Yet Another Free For All Mailbag
Answering questions at a feverish pace!
My goal today is to be a little more “pitch efficient” so I can work deeper in the game and not leave a bunch of unanswered questions strewn around for my bullpen to clean up. Either that or today’s Mailbag will be extra long. We’ll see which one we get!
But first, your weekly reminder that There R Giants is supported by my wonderful subscribers, so if you like what you read today, why not become wonderful, too?
Now to the questions:
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…
I promised I’d start with this one today — but I do hope you went back and listened to that Laura Nuñez podcast I suggested last week, because she really does have far greater access to several of these questions than I do — particularly that knotty one of overcoming differences in background and language to establish meaningful relationships. There’s a degree to which this process is probably not significantly different from your own workplace — as small societies coming together and bonding for a mutual purpose brings a similar set of challenges everywhere. But there’s also probably a wider spread of background, education level, and life experience than some typical office groups will face.
Anyway, to answer your specific questions: off days are handled in a variety of different ways, depending on the individual. Because they spend such long days at the field for six days, many players just like to chill at home and relax, play video games, and what not in their day of rest. Others like to get out and travel and explore their six-month home a little bit. Again, like all groups of people, each individual follows his own star. Food is provided for players during their work days, including meals both before and after games (it takes a lot of calories to keep weight on as professional athlete, not a worry that most of us have for sure), but other meals (breakfast, third dinners) are up to the players to figure out (maybe those newly beefed up paychecks can help get something good this year).
In addition to team nutritionists, the Giants provide a wide variety of educational resources, as well as mental health professionals for players to use during the year. As of 2022, the team also provides housing, so figuring out where to live and how to pay rent has also been taken off the players’ hands for the most part (there is still the issue of finding housing for spouses and kids for the married players).
Lastly, yes, just like the days of Bull Durham, everyone piles on a bus together and travels from series to series, though, unlike some old timey movies, journalists are not part of the traveling party!
If some of the less shiny (but still tantalizing) prospects like Matos, Ramos, Bishop, etc, have more productive years, how likely are the Giants to use those players for trades? Or does it seem like the Giants will ride with their guys, in light of the emphasis on developing/promoting homegrown players?
I don’t think there’s any hard and fast rules on this within the organization — though I will say that Hunter Bishop certainly wouldn’t be a valuable chip in any kind of deal right now, so continuing to try to get him healthy and evaluate what they have with him is all they can really do for now in his case.
We do know, however, that Farhan Zaidi prioritizes the use of 40-man spots as potential production for the current season, not for seasons in the future, and he’s not keen on tying up a lot of spots that might be giving the current incarnation of the Giants some value in hopes of producing future value. So a player like Heliot Ramos is certainly getting closer and closer to the “Here Be Monsters” part of the 40-man, where players tend to tumble off into the Waiver Wire Sea. Though just 23, Ramos is in his third campaign in Triple A and on his second option year, and at some point, the team might well look at that spot on the 40-man as a source of potential upgrade if he can’t come up and give them some of the depth production they’re looking for (or even turn his Triple A fortunes around).
As for Luis Matos, he could well be in a similar position to Alex Canario if the Giants are successful enough over the first half of the season to be looking for trade upgrades. In 2021, it was always clear that Canario was likely going to be part of trade offers, clearing the 40-man spot he occupied for the player coming back in return (Kris Bryant, in that case). So, yes, I can see a scenario where Matos resurrects his Top 100 value with a strong half year in Double A and the Giants use that increased value as a trade chip — but I would stress that using him in a trade and looking to use him in a trade are two very different things. They might do the former, but I’m pretty sure they won’t do the latter. I don’t think they’re in any hurry to push him (or any of their prospects) off to other organizations — especially guys who can do all of this!
I'm curious about your thoughts about the Rule 5 protections for Randy Rodriguez and Jose Cruz over the last two years. What's the threshold to make this a successful strategy for a relief pitcher coming off a standout Low-A performance? My read: to become a high-leverage reliever early in their big league career (a very high bar). Not only are Rodriguez and Cruz taking up valuable 40-man spots, but they're also burning some of their three option years that Farhan has coveted for relievers. Clearly, these Rule 5 protections signal the Giants must've either felt these pitchers were close to MLB-ready (despite no experience beyond Low-A) or would quickly become impact relievers once they made the big leagues ... or both. Otherwise, they'd risk exposing them. When making the decision to protect Rodriguez and Cruz, where do you think the Giants set the bar for their outcome?
This question seems like an obvious follow up to the one above, since Rodriguez and Cruz, as you mention, are taking up valuable real estate on the 40-man right now and, as with Ramos, if the Giants feel they need more value or more options for the current club, then those are spots they might start to look at.
Obviously I’m not privy to the precise evaluation models the Giants use for their (and other clubs’) players, but I do think the calculation starts with the simple questions of: “how likely is this player to be selected?” and “how likely is he to be kept.” It can’t be repeated strenuously enough that clubs have much greater resources for answering those questions than those of us on the outside, like me, just sort of eyeballing performance and tools and winging it. Front Offices are more or less constantly having conversations with other teams (whether actively working on trades or just discussing theoretical ‘parameters’ to set up later conversations) and those conversations are crucial data points for how much the rest of the industry values players inside an organization. Beyond that, of course, the Giants have the sort of pitch data information from Trackman and Hawk Eye that allows them to measure a Rodriguez or Cruz up against the kinds of players they themselves are looking to acquire on the free agent or trade markets and behave accordingly.
There’s nothing teams hate more than losing valuable inventory, especially before they’ve had the opportunity to mine that value (in the most crass expression possible of how front offices legitimately tend to view the humans they have in their employ). So, while I don’t necessarily think the equation comes in the terms you’ve expressed (they have to be X by the time of Y), the team will look at the pitch data that a Rodriguez or Cruz is producing, and see a potential major league reliever that other teams could easily target and stash (there’s really nothing easier than holding onto a hard throwing reliever, which is where the vast majority of successful Rule 5 cases come from) and decide to protect him. Now, whether that player can continue to hold onto a 40-man spot is an entirely different matter, as we’ve seen over the past couple of years with Kervin Castro and Gregory Santos (now doing quite well in the White Sox’ pen).
The 40-man add is an opportunity to move quickly, but the player needs to follow that up on the field. Rodriguez hasn’t had the smoothest path the last couple of years, and isn’t throwing as hard as he was in 2021, so his spot could start to be tenuous. As for Cruz? Well, I’ll just remind you that Cole Waites started his 2022 in the Emeralds’ bullpen as well. Things can happen fast — especially with guys who have this kind of upper echelon stuff (and maybe that’s the quick answer to your question that I should have started with).
This might be a question better answered next week, or deeper in the season, but… Have you noticed (or have the players mentioned) a clear difference between the Tue-Thu ABS strike zone and the Fri-Sun human strike zone? You’ve mentioned that the ABS has a lower top of the zone - does that continue to be the case? Any other differences?
In the first couple of weeks, I heard players comment that the human umped games could be even more frustrating than the ABS games, as umps were being evaluated on the ABS strike zone and thus tended to constrain their own strike zone in response. Now the Fri-Sun games are featuring the Challenge system, so, in theory, the strike zones should be more or less identical, as players can use the ABS to determine the final ball-strike call if they disagree with the umpire’s view of things. I should add, if you looked at the video of the challenge system that I put in yesterday’s post, you’ll notice that that challenge was on a pitch at the top of the zone — the type we’ve seen called balls earlier in the year. Could they be recalibrating the system as we speak? Who’s to say?
I will say that, for all the attention the ABS’ small zone has received this spring, it continues to be the case that the Sacramento staff has walked far more batters than the rest of the league. Their 211 free passes is ten more than the second highest squad, and 26 more than the third. The Oklahoma City Dodgers have issued just 139 walks this year, fewest in the league. I suppose you could argue that the Giants’ pitchers might be at a disadvantage with a slightly lower zone, as the club prioritizes fastballs at the top, but it’s not like they’re industry outliers in that regard. As we’ve seen with Kyle Harrison’s progression, while the zone might have been a shock at first, pitchers just have to make the adjustment to it, find where the corners are and start dialing in on it.
What do you think of the Giants use of Hjelle (and now Beck) in relief roles ? Is it damaging their starting potential? Would Beck not be better off staying in SAC and starting and Waites getting the call up (accepting early season struggles)?
I understand early in the season limiting pitch counts in the minors but as the season goes on I hate not encouraging pitchers to pitch into the 6th or 7th inning, at least through the 5th. The 3rd or 4th time around a lineup is where pitchers really learn how to pitch and develop into winning pitchers. I know the metrics are against me but metrics includes all the pitchers, bad ones too.
Feels like these two questions go together and maybe I’m the wrong person to be answering questions about modern pitcher development. If you made me commissioner for a day I’d pass a rule limiting the amount of pitchers in a 9-inning game to one — maaaybe you could bargain me down to two.
Still, as much as I’m the proverbial old man screaming at clouds on this one, there’s no doubt that smaller pitch counts have been a continuing trend in baseball (really a steady trendline over the last century or so), and it’s not going to be stopping any time soon. The Rays, for instance, believe that there’s a clear degradation of stuff at right about the 80 pitch mark — and so they’re training their starters to be able to go 80 pitches and no more. Now some very smart pitching development clubs like the Dodgers and Guardians tend to stretch guys out more than that, but still, I think clubs are recognizing that developing a 200 innings starter is — while still the overall goal — something akin to finding a unicorn on a hike through the woods these days.
Farhan Zaidi has talked about having data that suggests that pitchers who ramp up quickly in April tend to see more degradation of stuff by the end of the year, which is why he says the club is being very conservative in their pitcher usage this spring. When and if we’ll see those four inning starts become five or six is a good question —but I doubt we’ll be seeing very many seven or eight inning starts at any point.
As for Tristan Beck and Sean Hjelle’s usage, I would say that, as was the case with Sam Long, what we’re seeing is the result of an evaluation of their potential as starting pitchers, rather than a strategy that is harming their potential. I’ve written repeatedly that Beck is a major league arm, and I think he’s proven that there’s value there. But back in my Rule 5 preview of him last fall, I also noted that his profile is a fairly fungible one of an up and down depth starter, and I think that continues to be the case. Eno Sarris’ Stuff+ model has Beck’s stuff rated as 93.5 so far in the PCL, with 100 being calibrated to a major league average level of stuff). There are starters in the majors who can succeed with that, but generally they have better than Beck’s current 89 Location+ numbers. Stuff+ tends to be meaningful at around the 40 pitch mark (though Location+ is much less “sticky” or a meaningful predictor than Stuff is).
Hjelle hasn’t pitched enough at the Triple A level this year to appear on the model, but he rated highly on it last year — in no small part because release point and approach angle are parts of the Stuff+ model and it loves weird looks. Still, Hjelle has always flashed good stuff. The first time I saw him, back in 2019, he was throwing 96 in the 1st. What’s always been an issue for him is maintaining that quality of stuff past 2-3 innings of work.
It feels like what we’re seeing with the Giants is that at the Triple A/MLB levels, they make a determination as to whether a guy is going to be a starter deserving of regular rotation work or not, and, if the answer is “no,” they look to other usage patterns to maximize whatever value they are going to get out of the player. You might well say that comfort, routine, and more reps will allow these guys to get better over time, but the Giants, as noted before, tend to look at what 40-man guys can do to help them in the short term.
Kent
I don't know how much you follow other MLB teams and organizations via their local media coverage; when I travel on business, I read the local news coverage of MLB and MiLB teams. My perception is that the local coverage of some organizations is relatively optimistic/supportive (Arizona, St. Louis, Atlanta, LA) and other places the media coverage is at the other end of the spectrum (Boston, NY, Philadelphia). I am an unapologetic "homer" when it comes to the Giants, and it is difficult to tell where the Giants' local media coverage falls - do you think the local media coverage of the Giants is "homerish", the opposite, or somewhere in between?
Having lived in Boston, I can tell you the Bay Area media is certainly nowhere close to that “shark tank” end of the spectrum. I’m not sure I’d call it homerish exactly, but it certainly does tend to be a milder, gentler form of coverage than the “attack, attack, attack” style that is famous in the northeast cities. That’s not to say that Bay Area sports coverage can’t get nasty at times. Glenn Dickey was famous for waging wars of words on local players he took a disliking too (I still remember when he decided it was a good idea to encourage the fans at Cal to boo a poor undergrad off the football field) and there have certainly been others who viewed hot takes as the key to glory and riches (including the king of hot takes himself, Skip Bayless, who called Northern California his professional home for a, thankfully, short period of time).
This isn’t to suggest that the folks who cover are locals are soft journalists or incapable of asking hard questions — Tim Kawakami and Andy Baggarly are, I think, experts at asking difficult questions in a non-confrontational manner. And Susan Slusser is literally a legend among her peers for a reason. But I do think the approach is to let the athletes tell their stories and give them space and fairness — and to understand that the job they’re doing is fraught with difficulties of every kind — rather than hammer on athletes for their perceived failures.
There seem to be questions about whether Casey Schmitt will hit for much power at the big-league level. He hit 21 last season in under 500 ABs (granted he had fewer in Richmond), and even hit a couple in Spring Training this year. He’s a big guy and young players often seem to develop more power as they get deeper into their 20s. So, given all this I’m curious why there is so much doubt about his power potential. Is it really that unlikely that he could be a 20-25 homer guy once he matures in the big leagues?
Unlikely? Not at all. Certainly not as unlikely as Mike Yastrzemski managing the trick or Thairo Estrada appearing to be on the road to doing so. But scouts are paid to look and pick apart and project, and this is the question that many in the industry have about Schmitt and have had for awhile.
Indeed, Farm Director Kyle Haines has brought up this question on Schmitt’s scouting report to me, noting that it goes back to his college days. The Giants’ PD people had ideas when they drafted him for getting more loft into his swing, and feel good about the progress that he’s made on that score — as you note, he hit 21 HR in 2022. Schmitt generates a lot of hard contact to all fields — he’s a very good opposite field hitter — but doesn’t necessarily get out in front of the plate and swing to elevate balls. He’s much more of a line drive hitter — and a good one.
There were a good number of studies last year regarding the effect of the less bouncy baseball on power numbers, and one of the primary conclusions was that all fields approach type hitters suffered more from the new environment than straight pull hitters. In fact, whole teams — the Cardinals is the best example — went to a philosophy of trying to increase their hitters ability to pull balls, using specially weighted bats to help the process (it’s the reason why I’ve started including pull percentage in my stats updates).
What kind of hitter Schmitt will end up being, and how much of that hit profile will include power are the outstanding questions scouts in the industry still have about him. So, “unlikely?” Not at all (I still remember Ray Durham’s 20 HR season!). But “open question?” Yes, that seems fair to say. Given his glove and hit tool, it’s a question that he’ll likely get to spend several years in the majors trying to answer.
Ok. Need to go to lightning round answers now before this Mailbag turns into an entire Post Office!
Two questions: 1. What adjustment (if any) should we be making to college guys' numbers in Low-A? Especially thinking of older players like John Bertrand, Carter Howell, Matt Higgins, or Tanner O'Tremba, basically anyone born before 2000.
2. Does it concern you that San Jose has just 7 of your top 50 guys and nobody above #29 Gerelmi Maldonado? Does this mean the current wave of guys in AA/AAA need to have a good amount of success, because the next wave is maybe underwhelming? Or is it too early to tell?
Generally, for older players in Low A, I’m not paying too much attention at all to stats UNLESS I’m hearing scouting buzz on a player’s tools to go with those stats. The pitching in Low A since the minors were reorganized is just too low level to get excited about stat lines from 24 year olds. Last year’s breakout from Vaun Brown was coming with extreme buzz from scouts who saw him (not as old, but the same was true with Grant McCray), which was why his performance boosted his status so much for me. In this year’s case, I haven’t gotten very enthusiastic returns from scouts I’ve spoken to on the older position player group in SJ.
As for your second question, it’s true that there seems to be a lull in the position player prospect wave at the lowest affiliate, but to me this is far less of a concern than the lack of real prospects at the upper levels has been the last few years. It’s much more important to me that Sacramento and Richmond are loaded in high upside guys. True, you don’t want a lag to continue for multiple years at the low levels, but adjusting the top/bottom balance in favor of the top for a year or two isn’t a bad thing.
Given that the big team is having problems in the bullpen, who are the arms you see as most likely to be looked at as an in house solution? As of now I know they pulled up Cole Waites regardless of his somewhat dicey start to the year
From the 40-man, you have the potential to use Keaton Winn in the mix. Rodriguez and Cruz, too, are already on the roster, but I wouldn’t think they’d be viewed as short-term solutions.
Off the 40-man, I would say that Ryan Walker and Chris Wright have done the most to put their names into the mix, with Jorge Guzman in that group as well. Nick Avila and Melvin Adón are both possibilities for later in the year as well. R.J. Dabovich has had health and (related) performance issues, but if he gets healthy he could throw his hat in the ring as well.
Why is Blake Rivera repeating AA or at the very least, why not get a call-up when he’s dominating that league?
And, on that note, what’s with Vaun Brown’s rehab process? Luciano jumped right to AA—why does Brown need to make stops in A ball?
As was the case with Wright, Rivera was sent back to Double A because he simply walked too many batters last year (about 4.5 per 9 innings, or one every other inning). That’s the prism through which the Giants view most PD, so it’s the thing every player needs to work on to get ahead. So far this year, Rivera’s made excellent improvements on that score, though he did have a wobbly two-walk inning in his last appearance.
As for the second question, this is pure speculation on my part, but I think that Luciano simply got more reps at the plate than Brown did before being activated, leading the Giants to believe he was more ready to handle upper level pitching (and Luciano’s at bats have been quite good). The thing that kept Luciano back in extended spring longer was an inability to play in the field, caused by both his back issues and a nagging shoulder. Brown was on a later recovery time frame, not getting live at bats or game ABs until about 10 days to two weeks later than Luciano, but probably getting into the field earlier. That would be my best guess as to why the two have had different paths coming out — but again, that’s purely speculation on my part.
I've often heard that only 8-13% of guys in the minors make it to the major league level. Including what you've seen this spring, if you could try to identify the 10% of players across all levels that have the best chance to make it to the majors at some point in their careers, what are the areas of strength of this subset of players (not the entire organization)? And alternatively, what are the areas of need from this group (not positionally, but attributes, e.g., left handed power, etc)?
I actually think the number is a bit higher than that (closer to 16-17%), and it’s growing all the time, thanks to the way teams have started using their 40-man as, essentially, an extended green room for relief pitchers, who make up by far the greatest number of major leaguers at this point in time. So, to answer your first question, the area of strength for guys who have a chance of one day donning the orange and black is likely that they throw out of the pen, and have either a high velo fastball with good characteristics, sweeping slider (or sweeper), or a change with split finger action.
As for the second question, left-handed bats in general and, yes, left-handed power would probably be my answer. Or maybe it would be my second answer, with “not enough hitters” being my first.
Great to see the footage of Crawford (Reggie version). Have the Giants given any indication of when/if we might see him in SJ?
Not yet. But I’d assume that we are going to see a very limited amount of innings from him this year, so it probably doesn’t worry them much if it’s later in the season than fans would probably care to see.
Latest MLB Pipeline mock draft has the Giants taking SS Matt Shaw (I'm still tipping SS Tommy Troy from Stanford) - do you see 2023 reversing the last couple of years and being position player heavy? And who is your pick at this early stage?
I think the team really does need to get some more position player talent, so I wouldn’t be surprised to see a more balanced approach to hitters in this year’s draft — though with the caveat mentioned in a previous Mailbag that modern data modeling has a tendency to push pitchers up boards.
My early pick? Well, it’s mostly always a high school shortstop, right? I mean, if Farhan can have a type, so can I! If he gets to the Giants (I don’t think he will), I think Arjun Nimmala is my early favorite. More likely targets are probably Colin Houck (who I might peg as an early favorite for Giants’ pick) or Adrian Santana. I like both of those kids. (Matt Shaw, of course, gets my Terp Seal of Approval, though I’m not sure I’d take him quite that high).
How about a quick look behind the curtain, i.e. how does Rog make the There R Giants sausage? Do you look at the completed box scores and then scan through game video for certain performances? Or do you actually watch four affiliate games every day? And when the Squirrels are home and you are in attendance, I imagine that raises the difficulty lever several positions too? Anyhow, your labor of love is much appreciated by all of us here.
Wow, that’s an interesting question. It really does begin with just watching (or listening to) as many of the games as possible. On a week like last week when I’m going to the Richmond games, I’ll spend my ~2 hour drive back home jumping back and forth between the Sacramento, Eugene, and San Jose radio casts (unless the Giants are on too — they’re always the first priority), and if there happens to be a day game, I’ll watch it in the Richmond press box before the Squirrels’ game begins.
If I’m at home for the week, I’ll frequently have a game on my TV and another on my laptop. My patient wife is well acquainted with me cutting highlights off of the laptop during our Friday night/Date night games of “Wingspan.” For the games that take place after I go to bed and before I sent out my post, yes a quick perusal of the box score, game reports, and maybe some first person accounts on Twitter will help guide me to the most efficient approach to whipping through the games I missed without missing my (self-imposed) deadline by too much. It’s kind of a whirlwind to be honest, and sometimes in the morning when I hit “publish” on a post, I feel like I’ve just finished running a morning race! Hopefully, it all comes out as a value for you folks who support me and let me spend my life in this crazy fashion!
Patrick Bailey has become a fascinating case for the organization. Based on the coverage by you and others as late as heading into spring training, it seems shocking that he’s already earned a Triple-A promotion. Some thought he shouldn’t even get assigned to Double-A until he mastered High-A pitching! Farhan & Co. must’ve had much more conviction about Bailey’s offensive ability than analysts did. And now, the narrative has morphed into a big league promotion this season seeming “inevitable,” in your words. What explains the gap between the Giants’ and analysts’ views of Bailey heading into the year? And more importantly, what’s the likelihood the Giants stick to the old adage of a prospect needing several hundred upper minors at-bats before reaching the bigs? I sense you’re concerned Bailey might be getting fast-tracked prematurely. Especially in light of Joey Bart’s rocky first few years in the show, I hope the Giants give Bailey ample time to refine his game without the pressure of the brightest lights.
Oh lord, there’s no quick way of answering this one…. Guess I’ll have to make it the first question in next week’s mailbag. If you want to be the second or third, drop your questions in the comments below and I’ll see you all back here next Tuesday!
Andy, minor league players are given a weekly “food allowance” to help with meals outside of the ballpark. They are given housing UNLESS you are on the 40 man, then you are on your own. Odd, I know.
Wingspan is a favorite in our house as well...