I was thinking about watching this weekend’s series against the Angels. I’ve seen a decent amount of Kyren Paris in his minor league career — especially considering the Angels don’t have an Eastern League affiliate. I saw him live with Inland Empire in San Jose. I saw him live with Tri-City in Eugene. And I’ve seen a bunch more of him on MiLB in his time with Salt Lake.
And, in all that time, I never really saw him “good.” Instead, it was a lot of swing and miss and inconsistent defense in my looks. And I never really walked away very impressed. In part, that’s another object lesson for me to avoid developing any set opinions from a few looks and letting them harden into that most dangerous of all things: an evaluation. You never know exactly where in the river of a player’s development you’re stepping at any given time. Fifty at bats (which I’ve probably seen from Paris live) is a ton in the scouting world. But even that isn’t near enough to tell you what a player is going to become. If you happen to get a good 50, then at least you have an inkling of what they could be, but you don’t know if they’ll get there. And if you get a bad 50, you probably have an overly negative view of where their potential even lies. Paris never showed me that he was going to be a big leaguer (though, of course, I knew his pedigree), but he’s kept on improving his skills and his game, and now he has a chance to prove he belongs.
If you keep on improving, and keep producing on the field, opportunities will come your way eventually.
You are quite correct that Szykowny getting to more of his raw power in games would be an adjustment that could really change his trajectory. Personally, I thought more of Wade Meckler or Diego Velasquez adding strength and physicality. Others who might qualify in that “controlling the zone but not yet developed power” category could be Onil Perez, Carter Howell, Jean Carlos Sio, Turner Hill, or even Scott Bandura — or for a far off prospect, Santiago Camacho. And then, yes, there are guys like Szykowny who make good hard contact, but need to convert that into more damaging contact (especially the more Szykowny is playing 1b), though in Szykowny’s case, I think we need to see more advanced feel for hit than we’ve seen so far in High-A or the AFL.
As for the 8th lesson drawn in that article — “big misses are guys who refuse to take a walk” — well, there are a few players in the Giants’ org who certainly need to pay heed to that advice, including Adrián Sugastey, Jairo Pomares, Alexander Suarez, and Lisbel Diaz. Notably, Victor Bericoto made some huge strides in this area of his game this year, and it’s led to real growth in his offensive game, and a quick promotion up to Triple-A.
Hi Roger - two questions for the price of one: #1: how helpful has a more stable day-to-day lineup been? (related: I have also noticed that Christian Koss, for example, usually plays the last game of a series, so perhaps that also makes each player's expectation and prep work more predictable?). #2: Is there a renewed attention to hitting to the opposite field? And do you think that has anything to do with the team's recent success?
Hi Bob, I don’t know how well I can help you with that first question, because the only people who could begin to answer it are the ones in the Giants’ lineup. They’re the ones who should have some feel for their own comfort levels (though again, comfort doesn’t necessarily lead to results).
Generally speaking, however, I know that baseball players are creatures of habit and they thrive in environments of stable preparation. That’s not always possible, of course (relievers never know when they’re going to be needed), but it’s something they’d like to establish as the baseline status quo. So, I’d guess that it has been helpful to the starters. And for bench players like Koss, knowing exactly when they are going to be in the lineup certainly helps them get mentally and physically ready — which is one of the hardest things for a major league player to deal with. I remember back in 1993 during Dusty Baker’s first year as a manager, one thing that he was particularly praised for was that he would sit down with the bench players at the beginning of a week or homestand and map out for them exactly when and where their starts and their playing time opportunities would come. That was apparently an innovation when Dusty started his career, now I believe it’s more or less the standard for all managers. Good communication is a godsend for role players. And yes, Sundays or day games on getaway day tend to be the times that they are getting into the starting lineup.
As for your second question, there has definitely been more of a focus on situation hitting and two-strike hitting in the organization this year — and hitting the opposite way is a part of that. Of course, the Giants have some players (Jung Hoo Lee, Heliot Ramos) who have pretty natural opposite field swings — they also have a President of Baseball Operations who had a pretty impressive opposite field swing in his day. So, I’d imagine the club is going to appreciate a good opposite field RBI dink going forward — and maybe that does have something to do with how strong the club has been in the early going at converting runners into points on the board.
Deborah Petersen
Hi Roger. I keep an eye on all our minor league teams. It's obviously early, but our minor league teams don't seem to be doing ok. The one thing I've noticed is teams are doing the little things, bunting, moving guys over etc. We do have some talent but not a lot.
Deborah, it’s way too early to be so down in the dumps! You don’t want to be a Deborah Downer, do ya? Admittedly, the Richmond club has been struggling to find some wins, but otherwise everybody’s just on the right side of .500.
I think it is important to watch the system with an understanding eye, however. During my Top 50 posts and when I was looking at the opening season rosters, I did pretty consistently say that the system was a little down in talent right now from a prospect perspective — some of which was a result of a lot of promotions and graduates to the big league roster last year. Further, the talent is spread around pretty evenly, so no one roster (other than maybe Sacramento) has a critical mass of prospect talent. And finally, as we’ll discuss in just a moment, several of the top prospects have had some MIA time so far this year.
With all that being said, there is a little top-end talent — a significant portion of which hasn’t yet gotten their years started — and then a lot of sleeper guys to root on and hope for breakouts. Once Bryce Eldridge gets on the field and the complex seasons start up, there will be plenty of interesting players and stories to follow.
Apologies in advance for this somewhat depressing question, but looking at MLB.com’s prospect rankings 10 of the top 15 guys are hitters. Five of those 10 hitters are injured (separately 3 of the others are not in A-ball yet) and it got me thinking about the string of injuries to Giants’ prospects like Will Bednar, Hunter Bishop, and Reggie Crawford to name a few. This rate of injuries seems high and I was wondering if it’s happening everywhere and I’m not as attentive to it? Or is it bad luck or something else entirely?
Hey, good news! One of the injured camp — James Tibbs III — returned to play this weekend (as seen above), so now maybe it’s only four of 10!
This is a question I’ve wrestled with a good deal over the last couple of years, and I’m not really sure what to do with it. Crawford, I think we can put in his own category — he was drafted injured and with no real track record of being able to pile up innings, plus pitchers break. That he was the conclusion to a 1st round trilogy of injuries with Bednar and Bishop certainly seems cruel and unkind — but I don’t know that it’s unusual. Pitching prospects spend vast quantities of time on the IL — look at the tortured road to the majors for guys like Jackson Jobe, Max Meyer, or MacKenzie Gore, or our own Tristan Beck. The body just wasn’t made to do that thing they do.
For a position player like Bishop, or Marco Luciano (I still don’t think we really know or understand what his stress fracture in his back in June of 2022 did to him), it’s certainly less common, but not at all unheard of. I can think of lots of top prospects around the game who lost significant time to injury — even guys who ended up getting to the majors young, like Ronald Acuña Jr. (who has continued to have an unfortunate health profile since then) or Juan Soto.
I also probably wouldn’t connect any of this to the mini-wave of injuries we’ve seen in the early going. Those have been nearly all soft-tissue issues to which the early spring weather is unquestionably a factor. Pulled muscles in games played in wet, cold conditions are a fact of life.
At the end of the day, the way I think of this is that the life of a professional athlete is all about pushing the body to the breaking point, and when that is the defacto conditioning, some of those bodies are going to break. I’ve said this before, but if any of you are tennis fans like me, count the number of surgeries that you hear mentioned for competitors in that non-contact sport in the upcoming French Open or Wimbledom. I think you’ll be astounded to see how high your count gets before a fortnight is up. It’s one of the amazing things that these young people dedicate their life to that developing a high pain threshold is just part of the package.
Any guess which one of the Eugene outfielders is most likely to get sent up to Richmond first when it is time to bring Dakota Jordan up to Eugene? If they all continue to hit, could we expect it relatively early in summer, or do you think they want to keep Jordan in San Jose all or most of the year.
Hi Roger. I'd like to see James Tibbs III and Jonah Cox promoted to Richmond, but when I looked at it more closely, I'd like to suggest the whole Eugene outfield be swapped out for the Richmond one. Are you for it?
I anticipate that a major theme in this year’s mailbags will be readers calling for promotions, and my responding by saying “now hold on a minute there, Skippy!”
There probably is a promotion coming soon as a result of the dominoes falling from Casey Schmitt’s IL stint. Bericoto’s promotion to Sacramento leaves Richmond with just 11 position players, and I’m not entirely sure how game-ready Vaun Brown is at this moment, after he left Thursday’s game with an apparent issue (of course, activating Eldridge today would solve that issue as well).
However, the Giants have emphasized that they really want to take it slow with their prospects and really teach them the game. They want to see guys master levels and absorb all of the lessons that a given level has to teach before rushing them upwards. And that doesn’t just mean putting up good numbers at the plate over a hot couple of weeks. It means showing improvements in areas of the game that the team has identified as growth opportunities. It means being aware of game situations and responding appropriately. It means developing good preparation habits and learning how to handle long road trips.
Jordan is off to a very encouraging start to the year in the Cal League. But he’s also a player in need of a lot of refinements to his all-around game. I know the Giants are working with him not just on his swing, but getting him to utilize his speed more effectively in the field and on the base paths. And there is an ongoing process of learning to recognize pitches — first the rudimentary ones of the Cal League, and later the slightly better ones in the NWL. Though he’s been hitting .300 and posting an OPS in the .850 range, Jordan is also striking out about a third of the time, so I wouldn’t expect him to blow through the Low-A level any time soon.
The same goes for Cox, who has struck out in about 30% of his career plate appearances in High-A, while hitting .236. That’s not to bust on Cox, who I like quite a bit as a prospect, it’s just to note that he’s not yet a finished High-A project. There is time ahead and plenty to learn.
And no, Charles, I certainly would not be in favor of swapping out the Eugene outfield for the Richmond. As much as I like the guys in Eugene, I don’t think any of them are nearly as advanced as prospects — or as ready to face Double-A pitching — as Carter Howell, Jairo Pomares, Brown, or the now-departed Bericoto. They will get there in time, hopefully, but let’s be patient while they’re working their way up the learning curves. Nobody in Eugene is exactly busting their way out of that level just yet.
Hi Roger - curious what you think about Zane Zielinski so far. Know it’s early, but he seems to be holding his own in Eugene. I know you covered him in the SS depth article but he seems to be succeeding. Just wondering if you have more thoughts on his game! Thanks much.
He’s got some contact skills, solid glove for the level, speed, and a lot of energy. It’s been fun to watch him get out on the field and go. There’s not much power there at all, and I think, to ccanine’s point above, some increased bat speed would probably help him kick things up a gear. But, you’re right, he’s gotten off to a nice start, after not getting assigned to an affiliate last summer. I’d say the shortstop position in Eugene is his to hold, at least until the time that Maui Ahuna is cleared to start throwing and playing defense. But I haven’t yet seen anything from him to suggest he’s more than organizational depth. We’ll see what he can do with this extended opportunity to play and try to form a more informative opinion once he’s had time to settle in.
I watched the first few SJ Giants innings last night, which led me to BRef to learn about Drake George. You alluded to this in your Minor Lines post, so you won't be surprised that my trip to George's BRef page resulted in me making a few clicks and then spending some good time marveling at Marvin Benard's BRef page: drafted (39th round) out of HS, drafted (20th round) out of CC, and then drafted by the Giants (50th round!) out of Lewis-Clark State College. I have to admit that I wasn't aware that Marvin was a 50th-round success story. Incredible. The mailbag is quite full already for this week, so please feel free to stash this random question for a quieter week. What can you tell me about Benard's unlikely path to MLB? Any idea if his not signing out of HS and CC was more about an athlete betting on himself, or was he motivated to continue with his studies, perhaps? Are there any other SF Giants 50th-rounders who made the show I should be more aware of?
Benard is by far the Giants’ most successful late-round pick. In fact, other than his 50th round career success-story, Ryan Walker (31st round) is probably the latest the Giants ever picked a good major leaguer. The only other 50th round pick in franchise history to make the majors was C/INF Edwards Guzman (both of him!), and his major league career was fairly uneventful (though he did play 127 games in the bigs himself).
Benard’s family moved from Nicaragua to Los Angeles when he was 12 years old in order to escape the ongoing civil war in Nicaragua, and particularly to protect young Marvin from being conscripted into the army as a preteen. From what I’ve heard and read, the reason he didn’t sign with the White Sox out of high school was that he had hopes of playing college football. When that path didn’t work out as he hoped, he returned to the baseball field, playing at a series of junior colleges. I’ve never read why he didn’t sign with the Phillies out of Los Angeles Harbor College. For whatever reason, it wasn’t the right time for him in his development — fortunately for Giants’ fans who remember him fondly. I do know that he considered his Harbor College coach a real mentor, and I would assume there was some advice from that corner that helped sway him. I would imagine, however, that, although he dropped considerably in terms of rounds, I’m not sure the financial difference between the 20th and 50th rounds back in 1990 were terribly large. Certainly, his bonus check wouldn’t have been in the five figures at that point — but he made up for that with a successful nine-year career in the bigs.
Since his playing career, Benard has stayed connected to the game he loves. He’s worked as a Spanish language broadcaster, and has frequently coached Nicaraguan national teams in international competition — including, once again, the upcoming World Baseball Classic. Good going, Marvin!
By the way, if I can double up on “good Giants” for this question, former Giants’ prospect Ismael Munguia has played for Benard on multiple Nicaraguan national teams and is quite close with Benard. An all-time favorite of this site, Munguia is now hitting .300 with an OBP near .400 for the Yankees’ Triple-A affiliate in Scranton/Wilkes-Barre. You will hear a wild whoop of joy emanating from the Capitol Hill region of DC if Mungy gets a call up at some point this summer.
Oh, and one more thing, jazz. Benard and Drake are not the only Giants who have come from Lewis-Clark in Idaho. Far from it! Former utility outfielder, Jason Ellison, catcher (and minor league manager) Steve Decker, RHP Frank Williams, and one-time All-Star closer Keith Foulke were all drafted by the Giants out of that small school. Quite a font of talent!
Hi Roger. Thanks for the continued insights. Apologies if I've missed it in the past but have the Giants moved psst Brett Auerbach as a catcher? Always thought having a Swiss Army knife utility guy who could catch would be invaluable.
It would seem so, Mike. Auerbach has yet to get in the squat a single time this year, and played it very sparingly last year. That was especially true after he moved up to Sacramento, where he donned the chest protector just four times over 62 games. By way of comparison, Blake Sabol, who the club clearly did not view as a major league caliber catcher, caught 62 games with the River Cats last year.
Changing the organization’s leadership from Farhan Zaidi, who, like you, believed strongly in value of players who could fill a “utility catcher” spot, to Posey and Bob Melvin, two guys who have lofty standards for the position, has tipped the balance for a player like Auerbach, it seems. That’s natural when organizational priorities and visions shift, but it certainly does seem to remove a potentially useful arrow from Auerbach’s quiver. Thomas Gavello, several levels down the ladder, is in something of the same position, I’d say.
Thanks, as always, for what you do, Roger.
Grant Brisbee noted in The Athletic recently that the Giants' 26-man active roster is the same today as it was on opening day, and how that is a significant change from the churn we saw under Zaidi. Could you talk a bit about that? Is it all positive for the folks at AAA, or is there some downside in maybe not getting a shot? Also, is this kind of stability the norm or an outlier when compared with other orgs?
Yes, the roster move putting Schmitt on the IL was their first of the season — I believe that leaves the Phillies and the Cardinals as the only teams yet to make a player move in the 2025 season. And, as that duo might suggest, it’s hard to draw any hard and fast conclusions from that fact. The Phillies believe in stability — they throw almost the exact same lineup out every day and build their success on the strong backs of one of the best rotations in MLB. The Cardinals on the other hand, are….well… going through a transition period.
From a perspective of the guys in Triple-A, certainly none of them want to be there. That’s just a fact of life at that level. Nobody wants to be there (except for those who have just arrived for the first time, like Bericoto), and many nurse suspicions that they really should be somewhere else (once again, I’ll suggest the great book by the late John Feinstein, Where Nobody Knows Your Name).
But at least when guys do go up to the majors, they should have a sense of comfort that the opportunity is going to last more than 24 hours, and I do think that is appreciated. The up and downs we’ve seen the last few years certainly do have a human cost to the young players and their families, and it’s very hard for them to get a comfort level going anywhere. Tyler Fitzgerald spoke to that last week, and I would imagine Sean Hjelle could add a few verses to the sermon as well.
As for where the norm lies, I think you can find teams all along the spectrum. By no means was Zaidi the only adherent to the virtues of the Churn, and there are a whole lot of teams out there who have copied the strategy he originated with the Dodgers of essentially using the 40-man roster as an endless supply of fresh arms for the bullpen. A lot of teams today operate from the principle that their active roster is really 40-players long, but only 26 of them are active at any one time. Many of those teams are very successful, though of course, other clubs who adhere more to stability, like the aforementioned Phillies, Braves, and Astros have found success as well.
Watching the Giants flail away at Christopher Sanchez and Tyler Anderson’s change up buttressed my opinion that a plus change up from a left-handed pitcher is the most devastating secondary pitch in baseball. So, that begs the question – how close is Carson Whisenhunt?
I suppose there’s a “define your terms” issue lurking here in terms of what we actually mean by “close.” From a pure readiness perspective, if the Giants had a Homer At the Bat turn of events that left them scrambling for a starter tomorrow, they could turn to Whisenhunt and feel reasonably confident that he could come up and give them a competitive performance. He’s probably at that point in his development where he could join a major league rotation and start taking those PhD level courses that the hitters there turn out.
But if the question is: how close is Whisenhunt to looking like the Sanchez or Anderson of today, it’s probably a good idea to remember that those pitchers’ routes to success have hardly been instantaneous or direct. Would Whisenhunt, installed in a big league rotation today, resemble the poised, polished 28-year-old Sanchez, the All-Star version who possesses a fastball that can get up to 97 and who really understands how to deploy his arsenal? Or would he more resemble the 24- and 25-year-old versions of Sanchez, who absorbed a lot of hard lessons while putting up an ERA around 5.00? Anderson was a Giant not that long ago, and I don’t exactly remember a fan revolt resulting when the time came for him to head elsewhere.
It’s always best to assume that the path to success won’t be straight, so I’d guess he’ll look more like the rookie versions of Sanchez or Anderson than the veteran versions once he arrives, and hopefully he’ll respond to the experience with the same growth that those two have shown given time.
Howdy Mr. Munter. This question may be predictable as a proud member of International Signings Anonymous, but when does the DSL kick off and who is in your handful of “gotta watch players?”
* just for kicks could you include a dark horse/lesser known player?
Jason, is this a trick question? The three-million-dollar kid, Josuar de Jesus Gonzalez is the one and only “gotta watch” player for this year — his debut is probably the most hotly anticipated for this organization since Luciano first took the field back in 2019! Beyond him, I would say outfielder Djean Macares is the top guy to watch out for this year. Macares actually reminds me physically a bit of Marvin Benard, whom we discussed earlier. A lefty with an open stance, who really produces hard contact. He absolutely beat a path of destruction through Europe in a 16U tournament late last year.
For some sleeper types, I will defer to Giants’ Senior Director of International Scouting, Joe Salermo, who pointed me to three players earlier this year. Yulian Barreto probably isn’t a sleeper, as the Giants signed him to a bonus just shy of a million dollars. But he plays a little like a sleeper — sort of in the same category of recent 2b-types the Giants have signed at the top of their class, like Dennys Riera and Yosneiker Rivas (hopefully, Barreto will achieve a little more success than those two), or the Cuban refugee, Jean Carlos Sio. Two of the low-bonus guys who could be interesting to watch, according to Salermo, are two more players out of Venezuela (where the Giants have had a lot of success in recent years): catcher Carlos Martinez and outfielder Rainer Espinosa. I’ve seen some video of Espinosa’s BP sessions, and I have to say I really do like his swing. As for pitchers, keep an eye out for Alberto Laroche. The Giants really like this kid’s arm.
As for the “when” part of your question, I haven’t seen a schedule for the DSL yet, but I would expect DSL action to crank up the first week of June, probably on June 2nd, if last year is any guide. And speaking of complex levels starting, we’ll see the first ACL action in less than two weeks, as that league starts play on May 3. Look for a preview for that team coming in the next week or so.
And with that, the mailbag closes down for the next couple of weeks as I head out on assignment. Look for the next mailbag prompt around May 8th. In the meantime, Minor Lines will be taken up by my faithful editor, Jeff, and I’m sure you’ll all enjoy his contributions to the There R Giants’ brand beginning Thursday.
Thank you for another great post, Roger! Lots of great information in this one, as per usual. Love what you give us on our MiLB guys. Have a great couple weeks away and...ENJOY!
Bon Voyage, Rog and thanks so much for answering my Marvin Benard question. What a career!