Gary Brown, OF. B-R, T-R. 6'1", 190 lbs. DOB: 9/28/1988.
AAA .231/.286/.375, 13 HR, 17 SB, 11 CS, 17 Assists, 9 Errors.
Gary Brown was probably the toughest Giants prospect to rank this year. Is he the first round draft pick destined to be the Giants CF of the future who just had a down season, or is he a guy whose baseball career is in a death spiral? You could probably make a case that he's still a top 10 prospect, but I also actually considered leaving him off the list entirely and talking about him in the Honorable Mention category. That is how bad last season was for Gary Brown.
The official line seems to be that this is a mechanical problem that the Giants knew about all along. Much like Brandon Belt, his swing needed to be adjusted to play at higher levels. Brown has always had problems standing still in the batters box. Apparently he was getting his hands up into hitting position too late. He particularly struggles with RH pitching, which unfortunately is about 75% of what he sees.
While I do not doubt that mechanical adjustments were in order, I'm not sure I'm buying that's all there is to the story here. It does not explain why his success in stealing bases has gone backward every year or why he makes so many errors in the OF. Perhaps it is just a coincidence, but Brown has had a recognizable pattern of slumping after callups of fellow OF prospects. Put all that together and you have to wonder how much his mind is in the games.
I am convinced that many prospects end up not achieving a MLB career for reasons that have nothing to do with talent. We recently heard from Adrian Cardenas, a former highly rated prospect and supplemental round draft pick, who went back to school in the offseason and woke up one day realizing he didn't want to play baseball anymore. Cardenas talked about the separation from family and friends that the game forces on you as well as the toll it takes on romantic relationships. I know of another formerly highly rated first round draft pick(not Giants) who was recently DFA'd by his organization who has a reputation as a party animal. I do not have any information on Gary Brown other than an educated guess from looking at his numbers, but I get the feeling that his mind is often somewhere besides the games when he is on the field.
I think it is too early to write off Gary Brown as a prospect. Even if he never hits like he did in college or the Cal League again, he can be a valuable player as a strong defensive CF coupled with average offense. Prospects often have to make adjustments and often come out stronger for it. Prospects often have down years and come back strong in the end. 2014 is a critical year for Gary Brown, though. I expect he will be back in Fresno. He needs to have a better season than he did in 2013.
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"Brown has had a recognizable pattern of slumping after callups of fellow OF prospects..." That would explain it, then, because the Giants called up everyone except the Fresno groundskeeper to play LF last year, even guys who aren't technically outfielders (Tanaka, Pill). Peguero, Perez, Gillespie, Kieschnick...no wonder Brown was depressed! :)
ReplyDeleteGood point there.
DeleteThe problem is, unless he flips a 180 and forces the Giants hand, I really don't see a clear path for him to the majors next year either. I know he has the first round pedigree, but Perez clearly has him beat for the 5th OF spot (and there's no guarantee Perez will make the 25-man either). If one of the OF goes down, I'd put my money on the Giants making a small trade or snagging a free agent to step in (Burrell/Francoeur) before they gave Brown a shot. Granted, if his play warrants it, I'm sure he'll get a look at some point... but if he continues to produce the way he did in 2013, he won't even sniff AT&T Park. I'm guessing he fully understands what he needs to do this year, but it remains to be seen if he can get there.
DeleteMore good points about the intangibles beyond stats and baseball life is not all peaches.
ReplyDeleteIf you're correct, and I agree 2014 is a critical year for him, we will see what kind of mental toughness and maturity our young center field has inside.
Gary just needs to string together a few months like he had in June of last year (.910 OPS) and it's all good.
ReplyDeleteIt seems easy to say that he was a bad pick, but the pick looked pretty good after his San Jose season. I don't know, he should probably work on getting on base via the bunt. Put pressure on the defense. Good luck in 2014, Gary.
I don't think Gary Brown was a bad pick at all. If you go back to that draft and look at who was taken after him, you have to go down more than 10 slots before you find a better prospect, IMO. I believe Brown has regressed as prospect. I know it's easy to say he was never any good and he's just found his true ceiling, but I just don't believe he was the same player last year as he was in college or San Jose.
DeleteSay Dr. B, great call on that Cardenas piece. Wasn't that in the New Yorker? I was a great personal baseball story. I think he wanted to pursue writing and journalism. Good for him. Follow your passion.
ReplyDeleteYes,, & Here it is:
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/sportingscene/2013/10/why-i-quit-major-league-baseball.html
Brown's hands are not in a hitting position when the ball is released. He traps them behind his shoulder - that's his major flaw - and the mystery is why he hasn't corrected it. Otherwise, he has the bat speed needed to play at the major league level. You could say it's kind of all in his hands
ReplyDeletePeter
Like I said, that does not explain the steep decline in SB's or the OF errors.
DeleteWell, irrespective of the level of competition, I'd expect SB's to decline with a significantly lower OBP. Now normalize those expectations for more advanced competition, and do we really need to invent any other explanations? For comparison, check out Billy Hamilton's decline as he progressed - pay particular attention to his per level OBP. Nevertheless, I wasn't attempting to dispute the "mind" influencing the output hypothesis - It's thoughtful, and shows a depth of knowledge about the process.
DeletePeter
I looked at those numbers. Gary Brown's SB dropoff was much more profound, with similar changes in OBP, than Billy Hamilton's. Try again.
DeleteThere is also the SB/CS ratios which dropped rather dramatically for Brown but stayed constant for Hamilton. I think that tells you more than just total SB's.
DeleteDr B. don't really want to break out statistics when the underlying speculative hypothesis is largely intractable to statistical analysis, but I have to take exception to your use of the word "more profound drop-off". Billy Hamilton's reduction at AAA from his numbers at A/AA represent approximately ~30% decline in SB rate. Brown's at approximately 50% reduction.These numbers represent the drop-off after normalization for changes in OBP and SLG. Is that such a "more profound drop-off" that it requires additional explanation? How close would they need to be in order to say no other explanation is needed? Now consider that Hamilton stole a base about 80% of the time he had an opportunity to do so at A/AA, while Brown was at a 25% rate at A/AA, we would expect a lot more variance in Brown's numbers, thus, for me, the "profoundness" of his reduction would have to be very very high for me to include it into a speculative hypothesis. And, of course, the point was never to expect the expected drop-off of Brown to be close to Hamilton's, but only to provide an example of a decline in a player with similar talent in similar circumstances.
DeleteIn any case, the final word on this sub-topic is yours.
Peter
I would consider a 50% dropoff to be significantly greater than 30%. The increase in CS rate is dramatic for Brown vs Hamilton too.
DeleteI still believe in Brown as a prospect, but understand why so many are down on him, or that some might consider dropping him much lower on rankings. I think the Giants knows hitters, but when hitters were a second thought when drafting to build up the pitching, you aren't going to have many good position prospects. Hopefully Brown is working on his new mechanics this winter and be ready to hit when spring comes, it is a truly critical season for him, for his prospect status. It's do or die, really.
ReplyDeleteI think his bat speed must be special for him to have been able to hit like he did while dancing around like he did in college and yet putting up superior numbers, better than Longoria in OPS and SLG. That with proper mechanics should have better results for him.
I think he does think too much, though I don't know whether he gets down when others are promoted or he tries harder (which often makes people worse performers), either way, he does seem to have that pattern, DrB has reported on that well over his career. I also think that he probably thinks too much when playing and not doing well, creating a down spiral. He's one of those I bet brings his troubles at the plate or on the bases to the OF with him, and affects his defense. I think his defense will be cleaner if he starts hitting the way he should be able to.
The big question is his horrible CS%. How can someone that fast be so lousy at basestealing? I guess he was fast enough that he didn't need to learn the techniques, and now he brings his troubles with him everywhere on the field, and if you are not focused keenly on the pitcher and catcher, you are going to get thrown out a lot. I had been hoping the Giants would just assign a SB expert to travel with him and buddy up, teaching him stuff, but not that he's at AAA, I think that time has passed, though hopefully Randy Winn will give him tips on how he improved, he greatly improved in stealing bases while with the Giants. Pence too, so hopefully he has some tips as well.
Go Gary!
It's been a while since we'd heard from you OGC. Welcome back!
DeleteI think Brown's case is a rough one, because even with his spiraling mental attitude, at some point you have to just put it aside and say, "OK, If I fail, I fail. But I'm going to stop worrying about it and just play the game I love." If he wasn't able to do that over the last 3 months of the season, it's hinting at the idea that the kid may not ever have the mental toughness required in the game.
As they say, the game is 1 part physical, 9 parts mental. Let's hope Gary took a nice long vacation to a remote island this winter, and comes back a better man for it.
I am a little uncomfortable with people referring to Brown's mental attitude as though it is a known fact that it is bad. That is the risk of writing anything of a speculative nature, which are exactly what my thoughts are. I don't think we KNOW that Brown has a bad attitude. For all we know, he is super-motivated and actually trying too hard! Or maybe he just had a bad season. That sometimes happens due to random chance.
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