Thursday, January 26, 2023

DrB's 2023 Giants Top 50 Prospects: #27 Brett Wisely

Brett Wisely 2B/UT.  DOB:  5/8/1999.  B-L, T-R.  5'10", 180 lbs.  Drafted 2019 Round 15(Rays).

2022(AA-Rays):  .274/.371/.460, 23 2B, 6 3B, 15 HR, 31 SB, 12.4 BB%, 20.8 K%, 500 PA.
2022(AAA-Rays):  .238/.261/.333, 4.3 BB%, 26.1 K%, 23 PA.

 Giants GM Farhan Zaidi signed minor league free agent Brett Wisely for $4.5 M.......wait, what?  Let's rewind that.  On July 21, 2022 FZ signed Trevor Rosenthal RHP for $4.5 M.  Rosenthal was rehabbing an injury and the plan seemed to be to add a veteran reliever with Closer experience down the stretch.  But Rosenthal kept getting reinjured.  On August 22, 2022, FZ flipped him to to Brewers for Tristan Peters OF.  Much like the Giants, the Rays had a 40-man roster crunch going into the Rule 5 Draft this last December.  So FZ flipped Peters to the Rays for Wisely and added him to the Giants 40-man roster.  He didn't add Nick Avila RHP and lost him in the draft so you could say it was a 3-team trade with Avila going to the White Sox. Yeah, so not sure how the $4.5 M got divvied up between the Giants and the BrewCrew but it seems the total price for acquiring Wisely was $4.5 M plus Nick Avila.  Got all that?  Good!

I think I am irrationally exuberant about Brett Wisely.  Per Fangraphs Eric Longerhagen says the Rays seem to like to stockpile undersized middle infielders with great hit tools and that's Brett Wisely to a T.  I am going to post a couple of comps here:

Tommy La Stella 2012 Age 23(A+):  .302/.386/.460, 22 2B, 5 3B, 5 HR, 13 SB, 10.1 BB%, 7.0 K%, 358 PA.   Wisely has more HR, way more SB's and at a higher level but with more K's. 

Isan Diaz 2019 Age 23(AAA):  .305/.395/.578, 26 HR, 5 SB, 11.3 BB%, 22.1 K%, 435 PA.  The tradeoff here is SB's for HR's with Wisely at a lower level, but we can probably blame COVID for that. Otherwise, they are essentially the same player at the same age.

At this point, Diaz is probably ahead of Wisely in the lefty-hitting middle infield line, but Diaz has had multiple shots to stick in the majors and has never been able to find traction.  The wild card in this is SB's which may be about to make a big comeback with bigger bases and new pitching rules which may favor players like Wisely bigly.  I, for one, would love that.

No comments:

Post a Comment