"We've Reached the Quarter Pole" edition of the Free For All Mailbag

Photo Credit: Richmond Flying Squirrels

We are less than a week away from Memorial Day, and, by game count, we’re more than a quarter of the way through the 2025 minor league season. There’s less than a month to go till the end of the first half in the A-ball levels. Things are moving fast!

Good thing we have the weekly mailbag to take a beat and try to assess what we’re seeing fly by. You’re wondering what it all means, and I’m …… mostly here to wonder with you! And, every now and then add some clarity. Let’s crack open the bag and get to your questions.

HaakAway

I got to see Carlos Gutierrez's four-hit game in Stockton Tuesday, and saw a rarity when he got his first HR! I see SFG signed him as an 18-year-old Free Agent from Mexico. Who gets credit for spotting him?

Gutierrez was part of the Giants’ international free agent class of 2023 (the one that was topped by Rayner Arias), so credit for his signing goes to Joe Salermo’s department of international scouting. And, indeed, if you go back to my original roundup of that crop of IFAs on January 15, 2023, Salermo told me then that they viewed Gutierrez (who had signed a five-figure bonus) as a plus athlete that the Giants believed had a real chance to hit. So far, their beliefs seem founded, as Gutierrez, though often kept off the field by health issues, has a .355 career batting average over parts of three seasons (in about 250 PA).

The Giants don’t actually employ an area scout for Mexico in their international department, instead relying on international cross checkers along with some cross-over collaboration with Michael Holmes’ amateur scouting department. Amateur area scouts will pick up some of the amateur Mexican players in youth baseball events in and around the Texas region. The same year the Giants signed Gutierrez, they also signed a young catcher out of Mexico named Jorge Ramirez, who hasn’t yet really shown the development the Giants had hoped for. And the previous year, they had signed slugging 1b, Guillermo Williamson, who has progressed up to High-A in the years since. So, Mexico is something of an emerging market for the Giants’ international work at this point, I’d say.

Now, they need to pick up some of the burgeoning talent coming out of Europe — and I know that Joe Salermo is interested in that area of the world as well.

Griffin Longstreth

Hi Roger! Long time listener, who have you enjoyed watching the most this season so far? What are some pleasant surprises down on the farm?

That’s a great framework for thinking about the season thus far, Griffin. Thanks for asking! Let me start by echoing John’s comment above, it has been a real hoot to see Gutierrez performing so well with San Jose. I’ve always been high on his swing, but I didn’t anticipate him jumping up to full-season ball this year after playing just three games at the complex last season when back woes kept him off the field (and just 25 games total over his first two summers). To see him jump up to the Cal League and perform at such a high level has been possibly the most pleasant surprise of the year for me so far.

And then, virtually since the first day I got to Papago Park in March, Dakota Jordan has been both a joy to watch play (in all facets of the game) and a very pleasant surprise. I caught a little of Jordan last summer after he was drafted participating in the so-called “Bridge League” (essentially an unofficial continuation of the ACL), and at that time he was really having trouble picking up spin. The Giants worked on getting him into position to see balls better and earlier, and I think he’s relaxed and slowed down the process internally, and the results have really been pretty sensational this spring. Buster Posey and Zack Minasian have talked about well-rounded athletes who can help a team win in multiple ways — and there aren’t many players in the organization who bring more game-changing tools to the field than Jordan, so it’s been exciting to see him really advance and develop his game skills this year.

Bo Davidson’s continued development has definitely been fun to see this year — his swing just looks tighter all the time, and he has some real man strength to impact a baseball. It’s also been good to see the Giants prioritizing getting Davidson reps in center field, after he spent most of 2024 in left.

And a few other quick hits: I wouldn’t say that I’m surprised by the performances of Jakob Christian or Zander Darby, as I liked what I saw from both of their swings last summer, but it’s definitely been gratifying to see them get off to strong starts in their career. I have a question on Walker Martin below, so I’ll get into him a little later, but I’d imagine it brings a smile to everyone’s face to see him starting to enjoy some success.

I would also say that I’ve really enjoyed watching Jack Choate pitch this year. Not to harp overly on what he can’t do rather than what he can, but I’m just fascinated to watch the kind of swings that Choate can garner from high-level professional hitters. Blowing guys away at Double-A with a fastball that often (maybe mostly) registers in the 80s just isn’t something I’m accustomed to seeing, but Choate does it routinely and I love it! I’m not sure what to make of his success entirely, but he is a pleasure to watch perform.

And then, not to overlook the basics, watching Bryce Eldridge hit is a rare kind of pleasure that I haven’t been afforded all that often (and can’t enjoy too much of). I know that, after this weekend, I’m going to hear a lot of people who want to see him promoted immediately (one level, if not two). Selfishly, I’m hoping to see him work in a batter’s box for a good amount of the summer yet. He’ll get to San Francisco in due time, people!

Speaking of those last two, both Eldridge and Choate will be featured in my podcast episode this week, so look forward to that.

Aaron Girard

Any reason why Trent Harris is still at Double-A? It’s not like he’s young. Pretty sure I can find a few guys he could bump from the roster.

I’d say one legitimate reason for Harris still being on the Double-A roster is that he’s only thrown 11 innings this year, and that’s just not a lot of information on which to base major decisions. In March, the people in charge of the organization looked at Harris and determined that the place he fit best was Double-A, and nine games and 11 innings doesn’t necessarily change the equation very much.

As fans, I know we really are impatient and just want to see guys pushed forward at as rapid a pace as possible. But that leads us into highly reactionary thinking. I know I have questions in my mailbags from just last month asking how long it would be until Jairo Pomares was promoted off his hot start — and here we look up near the end of May and see him hitting just .193. It can be very difficult to separate out the wheat of development from the chaff of a hot streak.

That’s less true with pitching, of course, where data on pitch shapes and movement profiles are much more meaningful than pure performance. And Harris does have one of the system’s better pitches in his 12-6 curve ball. Still, when a player moves up from Double-A to Triple-A, it’s a really meaningful step.

The move to Triple-A (with the exception of those roster logistics moves where the kids from A ball have to drive up to cover the bench for a couple of days) is a move that says the organization would be comfortable if they had to use a player in the majors. That’s really what Triple-A is: a level of players who could be pressed into duty in San Francisco in a pinch (remember the COVID seasons? Bane of Sporcle players everywhere? Kevin Padlo, we hardly knew ye!) While Harris isn’t necessarily young in age, he’s still relatively inexperienced because he was a two-way guy for most of his college career. So, it’s not that crazy to let him continue to gain some experience at this very important and challenging level.

As for guys on the roster he could replace — I assume you’re talking about Sacramento, since the idea that he would be better than anyone in the Giants’ outstanding bullpen is a little far-fetched just now. It’s quite possibly true that Harris would perform better than some of the guys in the Sacramento pen, but I don’t know that it is certain that he would. His curve is a really good pitch — one of the best in the organization — but his fastball wouldn’t necessarily stand out among a pretty hard-throwing bullpen in Sacramento.

And more importantly, they’re all there for a reason. Joel Peguero, Helcris Olivarez, Antonio Jimenez, Ryan Watson — those guys all have really good stuff as well. And they’re all players that the Giants want to evaluate and see if they might have a future in the organization. And, in those guys, the Giants only have this year to evaluate them, as I believe all of them will be minor league free agents next fall. With Harris the club has more time, as there aren’t any clocks ticking loudly in his case.

The bottom line is, the major league club boasts one of the best and deepest bullpens in the majors this year, and the Triple-A squad is stocked with depth options both on (Tristan Beck, Sean Hjelle, Carson Seymour) and off the 40-man roster. So there really isn’t any pressing reason to push Harris upwards. If you get into the depth of the summer and he’s still rocking a 0.00 ERA (or something close to it) and striking out the world, then there’s a serious conversation to be had by the higher ups. But I really don’t see the point of releasing somebody potentially interesting off the Sacramento roster at this moment just to rush Harris up a level. There are valuable things to learn in Double-A that 11 innings doesn’t necessarily teach you.

Henrique Goncalves

Hi Rog, hope the assignment went great!

Can we dream of a Nico Hoerner outcome for Diego Velasquez? Quality contact, decent speed, a little bit of power and good defense? I ask because Hoerner actually had fewer HRs and SBs in the Minors than he does in the Majors, and he’s quite bulkier than Diego.

I’m not here to stop you from dreaming Henrique. Have at it, by all means! My positive outcome comp for Velasquez has tended to be Adam Frazier, but Hoerner is more enjoyable, I think, if only due to his Stanford connection. Though he was considered a low upside type of hitter, Hoerner has ended up having the best career so far of all the 1st round picks taken in 2018 — by a lot!

And I can see the connection. Velasquez has outstanding bat to ball skills from both sides of the plate, has put up decent stolen base numbers in the minors, and plays well enough to have stuck in the middle infield thus far. You can definitely visualize an outcome where he’s a productive, contact-first 2b in the major leagues.

I think the two big things that Velasquez will have to focus on to get to such an outcome as explosiveness (particularly in his feet) and just the nuances of the game in all regards. Scouts have always made some sort of Marge Simpson-esque grmrmmm sound when talking about Velasquez’s quickness and lateral movement. He’s going to need to stay attentive to his physical strength and “baseball skills” quickness in order to be fast enough for the big league game. The difference between getting to the bag on time for a feed and getting there a step late is the difference between making double plays and not.

And then, Velasquez will need to refine all of the aspects of his game. It’s not unexpected or unnatural for him to be raw in his game at this point — he’s only 21, after all. But it is noticeable that he does tend to make baserunning mistakes with some frequency at this point. To get to a Hoerner-level player, he’s going to need to be solid in all phases of his game — and that’s an aspect of player development that the stat line doesn’t really illustrate.

Velasquez could conceivably get to an outcome as a Hoerner type — and as my 2018 draft line above illustrates, that would be a fantastic outcome — but he has significant improvements to make across his game to reach those heights. That’s what player development is all about.

Henrique Goncalves

It seems like something has clicked for Walker Martin. Any clues to what happened? (Obviously a lot of effort, repetition, and hard work, but any noticeable changes?)

Lyle

Imagine that it is February of 2028, and you’ve been in Arizona for a week checking out the Giants’ prospects. What position(s) have you seen Martin playing?

One thing Martin has emphasized to me when I’ve spoken with him is the importance of a good prep routine. That’s important for every player, of course, and a lot of player development has to do with players finding the right way to “go about their business,” as they all say. But Martin placed particular emphasis on this when we talked — he really wants to feel prepared for what he’s going to face when he takes the field, and gives the impression of a serious man who wants to know he’s done everything he could do to meet the moment. He’s maybe not the type of player who could “fall out of bed hitting,” but maybe more like a Mike Yastrzemski, who needs to work and study and prepare and think his way to success.

This isn’t terribly unusual for a player who really didn’t face a very high quality of arms as a high school hitter, but I did get the impression that perhaps Martin was a little taken aback at the power of the professional game, even at the lowest levels. Now that he’s had some time to get used to — and maybe catch up to — that power, he’s starting to get to the skills that the Giants were so high on when they spent a lot of their draft capital on him in the 2023 draft.

As for noticeable differences, there are some subtle mechanical changes, but nothing too dramatic from what I saw in back in March of 2024. Slightly open stance, with just a slight crouch. He’s doing more of a top tap than a full kick these days, but, as I say, it’s subtle. I think the biggest difference is the thing that Bryce Eldridge mentioned when I brought up Martin’s recent success: confidence.

Last year, it really looked like the game was speeding up on him a lot. He just seemed a little tense or apprehensive when entering the box — a closet’s worth of golden sombreros can surely do for a 20-year-old. But, even though a lot of Ks are still there in his game, he looks more confident in the box now — as if he’s really hunting to do damage. Half this game is 90% mental, you know! And I think having the experience of 2024 behind him and seeing more and more reps is helping him get more comfortable and confident in the box and ready to follow his plan. That’s the biggest change for him, I’d guess.

As for Lyle, if it’s February, 2028, I’m probably going to be lounging around my house, since minor league camp mostly gets going in March. But if we’re talking about my trip to Papago in March of 2028, I’ll guess that I’m watching Martin play 3b.

Jason S

Thanks for linking the Robert Riggins blog post! It was an interesting read and thought process, but what was most interesting to me were the questions he posed in his conclusion. Are there any organizations that have been able to improve the swing decisions of hitters? And what’s sort of the prevailing opinion on the ability to improve swing decisions?

I guess the first thing to say is that, whenever we’re talking about “organizational successes” when it comes to player development, we should always remember that we’re talking about a small percentage of successes. Most development stories will always end up in failure — just because there are very few jobs out there and most minor league players are not going to succeed at taking one. So, you find clubs like say the Mariners being lauded over their great pitcher development success, based on….what…four players, right? Logan Gilbert, George Kirby, Bryce Miller, Bryan Woo. Two of those guys were 1st round picks (and Gilbert, a pretty high first round pick). Do something four times as an organization and you’re great at it! That’s the way this game works.

With that as a backdrop, I’d say that pretty much all 30 clubs have focused on improving swing decisions for their players over the last decade or two, and anywhere they have successfully developed players, they probably have made some positive movement there. Mostly, teams try to educate players through access to data — here are your hot spots, here’s what you hit when you stay inside the strike zone and what you hit when you go outside of it. Knowledge is a powerful weapon, and teams are focused on arming their players with that weapon.

And there are positive stories. When I talked with Christian Koss last year in Richmond, he knew perfectly well that success or failure for him was a matter of swing decisions. He knew he hit the ball hard when he made contact, and he knew he made the least contact when he chased balls outside the zone. His failures in the Red Sox organization were entirely about swing decisions.

More generally, there are plenty of organizations that have preached the gospel of controlling the strike zone and optimizing the BB/K ratio. The Giants certainly did under Farhan Zaidi. And I think we have seen players like Tyler Fitzgerald and Heliot Ramos make subtle improvements in their approaches at the plate, even if the strikeout rates continue to be high. I think in both their cases, swing decisions are a constantly evolving process, not a static one that is achieved and perfected and left alone forever.

I know that Riggins, in his conclusion, asked why hitters’ decisions didn’t tend to improve over careers, but I’ve seen data that suggested that for players who survive a long time in the majors, they do improve over time. That’s essentially what “old man skills” are in baseball. There’s an ongoing battle between the physical skills, which are declining from around the age of 26 or 27 on, and the learned skills, which are improving throughout a player’s career. Experience teaches players things that keep them making adjustments and in the majors until the physical decline is too much to overcome.

Perhaps Riggins wasn’t focusing on just those who survive long careers in the majors — because there’s a huge selection bias in looking at that pool alone. Perhaps, the special skills that allow players to become part of that particular selection pool include an enhanced ability to refine nano-second decision making.

Eric Walker

Here is a repeat of the sempiternal question: what do you see as the future for Wade Meckler? We know he is not a power hitter, but then neither was Rod Carew. Are his (somewhat mysterious) injuries killing his chances at a major-league future? Inquiring minds want to know...

I don’t know if there’s anything mysterious about his injuries (which have been mostly soft tissue things: wrist soreness and a couple of oblique strains), but regardless, they certainly can’t be helping him any, I wouldn’t think. He’s missed a significant portion of the past two seasons — and played barely any games at the Triple-A level appropriate for him, all while his options clock continues to tick away. He did, however, just begin a rehab assignment in the ACL last night, so there’s reason to hope that he’ll be back in Sacramento soon.

The long run of injuries is certainly a concern though. Meckler isn’t a particularly big guy, and he is also the kind of player who brings great intensity and effort to his play — he throws himself around out there. As was the case with another of my favorites, Ismael Munguia, there is always the question of whether a small body can stand up to the power and strength and pounding of the contemporary major league game, especially when played with abandon. The more times he visits the IL, the more the questions begin to lurk in the mind.

I discussed this with Bryce Eldridge last week (in a conversation that will be coming your way today or tomorrow). The “job” of professional athletes involves pushing their bodies to their physical limits — hopefully, pushing them to the bending point, not the breaking point. But that sort of effort will always involve guys going over the ledge at times. And we know that the greatest predictor of future injury is previous injury — not only because the body is weakened in some respect as a result, but simply being away from the field over enough time has a negative impact on athleticism. We can only hope that Meckler’s injury luck will begin to turn his way at some point.

We hope this because he is obviously a really gifted hitter. And he’s the type of gifted hitter who might play very well at Oracle Park — a contact-oriented hitter who can spray line drives into the gaps and run like the wind. There are elements of his game that he still needs to improve — he’s not naturally gifted at going back on fly balls, and the weakness he showed against breaking balls in his brief major league debut has continued to rear its head somewhat in Triple-A. That’s why the lost reps really hurt, because time away from the field is taking him away from opportunities to improve those aspects of his game — something he swore to me last year on the podcast that he was going to do.

One good thing in Meckler’s advantage is that, though this year looks like it will be his third option year, he does, by rule, have a fourth one coming (the Conor Gillaspie rule gives a fourth option year to any player who uses up his three options before having played five seasons in pro ball), so the clock isn’t sending off an alarm bell just yet. He’s dealing with a muscle strain now, but that shouldn’t be a season-ending issue, so there should be plenty of action waiting for him in 2025. Let’s all hope that once he gets back on the field, he’ll stay there for a while.

(That said, I have my doubts that we’ll see him in Cooperstown, like Carew).

Duncan Tweed

Hi Rog

You have discussed previously how a pitcher can be one tweak away from a new profile, whether that be something like adding velo or a new pitch (e.g. Hayden Birdsong's now famous kick change). Are there any pitchers who might have added a wrinkle since last season that we should be watching out for?

Amusingly, I know a lot of guys have experimented with the kick-change since Birdsong broke out with it. I’ve checked in with a couple this spring to ask how that experiment was going, and the consensus answer seems to be that Birdsong has some freaky hand strength going on, being able to manipulate that pitch the way he does. One man’s open path is another’s slammed door.

But anyway, to your question: let’s see…new wrinkles. Carson Seymour is experimenting with a couple new pitches, a slower curve and a harder cutter. At least, he was in spring training — sometimes these experiments come and go quickly! Seymour has also finally begun to use a windup this year, after working exclusively from the stretch in previous seasons.

Carson Whisenhunt has continued to refine his breaking ball, and I think has it in a pretty good place at this point. I’ve mentioned this before, but the slider is a really important pitch for Whisenhunt, not just because it gives him an elusive third pitch, but because it’s the only thing he throws with glove-side movement. He doesn’t have to throw it a ton (though he used it about a third of the time in his last start), but using it regularly can keep right-handed hitters from eliminating the inner half of the plate and focusing on the outer half. That’s important for him! (He’s also throwing a lot more strikes this year, which is a great sign).

Shane Rademacher has been getting a much higher rate of chases on his fastball this year, almost entirely up at the top of the zone, and I will reverse engineer cause from effect and assume that maybe he worked on adding rise (or Induced Vertical Break, IVB) to his fastball this winter.

One change that I would like to see is Trevor McDonald going back to the larger pitch mix that he used in his breakout seasons. Over the last two years, he’s really been winnowing down what used to be one of the larger repertoires in the system to a steady, two-pitch, sinker/slider mix. It’s been effective for him, but I’m an advocate of larger pitch mixes.

And I guess I should wrap up by saying that pitch mix changes are seen, more and more, as the simplest way to make a real tweak to a pitcher’s game — and it’s relatively easy to monitor pitch mix usage for Triple-A players on Baseball Savant. The identifications aren’t always correct, so don’t take it as gospel. But you can get a decent idea of what pitchers are working on by looking at the pitch mix in the “Player Breakdown” section of the Baseball Savant game feed pages for Sacramento (which I link to in every Minor Lines game summary for the River Cats). You can even find information in there on velocity, spin, and movement for a particular game relative to a pitcher’s season average. It’s a goldmine of great data to dig into.

Josh

Any word on what's happening with James Tibbs III lately? Seems like he started out hot and has just completely fallen off.

Hi Josh. I’ve written about this a bit lately, and I really think we’re dealing mostly with sample size gremlins here. The underlying process stats are simply too strong not to believe that the hits are going to start falling for Tibbs sooner or later. He’s been walking more than he strikes out all year, and, according to a recent Baseball America article, that’s fully supported by his excellent in zone contact (87%) and chase rates (18.9%).

Tibbs has also exhibited strong Exit Velocities this season, with a 90th percentile (EV90) of 106.1 mph. Finally, according to that same BA article, he’s even showing a solid launch angle (15.8°) on his hardest hit balls (over 95 mph).

That’s a lot of pretty great news, and it all makes his current .242 BABIP number a little hard to figure out. He’s doing everything right at the plate, getting into good counts, making excellent contact, and hitting the ball hard. That should all lead to strong results. Obviously, those results haven’t been there recently, but a 4 for 5 night on Friday (complete with a homer and two doubles, one of which was a laser beam off the tip-top of the fence) showed what that package could look like.

That’s not to say that there aren’t things to work on, obviously. Tibbs does have a high ground ball rate (60%), which explains some of that low BABIP. And it seems like some of that hard, elevated contact is going the other way, which doesn’t always produce the same results as pulled fly balls.

But, from a process point of view, Tibbs is doing a lot of things right so far this year, and I would guess that over the length of the summer, we’ll see his numbers reflect the good process more and more.

Small Winged Yeti

(I understand that it's still early) In your observation, what are some ideas or practices in the context of player development that were introduced by the previous administration and have continued in the current one? Especially ones that maybe not very prevalent industry-wide?

Hm…. that last phrase makes this a little hard to answer, Yeti. I think most of the process changes that took place in the previous regime really had to do with getting the Giants up to industry standard on things like technology and data. They’ve put Hawk Eye systems in all of their facilities, they’ve created pitch labs and hitting labs. They’ve utilized force plates and super slo-mo cameras and have portable Trackmans accompanying just about every bullpen session at every level. The completion of the state-of-the-art Papago Park facility really locked high-tech learning and development processes into place for every player in the system.

And all of that has remained, of course. Every player at Papago Park disappears at times into the mysterious “shed” where all sorts of biomechanical wizardry is performed and analyzed.

And there are all sorts of little gizmos that have come with this. You can’t watch a group of pitchers on the field anywhere without seeing a bunch of plyo balls hanging around. Hitters hit off foamballs (something Riggins actually took some exception to in his piece), and experiment with ear plugs and ocular devices and Virtual Reality helmets and pitching machines that mimic major league pitchers. All of that remains — because it’s all the stuff that professional development demands these days.

But none of that is particularly non-prevalent in the industry. To be honest, Yeti, I can’t think of any place where the previous regime put itself out on an island and the new regime chose to hang a hammock outside the hut. Perhaps the most notable move the Giants made in player development in recent years was the rather extreme curtailing of innings for starters — but even that was little more than an exaggeration of what most other teams are doing — and that, of course, has been one of the changes that the Posey-led Giants are swerving hardest away from (check out Whisenhunt and his four consecutive starts of seven innings, or the Richmond club coming one out away from using just two pitchers to get through a double header last week).

And that’s the bottom of the bag, so I guess it’s time to shut down the post office for the week. I’ll have the normal Stats Review out later today (with the ACL game wrap) and a new podcast coming tomorrow. And there may be a new KROG coming sometime this week as well. All of this work comes courtesy of my subscribers. I can’t thank you enough for supporting my work and allowing me to bring it all back to you!