Matt Duffy and Brandon Belt had big days at the plate and Clayton Blackburn continued to impress on the mound as the Giants crushed the Rockies at Talking Stick. Key Lines:
Matt Duffy 3B- 3 for 4, 3B. BA= .323. Look who's hitting over .300 on the spring!
Brandon Belt 1B- 4 for 4, HR(1). BA= .375. Is this finally Belt's big breakout season? Does he believe in himself enough to turn down a contract extension?
Clayton Blackburn RHP- 4 IP, 6 H, 3 R, 2 ER, 0 BB, 3 K's, GO/AO= 5/2. ERA= 4.38. Considering the team he was facing and the environment, that is a darn impressive line for Blackburn. He got optioned to Sacramento after the game, but with effusive praise from Bruce Bochy. Big time chance that he'll be back in a SF Giants uniform before the season is done.
Grant Green hit a 2-run dinger late in the game.
Clayton Blackburn, Brandon Crawford, Kelby Tomlinson and Buster Posey all hit a double.
Mac Williamson drew 2 BB's.
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Johnny Cueto pitched 6 innings in a minor league game and reportedly looked terrific hitting 90 MPH on the radar gun with command while showing off the shoulder shimmy and quick pitch repertoire he is famous for.
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In addition to Clayton Blackburn, the Giants also optioned LHP's Ty Blach and Steven Okert to Sacramento while reassigning 1B/OF Kyle Blanks, LHP Ricky Romero, RHP Vin Mazzaro, OF/1B Ryan Lollis and SS Hak-Ju Lee to minor league camp.
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Hey Doc, I wonder if you'd be open to doing a career review on Trevor Brown. I've been following our system pretty well the last bunch of years & I don't remember anything about Brown - Scouting reports, pedigree, ascension through the minors, offensive progress along the way, etc.
ReplyDeleteWhere did this kid come from, he's starting to look like a very high caliber backup/utility player.
He was a catcher/jack-of-all-trades for UCLA. He was drafted to play catcher for the Giants, but has been a jack-of-all-trades in the minors (catcher emphasis) with 96 starts at 2B, 154 as catcher and 12 at 1B.
DeleteAt UCLA his career stat line was: .291, 4 HR, .371 SLG, .354 OBP. All that is from his UCLA profile: http://www.uclabruins.com/ViewArticle.dbml?DB_OEM_ID=30500&ATCLID=207918953
He's had two stints in the PCL and hit .273 without power in AAA. He has no AA experience. His A-level bat was not very good so it's really hard to know if he can hit or not.
Oh, and this was a feature article over the past couple of days at the Giants website:
DeleteBrown making case to back up Posey
http://m.giants.mlb.com/news/article/168293632/giants-trevor-brown-may-be-backup-catcher
It goes into his multi-positional defense, catching, etc. Nice article though it is from the house organ...
Thanks Moses. I saw the recent article on the SF front page, but it wasn't too clear about pedigree or potential.
DeleteWith a kid like Brown, seems like he can play up his tools with "plus" intangibles. That said, I was kind of phishing to see if he was anything like a Brandon Crawford - i.e. kids with great tools who dropped for some reason in their draft year. (Btw, the UCLA connection not withstanding as a parallel to Crawford. Plus that's where I'm at right now for my PhD, so that's great to hear he's another SF representative.)
Anyways, the medium stats are pretty much to be expected with an out-of-nowhere kid. Hope he's got enough tools in the hit-bag to readjust when the league gets to know him a little better.
With Blanks being sent to minor league camp, does this mean that Parker or Williamson make the club? Will they go with Gorkys Hernandez?
ReplyDeleteI'm thinking they like the power and CF skills that Williamson has shown.
I believe Williamson will get sent down unless he wins the starting LF job outright, which seems unlikely barring a late injury to Pagan. The Giants don't want him sitting on a bench. Between Parker and Hernandez, I was leaning toward Parker, but now I'm not so sure. Sabes does love his CF's.
DeleteI'm really torn in how I think about it.
DeleteHernandez is making a very strong case based on his play and his position (CF) being so hard to fill. But he has little power.
Williamson has 'earned' the 5th spot based on his hitting with power and has the bonus of being RH bench power. BUT the Giants like their '2000 ABs' development in the minors and he's far short of that because of the TJ surgery.
Parker hasn't hit well in Spring Training, but lit it up last year and nobody's forgotten that. But he's a lefty. And Bochy has mentioned the need for RH power off the bench. Actually, I should say RH power off the bench not named Madison Bumgarner.
Green doesn't seem like he has much of chance being a powerless corner OF. But Green does offer positional flexibility because he could be an emergency fill-in at any IF position.
The irony that last year we really didn't have this going on... It was more like 'Please, can we find a 5th' not "Darn, we too many candidates!'
What happens to the guys reassigned other than those who are under Giants' control? What happens with Blanks, Romero, Mazzaro, Lollis, Kottaros, Pena, Green, Gillaspe, Hernandez, and Lee? There are a couple others, such as Moreno, Arias, and Ross -- are they under control, or do they become FA's is they are "reassigned"?
ReplyDeleteThose guys were signed to minor league contracts with invitations to spring training. Unless they have out clauses in their contracts, I think the Giants control their contract and can assign them to a minor league team.
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