Just to recap, the Giants first round pick, #18 Phil Bickford, brought back Will Smith in a trade which is probably not what you hope for from your first round pick, but it's not nothing either. The Giants made some picks later the draft that could more than make up for the disappointing results from Bickford.
Compensation First Round #31(for losing Pablo Sandoval to Free Agency- LOL Bosox!): Chris Shaw. Drafted as a 1B but shifted to LF, Shaw showed flashes during a September callup. His calling card is power and Farhan Zaidi loves power. Stay tuned.
Andrew Suarez(2) made the majors in 2018 and pitched well at times with better peripheral stats than ERA.
Jalen Miller(3) drafted out of HS had a nice season for A+ San Jose and looks ready to move up to AA.
Steven Duggar(6) appeared to be establishing himself as the Giants starting CF when a shoulder injury suffered while sliding into 2B on a pickoff attempt ended his season early. Terrific CF defense. If he can hit at all, that should land him the position for several years to come.
CJ Hinojosa(11) has had his ups and downs but had encouraging numbers in AA Richmond.
Matt Winn(14) could have an MLB career as a back up catcher.
Ryan Halstead RHP, Domenic Mazza LHP, Dillon Dobson 1B Tyler Brown 2B, Mac Marshall LHP, Ronnie Jebavy CF, Cody Brickhouse C remain in the organization with varying degrees of success.
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At least Hinojosa, Miller, and Winn need 40-man spots for protection against Rule 5 Draft.
ReplyDeleteMcCovey Chronicles has the entire list but also includes Adon, Webb, DePaula, Coonrod, Wolff, Marshall, J Johnson, Gardeck, Geraldo, and up to a dozen more.
www.mccoveychronicles.com/2018/11/15/18079232/whos-joining-the-40-man-sf-giants-melvin-adon-rule-5-draft-2018
Might make for a good blog question, Doc, who to protect?
I believe Jalen Miller is not Rule 5 eligible this year because he was under 19 yo on the June 5 prior to their signing.
DeleteI would protect Adon, Webb, Wolff and maybe DePaula.
DeleteSandoval, the Giants' aging Swiss Army Knife, is understandable on the 40-man roster, at least sort of. It's probably a net gain to have a $500K player of such versatility.
DeleteBut Gorkys? And both the O-bothers? Those are valuable slots and for the longer term, do the Giants want to lose a future asset for a marginal 2019 gain?
There is a lot of disgust on this blog with Strickland. He has made some judgement mistakes which indicate immaturity, but he is a valuable talent, if not to the Giants to someone with, perhaps "lower" standards. In this past year, including Smith, Strickland was overwhelmingly the best closer as far as saving games and not blowing saves. One of his emotional errors was after blowing a save -- a mistake yes but his competitive juices got him. Do you think he would repeat that? I'm for competitive spirit, and believe it can be corralled.
For the record, the following are the Giants with their number of saves, blown saves, and save %:
Strickland 13 4 77.80%
Smith 6 4 77.80%
Dyson 3 5 37.50%
Moronta 1 5 16.70%
Melancon 1 4 42.90%
Gearrin 1 2 33.30%
Watson 0 4 0.00%
Black 0 1 0.00%
Osich 0 1 0.00%
Trade Strickland to Washington so the fans can feel better about Bryce leaving every time Strickland pitches. I’m sure there will be a few #34 jerseys burned when Bryce officially leaves town and what better way to commiserate than to cheer for the guy that drilled him!
DeleteI could also see Zaidi trading Will Smith and Tony Watson since having both is more if a luxury than a necessity next season. Bullpen pieces are valuable to playoff teams and it could be the fastest way to stock the farm with prospects who are 2-3 years out. Nobody is going to trade for Melancon so make him close and deal with the results. Moronta can set up and stock the rest of the bullpen with young arms and cheap FA signings.
Zaidi needs to get creative and rebuild without “rebuilding”. The bullpen is the easiest piece of a team that you can tear down without the fans realizing you are actually rebuilding. With the prices for FA bullpen arms these days I have to imagine Smith, Watson, Strickland, and Dyson would bring back a decent return of prospects with a minimal impact on ticket sales. Not likely he can make any of these moves before Tuesday but for the offseason I think that is the best way for the Giants to stock the farm and still appear to being competitive.
Giants had 66 save opps as a staff and 30 blown saves! A horrible 55% save ratio. 231 inherited runners, 71 scored, 31%. Gearrin was one of the worst offenders.
DeleteStrickland started strong with the new breaking ball that Smoltz taught him, but went back to familiar territory pretty quick. I don't think he has the mental fortitude to not be a hot head or give up gopher balls in bad spots. Perhaps the worst stat for him with his velocity is his K/BB - 1.76.
One place the dodgers were able to improve greatly in the past couple of years is their pen - their pen in 2017 had amazing K/BB numbers, they regressed some in 2018. Look for Zaidi to make this a priority.
Well written though rather dark article by David Schoenfield today on ESPN.com. The picture he paints is not pretty, and I think a bit more negative than is actually the case. But, it does represent the view of many that the Giants have a very tough assignment to get back to contender status.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/25286163/mlb-san-francisco-giants-face-tough-task-rebuilding
Mark Melancon: $28 million through 2020
DeleteJeff Samardzija: $36 million through 2020
Brandon Crawford: $45 million through 2021
Brandon Belt: $48 million through 2021
Buster Posey: $67.2 million through 2021
Johnny Cueto: $68 million through 2021
Evan Longoria: $72.5 million through 2022
Let's see if Zaidi can trade Bumgarner for Sonny Gray, but only if the Yankees take Cueto and Longoria. Then see if you can trade Posey to anyone but only if they take Samardjiza, and then trade Belt to anyone but only if they take Melancon. And throw Strickland in with any of those trades - try to get D Santana from the Brewers in one of them. Pick up Hundley again to hang on until Joey Bart and Aramis Garcia take C over -- the books and aging roster are almost cleared out - keep Panik & Crawford, Panda 1B Ryder Jones 3B Williamson LF, Duggar CF Santana/Shaw RF and all other pitchers including adding back Julian Fernandez 100+. And pick up Eovaldi for 2019 and Garrett Richards for 2020 and you've got Gray, Eovaldi, Stratton, Rodriguez, Holland, Blach and Suarez plus a great bullpen with Sam Wolff making noise like a closer in the AFL. Just get a hitting coach to harness the power and minimize strikeouts in Shaw, Ryder Jones and Williamson. That team could stay close in the division with Arizona rebuilding, San Diego still rebuilding plus you have got some prospects back in trade plus hope for another draft like 2015 and farm system starts looking better and better...
Hey Scott, thanks for the link!
DeleteI didn't find that article dark, but rather accurate.
The Giants are in clear decline. To state the obvious, they lack a talented emerging farm to offset age-related fall off of the core. The inability to develop pitching over the past 8-9 years is particularly egregious. Efforts to shore up both the rotation and bullpen through FA have mostly failed and greatly limited available resources going forward. And the Crawford, Posey & even Belt are experiencing expensive decline years, and the effect will accelerate. Longoria will, unfortunately, be an albatross going forward. The article does a good job of outlining the peripherals showing Bum's drop off. (His fastball...wow, brutal results in '18).
The only reason the Giants were 6.5 out on 9/1 was that the Dodgers severely underperformed. Look across MLB at the performance of the teams that made the 2018 playoffs. They all played solid baseball in September.
The Giants are not 1 or 2 or even 3 players away. More like 5-6 players away.
Zaidi has a job to do, and he needs the leeway to make some unpopular moves.
Wouldn't the first step to getting better be to protect the best system assets? Several potential contributors will be left exposed to the Rule 5 draft, or they really so far down the food chain that losing someone isn't significant?
DeleteI believe that between the Giants financial resources and players available on the free agent or trade markets, it is possible for them to put together a competitive team in 2019 and beyond without doing the full teardown.
DeleteCrawford's 2016 year was an outlier, after his call up year in 2011, his 7 years have been (except 2016) remarkably consistent, and 2018 was among the best:
DeleteG 3rd, HR 2T, BA 3rd, OBP 2nd, SLG 4th, 7 years of 143 or more games
The 2015 daft, even not counting the trade of Bickford that brought Will Smith, has already been a very successful draft in that two players from the draft already appear to have spots on the 25-man roster and at least two others should have a legitimate shot at making the 25-man roster down the road. When you get four or five players from a single draft year that reach the major leagues, you have had an exceptional draft. Doesn't happen very often.
ReplyDelete