Sunday, January 19, 2014

Dr B's 2014 Giants Top 50: #25 Cody Hall

Cody Hall, RHP.  6'4", 220 lbs.  DOB: 1/6/1988.

High A:  2-0, 1.34, 33.2 IP, 7 BB, 48 K, 2 Saves.
AA:        2-2, 2.39, 26.1 IP, 8 BB, 27 K, 8 Saves.
AFL:      0-0, 3.00, 9 IP, 4 BB, 7 K's.

Cody Hall was drafted by the Giants in the 19'th round of the 2011 draft out of Southern U.  He did not play HS baseball and walked on at a JC Baton Rouge, LA as a position player.  The coaches quickly noted his strong arm and asked him to try pitching.  He started out throwing in the high 80's but with some adjustments to his delivery was soon hitting the low-mid 90's.  He transferred to Southern because it was in the same city as his JC school.  Apparently scouts were impressed by his arm too because he was drafted several times before finally signing with the Giants in 2011.

He has racked up impressive K ratios in his 3 professional seasons and finished 2013 as the closer for AA Richmond.  His AFL campaign was less impressive than Derek Law's.  Those two are probably neck-and-neck in the Giants RP depth chart.   I probably should have ranked them closer together and you could certainly make a case for Hall being ranked higher than Law.  I guess the AFL results tipped the scale to Law for me which is probably not rational given the extremely small sample size.

The Giants have brought in a lot of power arms through minor league deals so Hall and/or Law could find themselves in Richmond just because of the numbers game although I would like to see both in Fresno getting ready for the big callup when the need arises.

4 comments:

  1. I think you are right in ranking Law higher up the ladder. Hall has certainly done all the right things since being drafted, and I'm scratching my head on why he wasn't invited to spring training. But he is 3 years older than Law, and lacks a dominant secondary pitch at this point. Law, it would seem, is on the fast track to the big leagues, with a 4-pitch arsenal and a plus slider. Nothing wrong with having both of these guys in your bullpen, but I think I'd have to give the "prospect" edge to Law at this point.

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    1. Exactly on Hall versus guys like Law, Hembree, and maybe even a bunch of others ranked behind him...I watched Hall a few games In Richmond and he seemed to have a real good fast ball and nothing else...Earlier in the year, guys couldn't touch him...Near the end of the season, some of the better hitters were tattooing his fastball for late inning homers....If that's all he has, he's in big trouble....Hopefully they get that secondary pitch going...

      SteveVA

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  2. I am absolutely impressed by the Giants' system having a potential setup/closer in Cody Hall ranked down at #25, while a potential starting shortstop with ++Defense is at #23. That, quite honestly, is saying a whole lot. With Keury Mella, Ryder Jones and Agosta (definite set of sleepers) mixed in there with long-toothed guys like Brown and Mike Kickham (bit more of an uphill battle), it's easy to see why people are sleeping on the Giants Farm System.

    However, push come to shove, Farm Rankings don't bring in the Flags. Great teams do. And it looks like the Giants are doing a very fine job of building the latter!

    B, you mentioned he started hitting the low-mid 90's at his JC. Is that where he's sitting now, or don't I remember that he's been up closer to 95-96 (that's high 90's in my opinion)?

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    1. Everything I've read seems to point to Hall sitting at about 95 MPH with the FB. I would call that mid-90's. Upper 90's starts at about 97 IMO.

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