This is the fifth of a series of season wrap ups for the Giants’ system. Before we start looking forward, it’s always good to look back and remember the year that was! Today we check in on kids still trying to get out of the minor league complex in Scottsdale.
2021 Arizona Complex League
Giants Orange: 35-24 (4th place in ACL)
Giants Black: 28-31 (11th place in ACL)
Overview
The down side of the Giants splitting their complex level players into two teams is that the division of talent leaves neither roster with quite enough oomph to make their way to the top of the league standings. Between the two squads, the Giants had the league’s top four strikeout artists (Esmerlin Vinicio, Trevor McDonald, Sonny Vargas, Manuel Mercedes), the top two hitters by batting average (Adrian Sugastey, Garrett Frechette), two of the top three hitters in total bases (Aeverson Arteaga, Alexander Suarez) — that’s a lot of exciting talent, right? But spread across the Giants Orange and Giants Black it didn’t quite congeal into a championship contender, though the Orange squad did ultimately make its way up near the top of the standings (though still 6 games back of a ticket to the Championship Game).
But the benefit of having two different squads outweighs that slight annoyance, as the Giants were ultimately able to give valuable developmental playing time to 90 different players on their complex level teams. Some were force fed reps by the bundle, some saw the most sparing amount of playing time, and there were a couple of players hanging around the complex who never participated in a game at all (but still got important work in with the staff). Generally, there were three categories of players who took part in the ACL squads:
Injury Rehab Veterans: Tristan Beck was Richmond’s opening day starter for the 2021 season, but he ended up spending most of his summer in Scottsdale, headlining a group of veterans from higher levels who spent time in the ACL. Many of those were players whose season start was delayed by injuries, like Blake Rivera, Cole Waites (knee), Grant McCray (hip), Ghordy Santos, Luis Alexander Basabe (wrist), Jesus Tona, and Ryan Halstead. Others started elsewhere but were forced back to camp to rehab injuries that cropped up: Hunter Bishop (shoulder), Nick Swiney (concussion), Nick Morreale, and Logan Wyatt (leg). And then, of course, there was Patrick Bailey, who didn’t exactly join Scottsdale with an injury to rehab, but did use a brief ACL sojourn to rehab the rough start to his year.
The injured guys were frequently whom scouts came to watch. For instance, on one of the days I attended, it was the final two pitchers of the day who had the scouting section reaching for their radar guns: Cole Waites and Blake Rivera. Here’s Rivera breaking off one of his hellacious sliders, freezing poor Max Wright, who was playing in just his fifth game as a pro, and probably hadn’t seen those pitches at Indiana State!
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