The Giants shortstop position is pretty much set in stone for the forseeable future with Brandon Crawford having 4 years left on his contract. Depth at the MLB level is provided by Kelby Tomlinson and Orlando Calixte. Christian Arroyo, whose future is at another position, could probably play the position and Ryder Jones could even fill in for a dire emergency.
AAA: I think Juniel Querecuto is a minor league FA, so the AAA position is open.
AA: CJ Hinojosa had a pretty good season for Richmond in a traditionally tough environment for Giants positional prospects. He should be ready to move up to AAA. Carlos Garcia and Rando Moreno are organizational players.
High A: Ryan Howard came within 1 game of taking a .300 BA wire-to-wire for San Jose and looks to be ready for the AA challenge.
Low A: Brandon Van Horn is a project whose scouting reports favor his defense over offense, but he showed some stick during a month long hot streak and might be ready to take on the next level in San Jose.
Short Season: I'm still at least slightly bullish on Manuel Geraldo who has had a couple of good short seasons, but now he needs to get over the Augusta hump on what will be his 3'rd try. The Giants have allowed players in similar situations to bypass Augusta which is not out of the question for Geraldo.
Rookie AZL: Nico Giarratano is an undersized scrapper who didn't hit much for USF and whose bat did not impress in rookie ball which is too low for a college draftee. Francisco Medina, Jose Rivero and Hector Santiago are all looking for traction on their pro careers.
DSL: Ghordy Santos is an intriguing prospect who the Giants paid a $300 K bonus to, the maximum allowed during their penalty phase for overspending on Lucius Fox. He got off to a slow start, but hit .321 in August. Enoch Watts has an interesting name but didn't do much else to garner attention.
The Giants have a fairly solid line of shortstop prospects lined up at each level although there is unlikely to be a need at the MLB level for at least the next 2-3 seasons.
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Everything I've read on Hinojosa and Howard is they don't have the range for SS. They're good players, with good instincts, smart base runners, solid arms, reasonable hit-tools, etc. They just don't have MLB SS range.
ReplyDeleteI look at both of them as utility-IF/2B/3B candidates.