Wednesday, July 10, 2013

Down on the Farm: 7/9/2013

AAA  Reno Aces defeated the Fresno Grizzlies 7-4:

Gary Brown(CF)- 2 for 4, BB, CS(9), Assist.  BA= .245.
Jeff Francoeur(LF)- 1 for 4.  BA= .250.
Brett Pill(1B)- 2 for 4, HR(14).  BA= .354.
Chris Dominguez(3B)- 1 for 4, HR(12).  BA= .300.

That's what you want to see from Brown at the plate and in the field, but he continues to struggle on the basepaths.  Giants are going to see if they can catch lightning in a bottle with Frenchy.  Will we see a power explosion from Dominguez now that his BA is up?

AA  Richmond Flyhing Squirrels were idle.

High A  San Jose Giants outlasted the Lake Elsinore Storm 1-0 in 10 innings:

Ricky Oropesa(1B)- 2 for 4, HR(2).  BA= .447
Kyle Crick(RHP)- 5 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 5 BB, 4 K's.  ERA= 1.21.
Kelvin Marte(LHP)- 3 IP, 1 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 2 K's.  ERA= 3.62.

Ricky had the Giants only 2 hits in the game with the walk-off dinger in the bottom of the 10'th.

Low A  Savannah Sand Gnats swarmed the Augusta Greenjackets 8-1:

Jesus Galindo(CF)- 1 for 5, 2 SB(39).  BA= .271.
Trevor Brown(2B)- 2 for 5, 2B.  BA= .259.
Matt Duffy(SS)- 2 for 4.  BA= .311.
Ben Turner(C)- 2 for 4, 2B.  BA= .233.
Ian Gardeck(RHP)- 1 IP, 0 H, 0 R, 1 BB, 2 K's.  ERA= 3.00.

Short Season  Salem-Keizer Volcanoes were idle.

Rookie AZL  Giants were idle.

DSL  Giants were idle.

16 comments:

  1. Galindo will be in the futures game. Pretty cool, he's a replacement for some hack on the Cards...

    Chris Dominguez is having a great year after basically being written off by prospect hounds. The Giants don't have the option of ditching these guys until they know... And they know a whole lot more than prospect hounds. Good for Chris to keep grinding, working on those curve balls. Light Tower Power. You just don't give up on that easy. However... Brett Pill absolutely destroys all pitching in AAA...

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    1. Part of me would like to see Brett Pill given 1 month of MLB AB's if the Giants drop completely out of it. Problem is, where? 1B? 3B? LF? Those are tough position to break into at the MLB level.

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    2. Totally agree. Pill to 1B, Belt to LF... but that would negate the Francoeur signing. Would also like to see Kieschnick, especially if Pence is gone. Maybe he doesn't have the high batting avg, but are you going to wait until he's 30 to call him up?

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    3. Yes, good for Dominguez, I guess the Giants saw something others didn't.

      Pill is clearly beyond AAA, so I wouldn't mind seeing what he could do in the majors with regular starts, but yeah, where? 1B would make the most sense, and maybe it will happen in September, if the Giants are truly out of it by then, pushing Belt to LF. And you never know, injuries happen.

      Regarding Kieschnick, if he's not ready, he's not ready, and his stats show that he's not really ready, at least this year. And he's only 26 YO, only the top prospects can expect to get starting chances at 26 YO or younger, and he's clearly not a top prospect. He probably only has one more option the Giants can use, anyway, so the Giants could wait until he's 28 to put him on the roster for sure, if he's doing well enough. Given how he hit last season, the Giants will probably give him a chance at some point, but he will need to hit better than he has this season to get a long opportunity to start.

      As much as people complains about having Blanco/Torre platoon in LF, the Giants did that in case Kieschnick or Peguero or Brown make their case this season and force the team to start them in the majors. The Giants have done this in recent years to keep a spot relatively open, just in case a prospect breaks out, they have been good about keeping a spot possibly open for a prospect in case they should break out, or moving around a vet to open up a spot.

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    4. Or picking up a 26-28 year old top prospect who has scuffled. Its a good idea to leave pieces open. I sure didn't want them to go sign Nick Swisher or BJ Upton, and look how that's turning out for the signing teams?

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  2. Dominguez has been playing a lot of 3B again lately. Hmmmmm...

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  3. The home run by Dominguez was an opposite field shot to right that just cleared the fence. I watched two of Francoeur's at-bats - he struck out swinging in both on fastballs from a journey-man minor leaguer. Brown was thrown out fairly easily on the attempted steal - they only showed it once and I couldn't tell if he didn't get a good enough jump. APGiantsfan

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  4. According to Joe Ritzo, ESCOBAR has been promoted to AA Richmond.,,I thought it might have been Blach becase of the age...and also thought Fleet would go with him...They mist be really hig on Escobar....Who did they get him for? Ben Snyder? Sabean and his boys do know their pitchers!! As shown, by the aquistion of Francouer' and the yo-yoing of Perez, Gillespie, Tanaka, whoever, hitters and especially OFs are another story.

    SteveVA

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    1. Can't be too down on the hitters... Posey, Pablo, Belt, Crawford, Sanchez all helped us win that title. I just think there aren't near as many solid hitters to go around. Not even every MLB team has an All-Star caliber hitter. I am very excited to see how the SJ kids can do in Richmond. Escobar has really been rolling lately. I bet Blach isn't too far behind. Get Agosta healthy and move him to SJ.

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    2. True about the Hitters/IFs and why I tried to steer it to OFS..Some of them seem shiny and full of potential at times (Peguero, Kieschnick) but, bottom, line, the Giants just aren't developing them....Hopefully Brown can get his act together and Mac WIlliamson will keep progressing thriugh the system...I like Hererra in Richmond , but is he too old?....

      And, this irritation with Sabean/Giats and developing OFs is only minor, I have been perfectly happy with whatthe focus on pitchers and IFs has brougt the team and it's fans (well, except this screwy year where nothing can go right)

      SteveVA

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    3. The reason the Giants have not been as good with hitters is multi-fold. First of all, they have focused their first round picks mostly on pitchers for a long time, only in recent years have they used them on hitters, the Giants were around 10 years between first round position picks, if I recall right, ending with the selection of Posey. So they have spent their best draft bullets on pitching, which makes it much easier to find pitchers, but harder to find hitters.

      They have also focused most of their picks on pitchers. Every year, more pitchers than hitters selected, even though their roster is 13 hitters and 12 pitchers. Again, increasing odds of finding pitchers.

      In addition, it takes 4-6 years for most prospects to make the majors, let alone be good. So even though the Giants have selected hitters in recent years, it will take a while to rise up, not everyone is like Lincecum, Bumgarner, Posey. So with the factors above, and this, that leads to less success in finding hitters.

      Also, because the Giants have been successful in being competitive for the playoffs during his reign, most of their picks have been in the last third of the first round, and picks in that range have been good roughly 10% of the time, based on my research. Then it gets way worse after that, less then 5% after that and the vast majority are under 1%. So even with the recent focus on hitters with their first round pick, it could be up to a decade before they find someone with such a pick, and they would be average.

      Look at other teams, few have as many homegrown prospects who are are on their team as the Giants do. The Giants have Posey, Sandoval, Belt and Crawford in the lineup, half, few teams have that. So the Giants have been very successful in finding hitters, nobody fills their whole team with farm prospects and still win.

      Complaining about their lack of OF, in light of the above, is more a sign that the commenter don't really trust Sabean or don't really understand how player development works in baseball.

      And that has changed over the years. First it was the Giants don't know how to develop players. Then once we got Cain, then especially Lincecum, Sanchez, Bumgarner, the complaint was that they don't know hitters. Then once we had Sandoval and Posey do well, so now it is the Giants don't know how to develop OF. Once we get an OF up, then these people will have nowhere else to go, they will be like Wile E. Coyote, in mid-air looking downward.

      It's been a matter of priority. You can't rebuild a whole team using the draft. No winning team has ever been constructed that way in decades, maybe ever. The Giants have focused on pitching in the Tidrow era, alternating hitters and pitchers under Barr. Meanwhile, the Giants have preferred defense over hitting in constructing their MLB roster. Pitching and fielding is the research proven way to win in the playoffs, both BP and THT studied the playoffs and came to the same conclusion using different methodologies.

      Complaining about the lack of OF ignores all the above. And I've been posting this on MCC and many other Giants watering holes for years now, and posted the main core of all this in my business plan that I posted on my blog.

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    4. That's a little long winded for me...Let me just say two things..I have been pro-Sabean and pro-Bochy for so long it's not funny..I have been ripped to shreads and piled on at other places so many times over the last ten years for being a Sabean apologist, a Polly Anna, or whaever, that it isn't funny and made me stop posting...

      Two, my origininal post up above was kinda light hearted, so lets chill a bit. I am totally fine (honestly, more then fine) with the way Sabean has focused on Pitching, both starters and the bullpen, infield and defense, and has put together just enough outfield (via trade and FA) to be the best organization in baseball the last few years..aand one of the best over a long time...BUT...I still find it strange that not a single OF that they have drafted and tried to develop has broken through...It really has been a long time

      Now, if that post wasn't intended for me but the others you have run into, I take it back...

      SteveVA

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    5. Oh yeah! Its all about the Curse Of George Genovese baby! I think OGC is just reacting to others he's run into, not you SteveVA.

      But back to that curse... Peter the Pink wants to save a measly 20G's and pink slips the guy who signed more HRs than any other in history! With no regard to the Giants amazing history with this guy. Of course we don't get no OF prospects from then on!

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    6. I believe that the development path of pitchers and hitters is far different. With pitchers, what you see is what you get. As long as they stay healthy, they can move fast. The big problem is with injuries.

      Hitters, on the other hand, at least for the vast majority, I think there is something to the 2000 AB threshold that Sabes refers to. Hardest thing to do in all of sports is hit a pitched baseball. If you are not ready, those MLB pitchers will make you look absolutely helpless. Yeah, there are exceptions like Posey and Pablo, but for the vast majority, they take longer and are harder to project than pitchers if you exclude the injury factor.

      As for George Genovese, how long had it been before he signed a good prospect when Peter the Pink gave him the pink slip? I do think the Giants have gotten better over the years at doing right by their own and a guy who has done that much maybe deserves to be kept on in an advisory role or something, but it's also a business and a very results oriented one at that.

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    7. George G - Matt Williams and Rob Deer most likely. So 1986 Williams draft to the pink slip in 1995. Baseball Gods are not to be trifled with. Peter the Pink went and apologized, but that was their MO back then. What will they do now? I've seen rumblings (as the Dodgers are getting hot with all their crazy spending paying off at the moment) that the ownership group isn't in it to win it. We'll see, as long as they spend all their allotment in the draft and the IFA and have a big budget I won't complain. But I got me ears to the ground as well...

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    8. Yeah, not you SteveVA, but that's been my problem, people view it as long-winded, but those are what I feel are valid points why the Giants have had "issues" with developing position players. But to Shankbone's point, I was reacting to what others who expressed that viewpoint, sorry, it's not you, it's me.

      Really, Magowan pink slipped Genovese over $20K? Mano...

      Totally agree with DrB on the difference. It is like that saber principle, TINSTAAPP for pitchers, either you are a MLB pitcher or you are not, what you see is what you get, then it is a matter of repeating it consistently in a game, and not spazzing out in pressure situations. And the injuries is the big killer.

      And there is a learning threshold to hitting, much like in Malcolm Gladwell's book about Outliers, I think he had a 10,000 hour threshold and he used the Beatles as one example, though I'm not sure how that would apply to a hitter exactly, but that 2000 AB that Sabean uses does appear to hold pretty well for ordinary prospects, not the greats though. And nobody can tell when exactly the lightbulb will happen for the hitter, they are much harder to project because the pitchers in the lower levels don't have all the MLB skills, so hitters need to prove out at each higher level.

      I understand proving out and being results oriented, but like Willie Mays, I think some people deserves in a baseball organization to get a lifetime job, because except for ballplayers, few people in that business can get rich working there and there is no pension I'm aware of, especially scouts, and if someone has a long history of greatness in finding prospects, as George did, he should have been the exception, like all those old ballplayer advisors that the Giants kept around, I think they had that old Dodger, the Vulture? (Perronowski?), on the payroll for a while as an advisor.

      And especially for $20K, that's like spilled salt for a ballteam.

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