Send in Your Questions for the Next Free For All Mailbag
We’re getting very close to the final in-season mailbag of the year. Once the baseball calendar comes to an end, these mailbags get a lot less frequent. So if you’ve got anything on your mind — now’s the time to send your thoughts my way!
Hi Roger. I've been very impressed with Johnny Level, particularly with his continued progress since the move up to San Jose. How does he compare with Marco Luciano when ge was af this sge/development? He seems a strong contenderto stick at short whilst Marco was already seen by many ad being a future outfielder.
Thanks as always for your work Roger.
I'll try to keep both my growing cynicism & verbosity in check here. If 2016 taught us anything, it was that things don't have to get better. We watched a wave of offensive prospects fizzle out the last few years, then we pivoted to a wave of young pitchers that were supposed to be the strength of the system, and now they're dangerously close to the same outcome. Realistically, the only pitcher who has done enough to have a spot in next year's rotation is Roupp, and as much promise as he's shown he's finishing the year with a 1.48 WHIP, & I would think the most optimistic projection wouldn't pencil him in for more than 130 innings (thankfully he avoided the worst outcome with his knee injury but I'm assuming he's still likely done for the year) . What happened? Were these kids meaningfully more talented prospects than the Tyler Beedes, Phil Bickfords & Chris Strattons of the world? If so, what's going wrong, & if not what does that say about our drafting & developmental staff, which despite the changes at the top seems to have maintained a good deal of continuity. Can pitching development still reasonably be considered a strength of this organization?
On a related note, it was pretty interesting that Posey made basically the same bet on their young, internal pitching options that Zaidi made last year, and distressing to watch it play out in a remarkably similar fashion. Does that say anything meaningful about the Giant's internal models & projections? Seems like they may be a little off, as you and Kerry were hardly alone in wondering where all the innings would come from this off season, and that was in the best case scenario, which we are obviously not living in.