There R Giants #40: Eric Silva
Photo: Eric Silva Instagram Page
We’re into the There R Giants Top 50. Over the next few months, I’ll write a post on each of the fifty players in my rankings, leading us back to spring. So far, we’ve covered:
I have a baseball friend who’s always held to the maxim: if ranking new draftees, it’s best to put them in the order they were drafted, unless there’s a significantly compelling reason not to. Of course, the current system with its hard bonus pool impacts that somewhat. Teams aren’t always making selections in the order of their draft board. Sometimes they’re selecting players who will allow them to hoard enough slot money to pick the player on top of their draft later on (Kyle Harrison, to take a recent Giants’ example). Still, there’s still an inherent truth in my friend’s belief. Teams are telling you something about how much they value players by their selections. This is the guy they wanted right now (in whatever round “right now” might be) and whatever master plans they might have, they’re willing to risk that some other player might not be there later on.
I’m thinking about all of this today because I’m trying to decide why, exactly, I am writing about 2021 4th rounder Eric Silva in this post, rather than 2021 3rd round pick Mason Black. Is there truly a compelling reason for me to prefer the young right-hander against his older, more seasoned draft-mate?
Black, after all, has more of the classic power pitcher’s build, and though he’s spent his college career in a small conference, he’s been a consistent performer there with a sometimes devastating two-pitch fastball/slider combo. It’s not everybody who can make the claim of being the greatest pitcher in Lehigh history, you know! If you remember the Best Prospects of the 2019 Cape Cod League list that I linked to in Jimmy Glowenke’s post, it’s worth scrolling down just slightly from Glowenke’s position to find Black the #37 prospect on the Cape that summer. My good friend (and newly hired Draft Expert at Prospects Live) Brian Recca actually had Black ranked slightly higher (124 vs 142) going into the 2021 draft.
But after much cogitation, much mental wrestling, it’s not Black, but Silva, who takes the #40 position on my prospect roster. In today’s post, let’s investigate why that is so….
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