Down on the Farm: Fred Lewis Prospect Retrospective

Fred Lewis was one of my favorite prospects in the Giants system for a long time. Perhaps no prospect in recent Giants history has had as much of a polarizing effect on Giants fans as Fred Lewis. Even with his trade out of the organization, the debate rages on in the blogosphere. Interestingly, opinions on various sites seem to be fairly united within the site, but polar opposite from the consensus on other sites. For instance, fans who post frequently on the sfgiants.com message board are virtually unanimous that Fred was a terrible player and his trade is addition by subtraction. Meanwhile, the trade is being greeted on mccoveychronicles.com with weeping an gnashing of teeth. The McChron crowd has been so into Fred Lewis for so long that they have been jokingly accused of all being Fred's relatives! Let's take a look at his career in the Giants organization:

Lewis was drafted in round 2 of the 2002 MLB draft, #66 overall out of Southern University at age 21. He was an athletic player who had concentrated on football up to that point, so in terms of baseball experience he was still much like a high school draftee. He signed right away and had a good first pro season for Salem-Keizer in the Northwest League: .322/.396/.397. Moved up to Low A Hagerstown for 2003 he struggled to a .250/.361/.336 line. Some fans, including me, noted that the SAL is a pitching friendly league and that Fred had put up a good OBP of .361, or an IsoOBP(OBP-BA) of .111 which is excellent. The folks at Baseball America were unimpressed quoting an unnamed coach in the organization as saying Fred drew a lot of walks "by accident." Brian Buscher, who was a teammate of Fred's at Hagerstown, was cited by the same publication as having a much more "advanced" approach at the plate even though Buscher's OBP was a pitiful .318 and he had an OPS of just .638 compared to Fred's .697.

The 2004 season found Fred Lewis moved up a notch to High A San Jose where continued to show excellent on base skills and much improved hitting to go along with it: .301/.424!/.451 with 8 HR's and 33 SB's. I saw Lewis early in the 2004 season and he looked skinny and awkward at the plate, reminding me of a young Willie McGee. Later in the year, he had filled out his frame considerably and had a much more aggressive stance at the plate. A late season promo to Fresno went well also with a .304./429/.478 line in 6 games.

The 2005 stop was AA Norwich, where Fred and several other Giants prospects struggled mightily to hit. Fred emerged from an early season slump, which may have been affected by the bad weather in the Northeast, to post a mildly disappointing final line of .273/.361/.396 with 7 HR's and 30 SB's. 2006 at Fresno was better, but still a bit disappointing considering the favorable hitting environment in the PCL: .276/.375/.454 with 12 HR's and 18 SB's. A late season callup went well with 5 hits in 13 AB's for the SF Giants.

2007 found Fred back in Fresno where he showed off his power for the first time with a .292/.366/.550 line with 8 HR's in 58 games. A midseason callup to SF was wildly successful as he hit a grand slam HR and hit for the cycle within a few games. Fred's final 2007 MLB line was .287/.374/.408.

Many fans thought Fred should have a starting job nailed down for 2008 on the strength of his MLB debut, but the Giants had other ideas and brought in the veteran CF/leadoff hitter Dave Roberts with Fred occupying the bench to start the season. Roberts got hurt early on though, and Fred played in 133 games with 468 AB's putting up a fine line of .282/.351/.440 with 9 HR's, 11 triples, 25 doubles and 21 SB's.

Perhaps overly enthusiastic about his emerging power, the Giants ordained Fred to be their starting LF and #3 hitter going into the 2009 season. Unfortunately, he slumped early. The Giants tried to move him back to leadoff to take advantage of his on-base skills, but Fred complained publicly that he had prepared all offseason to hit #3 and didn't feel comfortable hitting leadoff. That apparently bought him a ticket to the back of the Bruce Bochy's doghouse and he played only spottily in a bench role after that. His final 2009 line was a greatly disappointing .258/.348/.390, but once again, his OBP and OPS were among the highest on a very weak hitting team.

Defensively, Fred Lewis had a penchant going all the way back to his minor league days of muffing easy looking plays, which brought down the wrath of many fans who also grew frustrated with his perhaps overly patient approach at the plate which resulted in a lot of called third strikes. Of course that same approach also led to a relatively high OBP, but you tend to remember the looking K's that end a rally longer than the walks that result in a LOB. Interestingly, newer defensive metrics such as UZR rate Fred as an above average fielder. While he makes a few spectacular gaffes in the field, he also uses his speed and athleticism to make successful plays on a lot of balls that other OF's would never get close to.

While John Bowker showed that a player can dig himself out of Bochy's doghouse with a terrific spring training performance, Fred Lewis wasn't able to do that as his play was again inconsistent and he came up with an minor injury late which forced a trip to the DL and a rehab stint in Fresno. While you could certainly make a case for the Giants to keep Fred Lewis around and give him more chances, the roster is crowded with playes in similar boats. In the end, Fred was not able to build a compelling reason why he should be given a chance over several others including Nate Schierholtz, John Bowker, Eugenio Velez and Andres Torres. Torres probably has the least future of all those names, but he has proven himself to be a useful bench player who can help in more ways than Fred including batting righthanded against LHP's.

Fred Lewis was one of my favorite Giants prospects for several years. I am sad that he ultimately failed to be in impact player for the Giants. While I feel that he could have become that with more patience from Giants management, I can't say that he would have gotten more of an opportunity with anther organization. He will clearly be a backup in Toronto, although typical of Fred's career, he would have been starting tonight except he arrived too late and will start the first game of his Blue Jays career sitting on the bench.