Giants prospects have a long history of not performing well in the Arizona Fall League, a showcase league for top prospects across MLB who populate a relatively small number of AFL teams made up of prospects from multiple organizations. Got that? It's a little unclear what the AFL's reason for existence is. Is it for players to work on specific skills? Is it to showcase prospects for prospect oriented publications such as Baseball America? It's all a little unclear. For whatever reason, Giants prospects have not performed well there. Even the great Buster Posey had a miserable AFL! Needless to say, the AFL lost it's cache with Giants fans a few years back. So, which Giants prospects are disappointing us this year? Well, the good news is that some of them are not disappointing!
Christian Arroyo is the youngest Giants representative to the AFL this year, coming off a terrific season at age 20 in high A ball. MLB organizations are only allowed to send players with AA and AAA experience to the AFL but are allowed one exception each year. Arroyo is this year's Giants exception and as one of the younger players in the league, he is certainly justifying that confidence in his ability. Through the first 6 games, Arroyo is tearing it up with 11 hits in 25 AB's for a .462 BA with a double and 2 HR's for good measure. He has just 1 BB, but my goodness! Why would he be taking walks when he is hitting like that? On the plus side of the peripheral stats, he has struck out just 3 times. All in all, Christian Arroyo continues to serve notice that maybe the Giants were not crazy to take him in the first round of the draft 3 years ago. He should be more than ready to take on the challenges of AA and the Eastern League next spring.
Mac Williamson is also playing in the AFL. He is hitting a fine .308 with 8 hits, all singles, in 26 AB's. He has also drawn 4 BB's with just 5 K's. What we've seen from Big Mac in September and apparently in the AFL is that he hits the ball hard, but on a level plane producing line-drive singles, but not the distance you would expect from a guy his size. He may need to work on putting a bit of loft on the ball.
Austin Slater is the other position representative of the Giants. He has struggled so far to a .186 BA with just 3 hits in 19 AB's. He has added 5 BB's and 2 of his 3 hits have gone for 2 bases.
On the pitching side, there is not much of a sample to look at, but Adalberto Mejia followed up a shaky first start with a strong 5 innings in which he allowed just 1 run with 3 BB's and 7 K's.
Dan Slania, Ray Black and Phil McCormick have pitched 4, 3 and 2 innings respectively with mixed results.
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I am optimistic that Arroyo can succeed in AA whereas some former prospects have gone to die. Heres to him putting up Duffy-like numbers in AA. A Shortstop that can hit has extreme value. Only 4 Shortstops had a WAR over 3 in 2015 and one of them is named Brandon Crawford.
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