BA has posted it's 2010 Draft Report Cards for all teams. They don't rank the overall drafts except for the top 5, what they do is break it down into categories for each team:
Quick Take: The Giants intended to get more athletic i.e. Brown, Parker, Jurica. Usual stash of power arms. Possible sleeper in Chuckie Jones.
Best Pure Hitter: Gary Brown
Best Power Hitter: Chuckie Jones
Fastest Runner: Brown
Best Defensive Player: Brown
Best Fastball: Heath Hembree- 94-97 peak at 99. Clean arm, ideal pitcher's body.
Best Secondary Pitch: Mike Kickham- Power breaker with depth, more of a curve than slider. FB up to 94.
Best Pro Debut: Austin Fleet and Chuckie Jones
Best Athlete: Brown, but Chris Lofton merits mention.
Most Intriguing Background: Lofton had planned to transfer to Alabama-Birmingham to play football cornerback. Brett Bochy is Giants Manager Bruce Bochy's son. College Closer, low-mid 90's FB, solid slider. Had TJ surgery during the college season. Should be ready for Spring Training.
Closest to Majors: Brown
Best Late Round Pick: Stephen Harrold- FB 90-92, average-plus slider.
One Who Got Away: Austin Southall, round 19.
The Giants didn't make the top 5 on Best Draft, but placed several players in top 5 in several categories:
Best Draft: Indians, Red Sox, Blue Jays, Rockies, Nationals
Fastest Runner: Gary Brown #3.
Best Defensive Player: Brown #2.
Best Athlete: Brown #5
Best Pro Debut(High School): Chuckie Jones
Only 1 Giants question in the chat: Jarrett Parker has tremendous raw power. Had a lot of swings and misses in college. (We already knew that). Are the Giants getting better at developing hitters?
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Thanks again for keeping us informed, Doc. As fans we have a lot of hope for the future, the immediate (Game 6), the short term (2011), and the coming years. I'm beginning to feel better about the Brown pick. Jones could be a mid round multi-tool prize like Kemp was for the Fodgers, but we have to be patient with him. I'm confident we will get at least a couple of useful bullpen arms from amongst Hembree, Kickham, Fleet, Harrold and Little Big Head.
ReplyDeleteFortunately, there are few, if any immediate needs in the pitching staff at the MLB level. There's not much help that's likely to be ready within the next year or two. There are a lot of intriguing arms in the lower minors that might break out any time.
ReplyDeleteOn the offensive side, if Belt's success carries over into next season, he could be the starting first baseman by mid-2011 or Opening Day 2012. I would put Thomas Neal's ETA as 2012 and I think Brown can move very fast . Could be the starting CF as early as 2012. Peguero is in there too.
I think Peguero and Brown make and intriguing compare/contrast. They are both very similar players and should be ready about the same time.
There is a large contingent of intriguing position players in the low minors who could break out any time led by Chuckie Jones.
The Giants are obviously very good at identifying good pitching, and developing them. Recall the Giants drafting Sanchez in the 27th round, and Wilson in the 24th(?), and then pegging these two to be key parts of the team long before there were any data to support their (the Giants') faith in these players.
ReplyDeleteFor position players, I think the Giants started to have some success in identifying players in 2002 with Lewis and Ishikawa. I can make the argument that they did a good job in identifying Nate, Ortmeier, Linden, Buscher, etc as potential major leaguers, but the Giants did a poor job of developing the players' potential. I think we should be grateful for the Giants for not screwing up the Posey pick.
With Belt and Culberson, and to some extend, Neal, the Giants seem to have turn the corner in developing position players, turning two lightly regarded prospects (both were considered overdrafts by the pundits) into potential solid major league players.
Of course, I am only discussing offense. As we have seen in the recent games, defense is pretty important. I am impress that the Giants have a line of Gold Glove caliber first basemen in Ishikawa, Pill, and now Belt. Did the Giants help develop the players' defensive skills, or did they come into the system with it (e.g. drafting Jackson Williams, and Brown for their defense)? The seemingly lack of progress by Culberson/Gillaspie on the defense side seem to suggest that the Giants should invest resources in this area.
I think a certain amount of defense is innate, a "tool" if you will. When you watch Culberson and Gillaspie play, their movements on the field just aren't smooth, athletic, natural like you see from Adrianza, for instance. That doesn't mean they can't be major leaguer or play adequate defense. Jeff Kent was much the same way and he was a decent defender. Like Kent, though, Culberson and Gillaspie will go as far as their bats take them. They'll never make it as late-inning defensive subs.
ReplyDeleteGreat post DrB. I agree with all your points, including in the comments.
ReplyDeleteGiven my research into the draft and how they turn out, I am right now of the opinion that really, no team knows how to "develop" hitters (I think it can be argued that at least the Giants know how to "develop" pitchers, from what I've read about how they have worked with their pitchers). The draft is all about position and then mostly luck. If you can pick up a hitter with a Top 5 pick, that's all the luck you need, but after that, it seem pretty much like a crapshoot.
If there is any organization that appears to know how to develop hitters, I would have said that it was Cleveland, they stole/got a lot of good hitters but then they traded for Andy Marte and (blanking out) that 2B from SD for Kouzmanoff, they got hosed in that one, and I think they were the ones who picked Brad Mill, who everyone was targeting for the Giants when they selected a pitcher instead.
OGC:
ReplyDeleteI guess I disagree with you on luck playing a major role in getting a good position player. If that is true, from a pure statistic standpoint, you would think the Giants would "luck" into at least one solid player between Matt Williams to Posey.
The emergence of Belt appears to be an example where an organization can adjust a player's batting stance, and get the improvement necessary to succeed. Also, can patience be taught? There seems to be far fewer "hackers" in other organizations than the Giants (e.g. A's, Braves, Phillies?).
It certainly seems like plate discipline should be a learnable skill, but I'm becoming less and less convinced that it is all that learnable, at least beyond the earliest formative years in a player's career i.e. high school. It just seems like the more I study prospects, the more I see the vast majority not changing their approach very much, no matter what organization they are in.
ReplyDeleteBelt already had everything but the power when the Giants drafted him. They tweaked his stance and swing a bit and when they added the power to a package of good contact and good plate discipline, they had a very nice prospect package.
Big test will be to see if he keeps it up next year.
I don't know if you want hitters up there looking to walk. What you want is a hitter to recognize good pitches to hit and, more importantly, bad pitches to hit. I'm not sure how much that is teachable. I would say Bam Bam might have made a little progress with that approach this year, except with Pablo who still looks pretty lost up there.