AAA Fresno Grizzlies mauled the Round Rock Express 10-5:
Justin Christian(CF)- 1 for 2, 2B, 2 BB, SB(4). BA= .383.
Conor Gillaspie(3B)- 2 for 5, HR(4). BA= .364.
Brock Bond(2B)- 2 for 3, 2 BB. BA= .395.
Nick Noonan(SS)- 2 for 5, 2B. BA= .317.
Todd Linden(1B)- 3 for 5, 2 2B. BA= .261.
Scott Munter(RHP)- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 0.00.
George Kontos(RHP)- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 2.18.
Heath Hembree(RHP)- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 1 K. ERA= 3.77.
He's baaack!! Herman's brought his bowling ball back to the Giants organization. How many times is this? Free Brock Bond! LOL!
AA Richmond Flying Squirrels outlasted the Harrisburg Senators 1-0 in 14 innings:
Chris Heston(RHP)- 8 IP, 5 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 6 K's. ERA= 0.71.
Kevin Pucetas(RHP, Senators)- 3 IP, 2 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 5 K's. ERA= 1.88.
It's downright comical the difference in league factors between the PCL and the EL.
High A Visalia Rawhide topped the San Jose Giants 8-3:
Not much to see here. Luke Anders and Adam Duvall homered.
Low A Augusta edged the Savannah Sand Gnats 3-2:
Clayton Blackburn(RHP)- 6 IP, 7 H, 2 R, 0 BB, 10 K's. ERA= 4.94.
Derek Law(RHP)- 2 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's. ERA= 2.41.
Cody Hall(RHP)- 1 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's, Save(9). ERA= 2.08.
Love the dominance were seeing in Blackburn's secondary stats. There was a fascinating article in Beyond the Boxscore about how a high K/BB ratio might lead to a higher BABIP(several very good pitchers have shown that characteristic). While there are obvious advantages to pounding the strike zone, there may also be advantages to being "effectively wild." The Giants have tended to the latter under The Sabes/Tidrow/Righetti regime.
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Really concerned about Giants skills to develop hitters. Brown, Panik, Peguero all struggling badly after more than a 1/4 of the season has been played. Not buying into Noonan and Kieschnick, PCL stats are meaningless.
ReplyDeleteOn the positive side, Blackburn and Krick have been dominant in their last 3 starts. With Kickham coming along nicely in AA.
Why isn't Osich pitching?
Read an article on Fangraphs talking about the 2011 Oklahoma High school drafted pitchers who have future 1-3 starter potential and Blackburn name not even mention even though he's had better succes than most of the pitchers mention and better stuff.
Recommend patience on Brown and Panik. Haven't given up on Frankie Pegs either. He's coming off a second knee surgery fairly late in the spring.
DeleteYou claim that PCL stats are meaningless, yet, you are really concerned about Brown where the Eastern League are just as equally meaningless as the PCL, given your stance, since the EL is an extreme pitchers league and the PCL an extreme hitters league.
DeleteBut still, it's a good point, mainly because all the stats are really "meaningless" in that most fans only know them in context to the MLB, and really don't understand the concept of MLE, or major league equivalence, which basically means that the majors is a lot tougher than the minors so you have to shrink down the stats for minor leagues to account for that difference in talent levels.
On Noonan, understand your point, especially considering he's not really hitting that high for OPS. However, there are some excellent indicators that he is developing. First and foremost, though, I would note that he's still only 23 YO. Usually only the best prospects make AAA at that young an age, and we all know that Nick has not really shown that much in prior seasons to be considered one of the best. But we don't need him to be the best hitter, if he can be average offensively plus good defensively, that would have huge value on a team like ours.
Second, his batting peripherals look nice. His contact rate is 88%, which is good, as it shows that AAA pitchers are not fooling him (not like Belt), plus his BB/SO ratio is nice too, 11:15, good in that it's over 0.5 plus is very close to the 1:1 ratio that only the best hitters in a league can do, and he was there earlier in the season, until hitting a strikeout streak in his past 6 or so games.
Third, I noticed that his SB is 5 right now. He's roughly at a 20 SB rate. He hasn't done that since 2008. Has he had leg problems affecting his ability to steal and now he's healthy? Don't know, haven't heard anything, and I wish BA had picked up on that point in their profiles before dropping him this season. But if he did, that would have affected his hitting as well.
He's probably not making the majors this season, but I consider what he is doing to be good progress for a hitter who fell off the prospect radar in recent years.
Overall, I'm still on the fence regarding the Giants ability to develop hitters. People just point to the lack of good prospects, but that's really more a function of the Giants focus on pitching over the years. Since Barr took over, the quality and amount has gone up, and it takes a number of years before they percolate upward. Both Noonan and Culberson are still only 23. Sandoval is just a gift that he has, so that is not necessarily the Giants. Posey is a top draft pick, so there is that, but I would note that Tim Beckham, who the Rays, supposedly better than the Giants in selecting in the draft, picked over Posey is still struggling to be a good prospect, let alone a major leaguer. And Delmon Young was a huge bust on their part too, their "ability" to develop prospects, which all the lovers note, is really related to all their top 3-5 overall picks that they have had over the years, which is a lot.
Belt, to me, though, could be the light at the end of the tunnel. He wasn't that good a hitter in college. He fell back on his hitting because his arm failed him, as he was more a pitcher before. The experts questioned why the Giants picked Belt, and any #FreeBelter who claims that they loved him from the beginning are liars or related to Brandon (or friends) because he was not that great a prospect. BA did not even mention him in the Round 5 wrapup. He was not even on their Top 200 list of ranked draft prospects. That goes basically covers to 6th round, in terms of talent. Perfect Game had only one article on Belt, from when he was in high school, nothing on his college days.
DeleteYet the Giants in one season changed him from not even being mentioned on draft day or during his college years to a top 30 prospect.
Now, I don't know how well other teams do it. Is it just luck and picking enough lottery tickets? Seems like a lot teams are just not good at developing hitters to me too, it is more hitters parks and high draft picks that drives a lot of that. It is hard to tell because in the draft, success rates for finding good players fall into the low one digits pretty quickly, by the second round or so, and when the probability is that low, you need a pretty large sample to judge one GM to be better than another. And it's a moving target because each draft pick has a lower probability than the last.
But lets suppose 5% is the success rate. A team could be better at 6% but that won't necessarily show up until you reach 100 picks, and even then, randomness could result in the 6% better GM in having only a 4% rate. And really, once you get past the first 100 picks or so, the success rate is more like 1, 2, 3%. And close to zero by the time you get to the 50th round.
Kieschnick's stats so far, MLEed, is .276/.334/.504/.838, so it is not all smoke and mirrors with him right now. The caveat there is that with a MLEed 46 K in 163 AB, that's only a 72% contact rate, so I would bet that MLE would drop a lot as a 72% contact rate hitter would have a hard time maintaining a .276 BA in the majors, he is probably have a lot of BABIP luck right now, I would guess.
DeleteNoonan's is not as nice as Kieschnick, and it is not adjusted for age, which I prefer, but his batting line works out to a MLE .274/.319/.346/.665 and at 16 K's in 126 AB, that's a good 87% contact rate, which suggests that if he were to be brought up to the majors right now, he can probably hit close to this batting line, maybe slightly lower, but pretty close. Given that he's played games at 2B, SS, and 3B, and is considered to have a good mature baseball mind, he could probably take over Burriss's role as uber-utility and probably hit better than him, and while not as fast, steal some bags too. At minimum, he should have some power, unlike Burriss, which is non-existent now, it appears. Not sure on his defense, though reportedly he profiled much like Burriss, a drafted SS more likely to end up at 2B.
Agreed. Any #FreeBelters who claim they loved him from the start would be liars.
DeleteFor that matter, anyone who claims to know that early his failure or success would also be a liar.
I thought the Giants Blogosphere created Belt out of spare bits of OBP and rookie shine. And some payoffs to the right people in the national ratings scene.
DeleteOGC - enjoyed all the stuff you put down the past 2 days. One thing I was thinking, your draft study really concentrated on the nature of top picks and top rewards. Useful players, especially the utility infielders, 4th OFs and RPs don't get there, but if a team can develop a 5-10 WAR player, they might pay out something like 4-6MM in salary and bonus while taking 25-50MM worth of value (at the current rate). Its sort of the small ball version. The draft is so huge, its impossible to digest all at once. As I've said, I really like your study. One thing I'm curious about is the soft underbelly, the non-stars that fill out the rest of the roster.
So take my example, Randy Winn, where the Gints pay him 4 years and 30MM, he earns it with the WAR values. But if they had a guy in their system to pay 4-6MM, bam! there's the smaller savings of 19-44MM. Its always easier to look at the big guns, like Lincecum and those are the players you should spend the most time on. But the smaller back end parts of the draft have value as well.
I'm excited to see what Noonan can do. The Giants have done such a better job in the past 6 years. Its pretty clear to me Burriss is going to be jettisoned soon, at least the Giants have 3-4 other players like him to toss in the fire, see what's what. Noonan and Culberson are young enough, they can have 3-4 years of adventures and still be younger than Burriss.
Your point, boiled down, is to look at the grass at our feet. The Rays have heavily publicized successes, but the Giants have actually done better, with no high profile busts in the draft phase of development (meaning top 10 picks). In the hurry to ditch Ol Sabes and cranky Bochy for greener pastures, it might be good to realize these guys have had their knocks as well.
I listened to the Tolbert interview of sabean. Maybe I'm in a bad mood or something, but I wasn't amused by Sabean's blunt talk today. He did say Huff "Went down in flames". That was a shocker to me, and tells me that Brandon Belt has one less competition to worry about...
Yes, Shankbone, I totally agree that there is a lot of value in these average players who could be found in the draft, and I am planning on trying to take a look at this soft underbelly once I have the time to download all that draft data and do some analysis. Do you have any opinion on where I should set my parameters?
DeleteAs I noted, I'm using 18.0 WAR as the minimum for a good player. Thus 17.9 WAR would be the ceiling for this useful but not good ballplayer. At 2.0 WAR as an average player, what do you (or anyone here) think would be a good minimum. 12.0? 15.0? 10.0? Thanks for any thoughts and advice.
From my old draft study, that middle underbelly could be large and thus the Giants and Sabean might be under-performing that in prior years. I think that it has gotten a lot better with John Barr in the fold, working with Tidrow and Sabean. And I know that most would agree with that, at minimum. But very good point, I hope to get to it, probably after this season.
6-17.9 WAR? The thing I struggle with is I think RPs get undervalued. And I haven't looked into this, but I think sometimes the utility guys get overvalued, because they don't face a lot of the best pitching (switched into games late, platoon starts, that sort of thing). It has to be some value though, so maybe 6 is too low. But look at Wilson - he has been extremely valuable for the Giants, and until recently they've avoided the Nen type money with him.
DeleteThere are 50 rounds the the draft(40 starting this year). If a team, on a yearly basis, gets 1 average MLB player more than the average MLB team drafting, that results in a huge cost savings and competitive advantage over time. The Giants have been doing that and more over that last 6-7 years. I'm not sure you can quantify that in a study of how likely it is for a player drafted in rounds 2-50 to make it to the show.
DeleteOooh, Pucetas, the most spectacular pitcher in the minors a few years back for us. Back in AA now, too bad, did so well until he reached AAA. KC has to be wary of trading with Sabean after that and the Dirty trade. :^)
ReplyDeleteSince I see it mentioned, DrB, in various circles, would you lay any odds or thoughts on how long a rope Nate has right now? Is there a point where they trade him, and bring up either Christian or Kieschnick and see what they got? Or do you think his great defense will get him more rope? I'm still hopeful, but was disappointed that right when he looked like he turned the corner with that DH in NY, he went stone cold.
Nate has this and next year to prove he can earn starter status with the Giants. He really had the opportunity earlier this year, until Blanco stepped up. I wish he had stepped up, it would be great for the Giants to have 4 starters, as one of Pagan or Melky (sign Melky!) will not be here next year.
Delete2012 for OF: Melky locked in, Pagan locked in, Blanco locked in, Huff out, Belt at 1B, Pill not too much. Nate is #4 and PH for now. He will have to show consistency to earn his way back into the mix.
2013 for OF: Giants will have to fill starter and 4th OF positions. Blanco, Melky or Pagan, Nate?, Brown?, Pegs?, Kieschnick?, Christian?, Huff gone, Belt at 1B, Pill not too much. Hamilton is a pipe dream.
So getting rid of Nate would create more risk for 2013 when they have a starter position and a 4th OF position to fill.
I don't see the Giants letting go of Nate. He has a long leash in my view.
I don't think Nate has any trade value right now. Most likely scenario is he continues to be a PH/defensive replacement/spot starter until/unless someone gets hurt at which time he will get another small window to show he can grab the opportunity and not let go. He is making >$1M now, so I don't see the Giants offering arbitration next year.
DeleteWell, not to be cynical or whatever, DrB, but neither did Bowker. :^)
DeleteWhat I was trying to get at, is that when the Giants think that a prospect is done and there are other possible options available internally, they will trade them and get whatever they can get. With no options left on Nate, they would just have to trade for someone's scraps for Nate, yes, but what I wanted your opinion on was how long before they make this trade (or get rid of him)? Sounds like from your comment, they will probably just hold onto him for the rest of the season, and if he don't do more, non-tender him.
Monterey Shark, good points.
I like Nate and hope that he gets a lot more chances, because when he is on, he can carry a team for a while. I'm willing to give him more rope, but at some point, the Giants are going to cut the rope. He's actually still producing well as an OF overall, just first mega-hot then mega-cold. Fred Lewis did that and was gone soon after. Nate, though, has done this a number of times, but this is the first time in a while that it happened without any apparent injury.
I've been rooting for him for so long now, it is so hard for me to view him objectively. My "connection" with him (via Chabot College) makes me root for him even more. That he's a local native as well as life-long Giants fans even more so. So I worry and wait and hope.
I root hard for Nate, but you have to be realistic about it. Always going to hope that the next hot streak is him turning the corner. Local guy AND a farm hand? Double the rooting for sure, hello Brandon Crawford.
DeleteBig difference between Nate and Bowker. Bowker was making minimum wage while Nate is making over $1 M.
DeleteOn the other hand, Sabean has a habit of hard balling the guys in the $1MM range. Look at the Hobbit as example 1A.
DeleteNews on ex-Giants farmhand: http://www.mlbtraderumors.com/2012/05/minor-moves-henry-sosa.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MlbTradeRumors+%28MLB+Trade+Rumors%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher
ReplyDeleteThe Astros have sold the rights of right-hander Henry Sosa to the Kia Tigers of the Korean Baseball Organization, Alyson Footer of the Astros tweets. Sosa, 26, started ten games for the Astros last year, posting a 5.23 ERA with 6.4 K/9 and 3.9 BB/9 in 53 1/3 innings. He had been starting for Houston's Triple-A affiliate this season.
if sosa can deal with the culture shock, playing in sk may do him a world of good...it sure helped blackley
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