Sunday, May 9, 2010

Down on the Farm: 05-09-2010

AAA Fresno Grizzlies slapped the Salt Lake City Bees 12-4:

Brock Bond- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .333.
Jesus Guzman- 3 for 5, HR(3). BA= .237.
Buster Posey- 2 for 3, HR(4), BB. BA- .345.
Brett Pill- 1 for 3, 2B, BB. BA= .313.
Tyler Graham- 1 for 2, 2B, BB. BA= .533.
Joe Martinez- 7 IP, 7 H, 4 R, 1 BB, 7 K's, GO/AO= 9/3. ERA= 4.09.
Steve Edlefsen- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 1.53.
Waldis Joaquin- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 0.00.

Bond is replicating his season from last year in AA. Buster Posey keeps raking. Tyler Graham seems to have moved into a starting CF role. Is McBryde hurt? Good start for Joey. SLC is a very tough place to pitch and the peripherals are strong. Looks like there are options on the farm if the bullpen needs a makeover.

AA Harrisburg Senators outscored the Richmond Flying Squirrels 6-3:

Brandon Crawford- 2 for 3, HR(3), BB. BA= .229.
Roger Kieschnick- 1 for 2, 2 SF. BA= .278.
Craig Clark- 5 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 1 BB, 3 K's. ERA= 4.76.
Dan Turpen- 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 3.31.

Good game for Crawford. Let's hope this is the start of a hot streak.

High A High Desert Mavericks doubled up the San Jose Giants 8-4:

Juan Perez- 3 for 5, 2 2B. BA= .301.
Charlie Culberson- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .242.
Francisco Peguero- 2 for 5, SB(15). BA= .280.
Brandon Belt- 2 for 4. BA= .407.
Eric Stolp- 4 IP, 9 H, 5 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 5.03.
Brian Anderson- 2 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 0.00.

Juan Perez is having something of a breakout year. Peguero seems like he's starting to heat up too hitting .333 over his last 10 games. Stolp has just never shown any consistency at any level or any role. Brian Anderson is back from what I believe was TJ surgery!

Low A Augusta Greenjackets shaded the Hagerstown Suns 6-5:

Luke Anders- 2 for 4, 2B. BA= .287.
Sharlon Schoop- 2 for 4, 3B. BA= .326.
Ryan Lollis- 2 for 4, 2B, SB(3). BA= .296.
Jorge Bucardo- 5 IP, 3 H, 2 R, 1 ER, 5 BB, 7 K's. ERA- 2.53.
Jose Valdez- 2 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 0 K's, GO/AO= 6/0. ERA= 2.60.
Jason Jarvis- 1.2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K, Save(7). ERA= 3.07.

Not much to comment on here.

5 comments:

  1. doc,

    i know you dont want me coming here ragging on bochy or sabean...but what is one to do when one reads something like this?

    from baggs, in his interview with sabean on what is going on with posey

    “Triple-A baseball isn’t very good,” he said. “I’m going to tell you that right now. Especially from a pitching standpoint. Anybody who can pitch is in the big leagues. Most of the prospect arms, the stuff that really can neutralize hitters, are at Double-A. You look at what some of our (struggling hitting) prospects are doing there.

    “So these guys (like Posey) are facing Four-A pitching, and you better have a lot of people see ‘em at different times and write their reports and almost have a straw poll of private ballots. Because I don’t know what it means anymore, in the PCL. It’s almost like years ago.”

    remind me again why this man has a job as an mlb gm?

    one thing for a fan to say things about aaa players, quite another for the gm.

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  2. doh,

    just noticed...anderson is finally back

    guess being away for 2 years takes him out of the prospect label

    but i wish him all the luck in the world

    before his injury, the kid had lights out closer written all over him

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  3. Bacci,

    I actually agree with everything Sabean said there. PCL hitting stats are ridiculous and don't translate well to the majors. Now, I might draw a different conclusion than he does. IMO, Posey should have spent some time in AA Eastern League which is much more pitching friendly and would have toughened him up a bit. I tend to believe hitting prospects have it too easy in the PCL West and if they stay there too long, get into bad habits. I'm not sure what the solution is. Probably for now it means that almost any hitting prospect coming up from there is going to have a significant adjustment period and the team will have to be more patient with them. I think they want to minimize the time hitting prospects stay in Fresno rather than having them skip AA.

    Again, just my opinion, but Brian Anderson was a good minor league closer. I don't see him as ever having been a MLB closer prospect. He had a FB that topped out at about 90 MPH and a nice slider. In other words, Tim Worrell lite. Maybe TJ has added a MPH or two to the heater?

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  4. Thanks for your daily rundown; my place to go for MiLB info on the Giants!

    Prior to the move to Richmond, AA, I think, screwed with players minds as much as AAA, because nobody could hit with power in Dodd Stadium, no matter what they did, for a number of years. You could see it in the split stats.

    Richmond had a neutral park before, so I'm hoping that continues with the Flying Squirrels. Still, as DrB noted, AA is a strong pitcher's league and now that the home park is hopefully not a black hole for power, I agree that playing there would toughen up hitters better than AAA for the majors.

    Hitting is so easy in AAA that there has to be hitters who are super confident coming up to the majors and the struggle once they realize that almost every pitcher in the majors have an out pitch rather than the situation in AAA where almost none of the pitchers have an out pitch (other than maybe relievers) because if they had that pitch, they wouldn't be in AAA much longer.

    I was wondering what happened to Brian Anderson. Good luck to him! I liked him but as DrB noted, he didn't have the fastball stuff you normally want to see in any pitcher rising the ranks, so he was never a top prospect, let alone a "lights out closer" prospect. He was one of those pitchers who would do well at a level then you cross your fingers when he rises to the next level. Most times you say "oh well" when Murphey's Law kicks in, as most don't ever amount to anything in the majors, let alone a "lights out closer".

    I did not think of Tim Worrell, good comp, but I thought he could have become a useful reliever in our bullpen. He was getting close and still doing well, so I had hope, before he blew out his arm. Thinking more about it now, maybe he's more like Romo?

    Anyway, TJ appears to at least not harm guys velocity (Wilson and Joaquin retained their speed) and I do recall hearing of others who claim increased speed (though I don't recall who).

    Sabean is a good GM, who has made some mistakes which blinds many fans to the overall job well done in putting together the club, particularly the pitching staff (reading comments about this, one would think that only hitters count as a prospect, that pitchers don't count). The club is in a good position to make the playoffs and, as I've been noting for a number of years now, has the pitching to get them through the gauntlet that is the MLB playoffs and get us that World Series championship finally.

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  5. More on Anderson: BA ranked him 19th in 2007 and 26th in 2008 among Giants Top 30 prospects. No "eye-popping stuff", fastball high 80's, can cut it, very efficient in getting outs, so he could pitch often (ironic since he went TJ after these comments). He's not afraid to pitch to contact as well as being efficient, and yet also struck out a lot of batters. Weak against lefthanders though.

    Seems like as long as his arm is back to normal, he should be OK in the minors. Looks like they are starting him slow - he was in AA and ready for AAA when he was operated on, but now starting out in Advanced A. They probably will be aggressive in promoting him as long as he is doing well, but unaggressive in pushing his arm in terms of usage, though I was surprised by the two innings.

    I wouldn't think of him in a major league role until 2011 at the earliest, he needs to get back in the flow of things, plus then do well at it, and get promoted back to AAA. That should take most of this season unless he adds a few mph as DrB wondered and starts blowing away batters big time.

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