Weekly Free For All Mailbag? Weekly Free For All Mailbag!
It's on!
Questions by the bucket load keep flowing in, so I suppose we’re a weekly program here now at Free For All Mailbag! Filling your off-day content with my dubious wisdom. I appreciate all the interest and am more than happy to provide you with answers (dubious or not).
So let’s get to the week’s questions, which wander into some interesting alleyways of interest. Before I do, of course, the requisite “request for subscribers” moment has come! You like many thousands of words on Giants’ prospects? I like providing many thousands of words on Giants’ prospects. It’s a match made in heaven!
Any news on the health progress of Vaun Brown? Sean Roby? The mysterious disappearance of Wade Meckler?
Any news on Luciano
What a coincidence! As it happens, this mailbag is perfectly timed, because there is some news coming out of the over-populated Rehab Central at Papago Park!
First off, Mr. Vaun Brown made his triumphant return to San Jose this weekend. Eventually, he’s headed to a stacked Richmond roster, but it looks like he’ll be getting in a little rehab work in the same Low A location that made him a Dude last year. Brown slashed out singles and dashed around the bases with the kind of enthusiasm and energy that suggested the troublesome knees issues that have plagued him for the last half year or so are now behind him. I said it in the Top 50, I’ll say it again, there’s nobody in the system as poised to inject a dose of “What They Need” into the Giants’ roster than Brown. Hopefully, he’ll fully rejoin the arc of his ascendancy soon!
Beyond Brown, we also now have Landen Roupp activated and pitching in San Jose. P.J. Hilson was assigned to San Jose (going 0 for 5 in his season debut on Sunday), and there are hints that Marco Luciano should be rejoining the Flying Squirrels on the upcoming homestand. Farm Director Kyle Haines has suggested Luciano is close to returning this week, and Luciano himself gave a fairly sizable nod in that direction on his Instagram feed this weekend.
So, hopefully we’ll have the band back together soon. I do know that the news isn’t great for everybody, however. Jairo Pomares has had a setback in his rehab from some lower back discomfort. He’s now recovering from a strained quad that will put his timetable back significantly. Wade Meckler, who is still on the active roster, is expected to return fairly soon as well from some sort of minor hand injury.
Beyond all the news though, I will say that I’m a little leery of turning the mailbag into requests for health updates. There are good reasons why teams tend to avoid giving too many health updates for players, though the public appetite for news is also understanding. There’s nothing more frustrating than information black out.
But on the other side, it’s important to respect the player’s rights to some privacy, even with the public interest argument pushing against. Beyond that, you have to recognize just how changeable rehab settings are. A player might well feel that progress is being made one day only to feel a setback the next — go back and listen to Keaton Winn’s appearance on my podcast where he discussed the process of rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. One day he’d feel like he made a real breakthrough; the next he’d be wondering what the hell happened to his arm. This kind of day by day instability is the norm. So, yes, while I’ve talked with Sean Roby about his issue — and the last time he saw me, in March, he laid out a potential timeframe for recovery — but in the five weeks or so since we had those conversations, the sands of his rehab could have shifted a dozen times or more. I’d prefer to let things play out behind the scenes until he’s ready to return to action, rather than create quasi-accurate expectations that create later frustrations.
Beyond which, teams are naturally going to be pretty conservative with rehab schedules, especially those affecting their top prospects. There is absolutely nothing that is worse than returning a player to active duty — only to find that within a matter of days the player needs to miss time again. So teams are going to default to the most conservative rehab process nearly always.
All this is to say, that you’ll forgive me if I sometimes don’t answer these kinds of questions. All organizations keep this stuff pretty close to the vest, and the players have the right to protect their health information as well. Honestly, we’ll know they’re ready to play in regulation games again when they’re put back on an active roster. Until then, it’s just a waiting game. And there’s really nothing we can do to make the wait go quicker.
What happened to Seth Corry? He was the next big thing a couple years ago and then seemed to fall down a mine shaft.
I suppose this is the logical place to put this question, coming after all of the injury update requests. Corry, of course, had about as amazing a season as a minor league pitcher can have in 2019 in Low A Augusta. Prior to that, he had been a talented, but erratic pitcher who had trouble throwing enough strikes to let his outstanding stuff play, but in 2019, he put it all together, especially in the second half, when he was almost literally unhittable for large stretches of time.
Then the pandemic happened….
And when he came back to active duty in 2021, things were — harder. Though his stuff was as nasty as ever, Corry struggled mightily to throw strikes in Eugene that year, to the point that the Giants put him on the Development List mid-season and took him back to Scottsdale for some mechanical tweaks they hoped would get him in the strike zone more often. “More often” being a relative term as Corry walked an incredible 1 out of every 5 batters he faced that year. In the Arizona Fall League at the end of the 2021 season, Corry still showed that Jekyll and Hyde personality. In the strike zone, he was nearly unhittable. He struck out 17 batters in 11.2 IP and allowed just four hits! BUT, too often, he just wasn’t in the zone, as he also walked 12, including multiple outings where he walked three batters in an inning.
Perhaps it was the attempt to find a mechanical fix to his strike throwing issues that led to the next stage in his … I suppose “tragedy” is far too dramatic a word, perhaps his “misfortune?” Returning to Eugene in 2022, Corry made just one appearance, lasting 2.1 IP, and walking three. At that point he was removed from the game, and soon he was removed from the team’s active roster, and within a matter of weeks, it was reported that he had undergone major surgery on his left shoulder.
That was about 12 months ago now. Shoulder surgery can be a long, arduous rehab process, but perhaps we can take some solace in that fact that the Giants placed Corry on the 7-day IL, and not the 60-day IL to start this season. Maybe we can look to Melvin Adón for a roadmap. He, too, had a significant shoulder surgery that was operated on in the winter of 2021, and the first game action that he saw after that came in the ACL in June of 2022 (so about 18 months later). If Corry can be on a similar timeframe, then we might expect to see him in the rookie league sometime later this summer.
Where do you see Ragsdale finishing the year after losing 2022 but seeming quite sharp so far? Assuming he'll be on pitching/innings limits.
I would say that Richmond seems the most likely spot for him to end up at this year IF (knock on wood) things continue down a positive path healthwise. I’m sure you’re right that they’ll be cautious about managing his innings, but he’s actually had some of the longest outings on the farm this year so far, and he has a good frame for absorbing innings. Considering that his surgery was not directly arm-related, maybe there’s more flexibility for increasing workload than we might imagine.
So, generally, I think he’s too talented to stay in High A all year long, but moving up to Sacramento seems like overreach. I would guess a mid-summer move to Richmond makes sense, where he’d likely be reunited with some of his 2021 San Jose rotation-mates (Ryan Murphy, Nick Swiney, and Wil Jensen).
Hi Roger, have you spotted any changes in development strategy this year? Any sense of whether the arrival of Pete Putila has made an impact in this area?
This is a little side tangent that doesn’t answer the question, but maybe gives some insight into things nonetheless. I was at a recent SABR conference that focused on the use of Artificial Intelligence in baseball and one of the presenters, a professor of AI at NYU named Brian Hall, told a story about some extremely advanced software he’d written which would analyze an upcoming team based not only on the opposing starter, but the team’s bullpen usage, reliever handedness, and even primary pitches…and then design a perfect lineup to face that team, complete with potential matchups a team could create from their bench players as the game went along.
A follow up question to Dr. Hall asked him how difficult it was to persuade teams to adopt and use his model, and in his answer, he noted that the first team to use the software was none other than the San Francisco Giants. And he went on to say, “and in their first season of using it…..” Now here, you might be thinking to yourself that the conclusion to that sentence was “…they set a franchise record by winning 107 games,” since that sounds so much like what we know the Giants were doing to their advantage in 2021. The ACTUAL conclusion to Dr. Hall’s sentence, however, was “….they won their first World Series in team history.”
Yes! The 2010 San Francisco Giants, run from the gut by Old School Hall of Famer Bruce Bochy got some help from cutting edge AI technology.
The moral to this story is that these kind of innovations and advances are constantly happening in silence, far from the maddening crowd, and usually at a VERY protective remove from the eyes of the press and other observers. A second moral, I suppose, is that two guys who were essentially serving as the team’s R&D back in those days were Jeremy Shelley and Yeshayah Goldfarb, who still hold positions of authority in the organization to this day (Shelley is Senior VP and Assistant GM, while Goldfarb is the VP of Baseball R&D). Which, I suppose, leads to a third moral, which is that the underlying tides of continuity are sometimes as important as the popular narratives of titanic shifts.
So, have things changed in the wake of Pete Putila coming over as GM? I wouldn’t say that I’ve seen anything that jumps out. There have been so many major changes over the last few years that it’s hard to imagine anything really dramatic taking place at this point.
Without getting anywhere near a comprehensive list (and I should note that there’s no way I would have the knowledge to give a comprehensive list), there are so many process changes that have become the norm the last couple of years. In particular, technological resources are ubiquitous around all of the facilities. All bullpen sessions are conducted with a Trackman unit set up for instantaneous feedback. Batters will sometimes take BP with a ring on their bats that reads bat speed, force generated and other data. Hawk Eye systems are set up at all the fields to read and track virtually every action that takes place on the field — not just how hard a ball was hit, but what angle a shortstop’s arm was at when he made a particular throw (of course, the digital infrastructure at some of the older stadiums can sometimes cause issues there).
There’s also been a huge increase in staff resources for minor league teams. There are fundamentals coaches, mental skills coaches, data analyst and video analysts. But there’s also been a larger focus on the strength and conditioning staff and — new this year — a nutritionist assigned to every team. Along with various rovers (mental health coach Drew Robinson was in Richmond for the last homestand, along with Giants’ Legend Joe Panik, for different kinds of support), the organization wants players to feel like they are fully supported in every aspect of their development needs.
As for what influence Putila might have on the player development process, that’s a little harder to say. As General Manager, his primary focus is on the major league roster, though the Giants strive for collaborative departments that reinforce the same messages to all players. I know that he’s big on the importance of traditional strength and conditioning, and that’s been a big focus of the organization for the last few years. But as far as strategy goes? Control the strike zone is the #1 strategy of this organization at every level — and I’d guess that will always been the #1 strategy so long as Farhan Zaidi is the President of Baseball Operations. Everything flows from his vision, and that core principle is absolutely what the player development people preach to all of the minor leaguers.
It’s really exciting to see Luis Matos turning things around. Has he been making hard contact too? A few of the highlights I’ve seen looked like gifts from the BABIP gods, so I’m curious about what it looks like outside of those.
I would say that you’re right on the BABIP gods remark. Although he turned and burned on a ball on opening day, most of the contact I’ve seen from Matos so far this year has been finding holes in the defense as opposed to knocking fielder’s gloves off.
Still, I don’t mean for that to sound like a left-handed compliment. Matos is the seventh youngest player in the Eastern League — and the second youngest player in the league is only about four months younger than him. Other than the ridiculously young Jasson Dominguez, Matos stands among the true neophytes of this notoriously difficult environment. And so far, he’s more than just holding his own. True, he’s not exactly raking balls all over the field, but he’s putting balls in play. He’s not striking out over and over again, as we’ve seen from much older players arriving in the league for the first time.
Remarkably, after his first month of Double A, Matos can say that he has walked twice as often as he has struck out. That is THE best BB/K ratio in the league by a long shot! Only one other player in the league has a BB/K of better than 1.5, and nobody’s matching Matos’ 2.0. Especially since seeing an improvement in his approach was such an important step for Matos to take, I’m giving him a big “LOOKS GREAT” mark on month #1.
With his bat speed and bat to ball skills, I’d expect the line drives to start coming with greater frequency. What he’s accomplished so far is more than just a good start. He’s putting together competitive at bats against pitchers much older and more experienced than he is on a daily basis. And that’s pretty great.
In the meantime, a little Magic Wandoo never hurt anybody.
I'm interested in the stories of how people who washout/retire from the system as minor league players without ever reaching the Show end up working for the Giants in other capacities. How rare is it? Are there any common themes to this career track? On a related note -- do a lot of them maintain informal contacts (in a sense, once a player you are always part of the family from the Giants point of view -- alumni without the burden of regular solicitations for financial donations)?
Barnaby, that’s a great question (though I don’t suppose any of those former players will enjoy that “w” word you used). Moving from player to coach (or other) without ever making it to the major leagues is not at all uncommon — indeed, it happens or a nearly annual basis! Just this spring, we saw Jacob Heyward retire from playing … and immediately become a manager of one of the Giants’ ACL rookie squads. This was, by the way, not at all surprising to me, as his coaches had raved about his communications skills and teaching skills with younger players. I had no doubt that he’d be asked to coach as soon as his knees no longer allowed him to take part on the field.
But Heyward is far from the only career minor leaguer who is part of the player development process. Indeed, if you look at the lists of the coaching staff, you’ll see very few former big leaguers (Travis Ishikawa, Dan Runzler, or Damon Minor being some notable exceptions) and very many who didn’t make it that far. That starts right at the top with Farm Director Kyle Haines, who worked his way up the Giants’ system as far as Double A before heading to some other organizations and then Indy Ball. Ultimately, through just those kind of informal lines of communication that you refer to, he found his way back to the organization, first as a lower level manager, and finally as Farm Director.
The Giants’ minor league coaches come from many different places, but there are quite a few who, like Haines, can claim to be former players in the system, who never got to their ultimate aim — Richmond Pitching Coach Paul Oseguera, Eugene Fundamentals Coach Eliezer Zambrano, ACL Pitching Coach Luis Pino, and DSL Black Manager Juan Ciriaco, who had one of the longest minor league careers in the org in recent memory.
As for common themes? That’s a little harder to say. Certainly, in this day and age, an openness to technology and data and new learning is absolutely crucial. Gone are the days of “accepted wisdom,” coaches need to be able to verify their notions in data — and they need to be constantly learning on the job, just as their players are. But ultimately, coaches are really teachers, so all of the things that make people good teachers find value here — empathy, good listening skills, the ability to communicate in ways that resonate with players. If you can communicate on a human to human level, you can probably make a pretty good coach.
And lastly, yes those informal networks are always there in baseball, and they work in all sorts of ways — not just in helping ex-players find coaching jobs. Riley Mahan is a player in the Giants’ organization right now primarily because his coach in Indy Ball, Mark Minicozzi, was an old teammate of Haines’ in the Giants’ system, and he kept texting his old friend telling him that Mahan should be in affiliate ball. Part of the reason Vaun Brown is in the Giants’ system is that his college coach was Lance Niekro, who still has relationships with old hands in the organizations.
These are the ties that bind, and the baseball world is very bound up in old friendships and collaborations.
Some SFG coaches, such as Brian Bannister, and previously Ethan Katz, Donnie Ecker, etc., are regularly recognized for their individual contributions to player development. Is it your perception that the quality minor league coaching is assumed to be more organization process/procedure than God-given individual ability? At least when compared to MLB coaching? Are there pitching and hitting coaches in the Giants' minor league system that get special recognition for the player development contributions?
I’m not sure I’d say that. Like all of minor league baseball, a lot of the success stories are hidden from widescale public view. The major league team is the daily subject of content generated by a whole host of media outlets that are going to shine their lights on every story of interest in sight. The minor leagues much less so. But I remember Brandon Crawford calling out Jose Alguacil for the help he provided a young Double A Brandon in becoming a Gold Glove shortstop. At its core, coaching is teaching and no matter how great the resources at hand, some people simply have the gift of teaching more than others.
As for special recognition, I guess I’d point out that Michael Brdar went from the Giants Minor League Hitting Coordinator in 2021 to the San Diego Padres major league hitting coach in 2022 (he then joined the Detroit Tigers staff for this year). Ed Lucas, who served as Brdar’s assistant in 2021 and ascended to Brdar’s position last year is similarly highly regarded in the industry. And I’ve heard “rising star” applied to a few of the coaches in the system, even at really low levels. It takes awhile for those careers to cook, but there are definitely diamonds in minor league coaching, just like in minor league playing.
Not a typical question for your mailbag, but always have been curious about the off-the-field aspects of minor league baseball. Can you share any behind-the-curtain insights: how do players spend their days when not playing baseball? Do they mostly hang out in the clubhouse? Is food provided for them, or do they cook for themselves? How do they manage coming from different backgrounds (high school, college, international)? Do guys have resources to help them learn English/Spanish or other life skills? Do they bus everywhere for road trips? How do they find housing/break current rent when they get promoted? The only thing I’ve got to go on is Bull Durham, and that’s pretty dated info by now…
This is a great question, Andy. But I feel like I’ve stretched this Mailbag to its limits at this point, so I’m going to wait until next week to answer it. BUT, in the meantime, I would suggest you listen to the There R Giants podcast interview I did with Laura Nuñez, the Giants Director of Education and Culture. Laura does great work behind the scenes with players and I think she will provide you with some of the insight you’re looking for on this truly fascinating question.
And with that, we are putting this week’s edition of the mailbag back up on the shelf. I know I didn’t get to everybody’s questions (this must be the way Kris Kringle felt back in the day!), but I promise to start next week with the ones I neglected and go from there. Keep on sending them in and I’ll try to keep delivering them back out.
In the meantime…..uh, you know….
Following up on the injury news, Marco Luciano was officially reinstated to Richmond roster today and Tyler Fitzgerald moved up to Sacramento. Yay Tyler!
Most Excellent, Roger, great stuff.