Day 2 of the MLB Free Agent draft had it's ups and downs with a few picks that I had been hoping for and a few that I'm scratching my head about. Let's take the roll call:
Round 2(74). Jarrett Parker, OF, L/L Virginia: Parker fits the John Barr pattern of drafting a player who many saw as a first rounder in the pre-season but who fell due to poor performance. Parker's upside is undeniable. I just think he's going to have a tough time controlling the strike zone in the pros with that long, lanky body and equally long swing. Think Roger Kieshnick with less power! Not that the next 8 guys taken in the round include anybody I'd want to trade Parker for.
3(105). Carter Jurica, SS, R/R, Kansas State: I hadn't heard of Jurica before his name went up as the Giants draftee. I looked up his numbers at Kansas State and he can definitely play hitting for average and some power with basestealing speed. If he can stick at SS, he's a player. Was projected to go in rounds 6-10 by many analysts, but his numbers aren't anything for him to apologize for in round 3. I kind of like the pick! I probably like Leon Landry, who was taken a couple of picks later, better than Jarrett Parker, and I would have loved Rob Segedin who went the the Yankees at 112 in either round 2 or 3.
4(138). Seth Rosin, RHP, Minnesota: Love, love love this pick! Tremendous size, excellent velocity, good secondary stuff and great, great command. Pay no heed to his W-L or ERA. Look at those secondary numbers and read the scouting reports. This is at least a Supplemental round talent in round 4!! This must be where Barr had to take a potty break and Tidrow took over the draft for a couple of rounds!!
5(168). Richard Hembree, RHP, College of Charleston: Typical Giants scouting pick here. Didn't pitch many innings and had an ugly ERA of 6.52, but also has great size, a fastball that gets up to 98 MPH, and a K/9 of 13. This year's Jeremy Toole.
6(198). Mike Kickham, LHP, Missouri State: 6'4" 205 lb LHP's don't grow on trees. Again, the W-L and ERA aren't pretty, but the K/9>9 and the BB/9<3 look mighty impressive. Another Giants scouting coup? Despite the presence of John Barr, there is still a dramatic difference between their ability to scout bats and arms. I shed a tear when my man Gauntlett Eldemire went to the Phillies a couple of picks later.
7(228). Charles Jones, CF, R/R, HS: I don't know much about this guy, but like his size and apparent athleticism. We'll see if the Giants can get him signed.
8(258). Joe Staley, C, S/R, Lubbock Christian U. Don't know anything about this guy. I'm guess he's just organizational roster filler, but we'll see.
9(288). Christopher Lofton, CF, L/R, Jones County JC: Never heard of this guy either, but if he's Kenny's kid, I'm on board!
10(318). Daniel Burkhart, C, L/R, Ohio State: Nice BA/OBP, but no power. Lefty hitting catchers have value.
11(348). Adam Duvall, 2B, R/R, Louisville: Nice size, some power, some speed. Odds are against him as a college senior.
12(378). Stephen Harrold, RHP, UNC-Wilmington: College closer with only a few IP. K/9>9. I'll trust the Giants scouts on this one. BTW, Austin Wilson finallly went to the Cards with the next pick. I think you can count on him being headed to Stanford.
13(408). Mark Christman, RHP, Univ of South Carolina- Sumter: I don't see this listed as a D1 school. No reports.
14(438). Raynor Campbell, IF, R/R, Baylor: .335/.390/.496, 7 HR, 12/20 SB's. College Senior. Screams Roster filler.
15.(468). Andrew Barbosa, 6'7", 245 lb, LHP, U South Florida: I called this one as soon as I found him pitching for South Florida. A White Whale that I've been chasing for years now, and apparently some Giants scout feels the same way. This is the 3'rd time the Giants have drafted him! He'll probably be a bust because he seems to get injured a lot, but I just can't turn away from that ceiling. 8-2, 2.40, 86.1 IP, 22 BB, 95 K's. Now, let's get him signed this time already! I love this pick!!
16(498). Austin Fleet, RHP, Coastal Carolina: Coastal Carolina's closer. 6-1, 2.53, 57 IP, 17 BB, 54 K's. Looks like a great value in round 16.
17(527). Ryan Bean, RHP, Edmonds CC: 6'4", 225 lbs. Sold on size alone! Don't have any other info.
18.(558). Brandon Allen, RHP, HS: 6'6", 190 lbs. The scouting video had him at 86-87 MPH, but he sure looks projectable. HS prospects drafted this low rarely sign, but the Giants seem to always pick off 1 or 2.
19(588). Austin Southall, CF, L/R, HS: Another HS kid to take a mid-round chance on.
20(618). Brett Bochy, RHP, Kansas: I know the clowns over on the sfgiants.com message board are having a field day with this one, but Bochy Jr. is a serious bullpen arm prospect, and the old man knows a thing or two about bullpen arms! Young Bochy was Kansas' closer before going down with TJ surgery. Here was his line: 2-0, 0.78, 5 saves, 23 IP, 7 BB, 34 K's. He should be ready by next spring. Good solid pick at #20.
21(648). Zachary Arneson, RHP, Cal State Bakersfield: Didn't pitch much this season and without success. I'm pretty sure the Giants drafted his bro Jamie once upon a time. I don't think they signed him. There must be a scout who sees something here.
22(678). Robert Haney, SS, L/R, U South Carolina, Columbia: The Giants obviously scout the Carolinas heavily. Don't have any info on this guy. College senior.
23(708). Alec Asher, RHP, HS: 6'4", 215 lbs. Sold on size!
24(738). Kyle Wilson, 3B, S/R, NC State: NC State's top hitter with a line of .368/.498/.541 with 7 HR, 12/13 SB's. I like this pick. College seniors seldom make it, but this guy might be an exception.
25(768). Brett Krill, RF, R/R, UCLA: Ooh, I just looked at his scouting video and I like this pick a lot! At 6'4", 225 you might think he's too lumbering to play OF, but he's just a big rawboned kid who moves surprisingly well for his size. He looks mighty good swinging the bat in the batting cage too! Hit just .290 this year, but the Pac 10 has a lot of great pitching. You never know. He'll probably never develop the hit tool, but look out if he does!
26(798). Jeff Arnold, C, Louisville: Unimpressive college stats except the 16/19 SB's. Probably worth a flyer at this point which is about all the picks from about #15 on are anyway.
27(828). Eric Sim, C, R/R, U South Florida: Hit just .252 this year. Maybe he's Andrew Barbosa's best friend on campus that drafting him is the price for signing Barbosa? Just a thought! Other than the Giants penchant for hoarding catchers, can't think of any other good reason to draft this guy.
28(858). Gaspar Santiago, LHP, Ranger College: Not gonna lie. I've never heard of this guy or of Ranger College. The Giants have found pitching in the most obscure places though, so got take him seriously.
29(888). Jose Cuevas, SS, R/R, Lee U: After typing all this out, I'm ready for a Jose Cuervo(just kidding). Again, have no clue about this guy or his school.
30(918). Ryan Bradley, LHP, Southern Illinois U Carbondale: Seriously, if they are already drafting kids from places this obscure what will tomorrow bring?
Overall, I'd give this draft a C+. Not a horrible 1, 2 but not what I was hoping for either. Seth Rosin and Andrew Barbosa are redeeming features. Signing a couple of the HS kids could raise the grade considerably in the future.
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Apparently Baseball Draft Report rated Jurica the second best college SS behind Christian Colon, for what it's worth. I'm liking this pick better.
ReplyDeletehaha, I taught at southern Illinois/Carbondale.
ReplyDeleteThanks for all the observations. I look forwards to your draft analysis every year. I'd agree with your C+ grade. I am always hoping they would go after the un-signable players, filling up their draft board with Boras clients and players they would have to go the extra mile to sign.
Well, if you are going to go after the unsignables, then you better find a way to get them signed.
ReplyDeleteI haven't had the opportunity to follow the draft live as in recent years, but that is probably just as well, since I have been doing a lot of who? and huh? looking over the Giants draft list. I'm ok, but not overjoyed, with the picks of Brown and Parker, since they are both somewhat flawed picks, but pure speed and athleticism is something that has been lacking in the system for a while. Jurica has the makings of a possible sleeper. And the pick of Rosin has the makings of a possible steal. After that, who knows? We will really need to trust the analyses of draftniks such as Andy Seiler, Jonathan Mayo, and others to see what they think of the Giants draft since there seem to be a great number of pure scouting picks this year. I'm anxiously awaiting the draft evals to come out.
ReplyDeleteI may be totally off base, but I'm not sure if a conservative June draft means a more aggressive presence in the international draft. They will have some expiring contracts at the major league level and possibly more money to spend than in years past. There are also rumblings about a possible posting of Yu Darvish after this season. It would be hard to imagine the Giants competing with the likes of the Yanks and Bosox, but if the Reds could land Chapman... ahhh, wishfone can only dream.
I think part of the problem with this draft is there are flaws in players drafted all the way up into the top 10. I think that's part of the reason you saw several obvious signability picks in the first round. Teams just don't want to shell out top 10 or top 20 money for flawed prospects. In another year, Brown and Parker would be bigger disappointments, but this year they are no more flawed than many picks who were taken higher. Heck, I had Brown going all the way up at #10 to the A's in my mock draft, but what do I know?
ReplyDeleteThe more I read about Jurica, the more I think this was a very solid pick in round 3 and Rosin was a guy I would have been satisfied with in round 2.
I have analysis on my site about Bobby Haney, Chucky Jones, Ryan Bean, Chris Lofton (no, he's not Kenny's kid), Mark Christman, Alec Asher, Gaspar Santiago, Jose Cuevas, and Ryan Bradley if your readers care to read about them in more depth. http://www.22gigantes.com/2010/06/giants-2010-draft-results-rounds-1-25.html
ReplyDeleteI never get too up or down about a draft because I just don't know enough about the players and have rarely seen them play...All the gibberish from "scouts" and blogs (notthat this site is gibberish) and self proclaimed individual experts just adds to the confusion....I just wait and see what happens....
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I have no problem with the Gary Brown pick..if all I read is correct, he is the perfect player for SF and Mays field...but his happy feet do scare me...
The only other thing I could add is that I have had season ticklets to UVA baseball for the past few years and have seen alot of Jarrett Parker...Love watching the kid play..a great athlete..very good fielder...fast as hell..but an inconsistent bat...but when he hits, he can hit for power and average....Loved him 2 seasona ago but, as the reports indicate, he did not have a good Cape Cod summer and had an inconsitent 2010...sounds alot like BRANDON CRAWFORD and his UCLA years..Bottom line, he can go either way....if he can get his hitting in order, i think he can be wither a CF or corner OFer...We'll see...
Great rundown, thanks DrB!
ReplyDeleteThere is an article on sfgiants.com on their draft picks and it starts with an interview with Charlie Jones. He sounds excited to start his pro career and see where that leads him: "... said Tuesday he expects to accept San Francisco's offer after he was scheduled to talk with Giants officials later that evening.
"I'm pretty sure. I'm going to go ahead and report and see how that works," Jones said. "I'm ready to go play some pro ball."
At 7th round, picks get between $100-150K, with last year's 7th round, 24th pick getting that $150K, most were in the $100-125K range, though there were a handful of overslot guys signed for much larger bonuses. The High Schoolers were split in two camps: those getting big money and those getting basically $125K. Jones seem like he's a $125K guy, the Cards called to say he was going next when the Giants selected him out of the blue (he had no idea), and he was excited, so I don't think he had any expectations of going much higher. Plus, he's committed to a community college (albeit the one that Albert Pujols attended) so wouldn't that mean he's not tied to college?
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100609&content_id=10975244&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf&partnerId=rss_sf
There is also an article on yer man, Barbosa.
http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100608&content_id=10970480&vkey=news_sf&fext=.jsp&c_id=sf&partnerId=rss_sf
We already have Peguera and Ford in the system, now add Brown and Parker? I like that they are concentrating on speed, but all at the same position?
ReplyDeletetwo things. The last time I'm aware of that the G's went after an 'unsignable' player it was Ishikawa. I really appreciated that. I'd like to see more of it.
ReplyDeleteThe other is that I like how the Giants are focusing on developing a type of position player, its like they have a focus on a 'type' for the first time that I can remember. For a long time they have concentrated on (as Dr. B says) big lanky wild fastball pitchers. And they have had success. I'd say they are continuing with that and building a team sort of like the mid 80's Cardinals around the pitching. I wouldn't mind seeing that.
Wow! Thanks for all the comment, people. Keep 'em coming!
ReplyDeleteI'm very excited about Charlie Jones. Sounds like he's very signable and could have a real high ceiling. Sounds like a potential Thomas Neal clone. My one worry would be a 17 year old who already weighs 230 lbs. Could turn into a weight problem down the road.
I agree that Parker's situation reminds me a lot of Brandon Crawford. It certainly fits in the John Barr's drafting philosophy and pattern.
I believe the thought with all the CF's is that you collect CF's and some of them will eventually move to the corners, but then you will have superior defense at the corners. Kind of like most MLB closers are converted from being starters in the minors.
I would also add that Brown actually played more infield than outfield in college, so if there is a need at the infield, he could move there.
ReplyDeleteAnd neither Peguera or Ford are sure things to become CF. Think of them as lottery tickets with low odds of winning. The more you have of them, the more likely you are of finding a winning ticket.