5. Rohan Handa, College LHP. DOB: 2/28/2000. 6'3", 210 lbs. New England Collegiate League: 0-0, 0.53, 17 IP, 8 BB, 25 K. Handa is perhaps be the most intriguing player in the entire draft. He is Indian-American born in Charlotte, NC, both parents from India. He played college ball at Yale where he majored in Political Science with a minor in Statistics and Data Science. Hmm....now what occupation would that education prepare you for? When Yale cancelled the 2021 season due to COVID concerns the coach advised all the pitchers to work on their own at increasing velocity and not worry about anything else. Handa worked with a private pitching and conditioning program and his velocity jumped from the high 80's up to 97 MPH. He then pitched for the New England Collegiate League where he impressed scouts and his velocity remained in the mid-upper 90's. I could not find any stats from the minor leagues after the draft so it appears he did not get in any games. He will definitely be a name to follow in minor league boxscores in 2022.
4. Eric Silva, HS RHP. DOB: 10/3/2002. 6'1", 185 lbs. Rookie: 0-1, 36.00, 1 IP, 3 BB, 2 K. Silva is this year's HS overslot play for the Giants. He signed for $1.475 M which is almost $1 M overslot to sign him away from a UCLA commitment. Ranked as #2 RHP draft prospect from CA and #24 in the country. FB listed at 92 MPH but he has room to grown into his frame. His PG scouting report: "low 90's and dominant at WWBA; Live arm and projectable build; High level spin and feel for landing it. Pounds the zone." I wouldn't worry about the tiny sample size in rookie ball. He should follow in Kyle Harrison's footsteps and pitch for San Jose next season.
3. Mason Black, College RHP. DOB: 12/10/1999. 6'3", 230 lbs. College: 7-3, 3.11, 72.1 IP, 31 BB, 95 K. Big boned and muscled. Uses his legs to propel a drop and drive delivery that produces a high 90's FB. The body size and delivery remind me a lot of Matt Cain. Lit up the Cape Cod League. Walk rate was a bit high his junior year at Lehigh which may be why he fell to the Giants in round 3. No projection in the body but who needs projection if you are already a physical monster? Command could improve and the secondary stuff needs development but there is a lot to work with here and the ceiling is high.
2. Matt Mikulski, College LHP. DOB: 5/8/1999. 6'4", 205 lbs. Rookie: 0-0, 1.80, 5 IP, 3 BB, 5 K's. College: 9-0, 1.45, 68.1 IP, 27 BB, 124 K. Tall, big-boned lefty with a mid 90's FB as a SP that bumps up to high 90's as a reliever. Maintained FB velocity late into games. Worked on smoothing out a violent delivery which led to a dominant junior season for Fordham. Has a slider that "misses bats" and a decent changeup.
1. Will Bednar, College RHP. DOB: 6/13/2000. 6'2", 230 lbs. Rookie/A: 0-0, 1.29, 7 IP, 1 BB, 6 K's. College: 9-1, 3.12, 92.1 IP, 26 BB, 139 K. Will Bednar checks all the boxes for a first round draft pick:
Dominant SP for a major college conference.
Led team to College WS win.
Strong frame with power delivery.
Mid-90's FB and plus slider with high spin rates.
Should move quickly. MLB ETA mid-late 2022 is not out of the question.
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Draft Review Summary: The Giants used this draft to address their biggest organizational need, pitching. Bednar should be ready to help almost immediately. They later added a raft of high-ceiling college arms who should not be far behind Bednar. They managed their bonus pool to nab a highly ranked HS pitcher for the future. Maybe not a spectacular draft but a very solid one that should immediately balance out the talent pool in the farm system.
Considering all the pitchers SF drafted in 2021 (the first 9 picks plus 5 more in the next 9) after 4 of 7 picks for pitchers in 2020, it's pretty obvious FZ & Co are quite aware the Giants need some pitching to go along with the Whiz Kids who are coming up. That's 18 pitchers out of 22 picks in 2 drafts.
ReplyDeleteOTOH, with only Logan Webb returning for 2022 of 6 SPs who started at least 6 games in 2021, there is also an obvious need to fill the rotation this winter to defend the Western Division Champpionship.
Could the rest of the top 4 SPs in games started in 2021 — Gausman, DeSclafani, and Wood — ALL be on the Giants shopping list?
Assuming they all liked pitching and succeeding together in SF, could they all be signed?
Could "re-uniting to repeat" be used as a feature to attract them all?
Or, is that too much money when the Giants are most likely also looking for a good RH bat in the OF?
Maybe not. Looking at MLBTR and Fangraphs projections for the 3 of them
MLBTR has a fairly steep estimate for Gausman (6 years, $138 M) but Fangraphs' Ben Clemens is not nearly so much (3 years, $54 M). One seems high, the other low. Gausman will be 31 in January without a lot of success not in SF. He definitely would be the SF ace, 1 of 2. $20M-$23M/year?
Desclafani has 3 years, $42M (MLBTR) and 2 years, $20M (Fangraphs). That seems reasonable. $10M-$14M per year.
Wood is 3 years, $30M (MLBTR) and 1 years, $8M (Fangraphs, sort of, Clemens comps him with Yusei Kikuchi. Crowdsource had 3 years, $33M for Wood.).
That's $36M - $47M (low and high) for 3 pitchers (or 4 because Webb isn't even in Arbitration yet) with a payroll sitting around $90M. Does seem like a stretch? Sell a Repeat, Farhan!
Compliments for your excellent review of last year's draft. Thank you.
Delete3 of the top 4 made MLB Pipeline Giants top 30 prospects. Appears that #3, Mason Black, didn't have any league play after signing less than 2 weeks after the draft.
As for 2022 FA pitchers, MLBTR reports that Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle says the Giants are in talks with free-agent righty Alex Cobb and appear to be making a “strong push” to sign the veteran righty.
MLBTR ranked Cobb 39th on their Top 50 Free Agent list, 2 years, $16M.
Fangraphs' Ben clemens has him 2 years, $20M.
Steamer projections 151 IP and 2.4 WAR.
Thank you for the kind words. I learned a lot researching the info.
DeleteSharing that I listened to an interesting prospect/scouting chat with Giants national cross checker Brian Bridges. He previously worked as a scout for Braves from 2007-2019, and as scouting director from 2014-2019. He's credited with drafting Craig Kimberl, Jason Heywood, Alex Wood, and his fingerprints are all over the Braves current championship roster. The secret to the Giants success is having good people working behind the scenes, although it's probably too early to rate the 3 drafts under FZ especially since the 2020 minor league season was cancelled. For those interested, just Google Brian Bridges Giants and the 15 minute chat should be available for viewing. Happy Thanksgiving!
ReplyDeleteI was just thinking of doing a review of the 2019 Giants draft, the first under FZ. While there is much to criticize about the first round pick(Hunter Bishop), the jury is still out and there appears to be potential value deep into the draft.
DeleteInteresting that Brian Bridges' forte seems to be pitching(he scouted Buster Posey coming out of HS as a pitcher). The Giants first draft under FZ was likely based mostly on scouting done under John Barr and was extremely hitter heavy, the last two, with Bridges as National Crosschecker were pitching heavy.
DeleteInteresting that the Braves drafted a lot of their impressive young pitchers they have now with Bridges as their scouting director such as Ian Anderson, Mike Sorotka, Kyle Mueller, AJ Minter to name a few. Interesting that when he evaluates a pitching prospect he prefers one that is a good pitcher that can locate his fastball and breaking ball where he wants it, changes speeds, good delivery vs a pitcher who throws 100 mph with a below average breaking pitch. After reading Will Bedners scouting report, it does seem to match what they are looking for in a young pitcher. Hopefully with some luck and hard work the Giants development staff can finish off his and other pitching prospects development.
DeleteI think the biggest thing not mentioned here was that the Giants passed on the potential #1 pick of the draft in Khalil Watson. He was pre-draft #4 overall. I know there may have been some signing concerns. Miami landed him for about 4.5miL a few picks later. The Giants got Bednar at 3.6miL. I think drafting Watson may have hurt their plans to get Eric Silva, but perhaps they also absolutely love Bednar. Either way it will be interesting to see how things develop down the road with Watson, Bednar, and Silva. Overall I like what the Giants did here. Their ability to get more from veteran pitchers / reclamation projects gives me confidence they can develop these younger guys too.
ReplyDelete