40 Man Changes: 3 Spots Left

The Giants just announced a few 40 man roster moves in anticipation of the Rule 5 Draft that will happen soon, here are the changes:

• RHP Jose Casilla was added.
• RHP Steve Edlefsen was added.
• LHP Clayton Tanner was added.
• 1B Brett Pill was outrighted to Triple-A Fresno
• RHP Waldis Joaquin was placed on release waivers.
  

That left the team with 37 players on the 40 man roster, leaving space for 3 players. Given that the Giants are clearly pursuing Huff and Uribe, if they should achieve what they hope for, that would leave only one spot left, meaning that they would only be able to add Burrell or Renteria but not both, without needing to clear a spot on the roster if they want both players.

This last spot could also be for someone they hope to snag in the Rule 5 draft themselves.  They have been relatively active in that arena in recent seasons, though no one has stuck so far.  Some have looked good enough that other teams then snagged them, but the only one who appears to have some MLB hope is the pitcher the Giants drafted then returned, only for San Diego to pick him up and keep him on their roster, I think in 2009.  And still, the hope is not that great.

Still, this is very much like the amateur draft after the first couple of rounds.  Not very many of the players drafted via this process ever make the majors and stick, let alone be a regular starter.  But successful pickups like Johan Santana and Josh Hamilton (pick someone whose first name starts with a J?) means that teams will continue to participate and hope they find the right guy ready to take the big leap.  Kind of like the regular amateur draft.

When I find out who might be drafted away from us via the Rule 5 Draft, I'll post it.  If you know it, please post the link in the comments.

Here is what the linked article above mentioned on each player, I'll add comments:

• Casilla, the younger brother of Giants reliever Santiago Casilla, finished 4-1 with a 1.16 ERA and 14 saves in 46 appearances. The 21-year-old made the South Atlantic League's midseason All-Star team.  
• OGC:  from what I've read, he's even better than his older brother.  He did extremely well, despite being much younger than most players in the league.  He could be being groomed in case the Giants might have to let go of Wilson, depending on how much money he wants beyond arbitration.
• Edlefsen, 25, was 7-2 with a 2.38 ERA and six saves in 49 relief appearances in his second season at Triple-A Fresno and was named a Pacific Coast League midseason All-Star.  
• OGC:  If I recall right, he was named by BA as having the best slider in the system for a number of years now.  He hasn't risen as fast as I was hoping given his early hype when he turned pro, but he did very well in AAA in 2010.  Unfortunately for him, the Giants are currently full up on relievers, he'll probably be among the first choices the Giants consider if anyone is injured or need to be replaced due to poor performance in 2011 and probably will get a chance in 2012, I think a number of relievers are eligible for free agency then or arbitration.  
• Tanner, 22, went 9-9 with a 3.68 ERA in 27 starts for Double-A Richmond in 2010. The graduate of De La Salle High School in Concord, Calif., made the Eastern League midseason All-Star team and finished ninth in the league in ERA. 
•  OGC:  I have been rooting for Tanner but he's the crafty lefty type of pitchers and those types of pitchers need to prove themselves at every level.  He'll have to prove himself in 2011 in AAA, then eventually the majors.  But he's done pretty well at each level and he's still prospect young, so there is plenty of hope.  But with the low K-rate, the odds will be long.  And we saw how Pucetas flamed out in AAA.  But I always have a soft spot for prospects with local ties.  Go Clayton!
• Joaquin, 23, appeared in four games with the Giants this season, allowing six runs (five earned) in 4 2/3 innings. He spent most of the year with Triple-A Fresno and posted a 1-2 mark with a 4.93 ERA in 23 games, including five starts. He underwent lower back surgery on Nov. 10.  
• OGC:  I was pretty shocked to see him being dropped until I saw the lower back surgery mentioned.  They took a calculated risk, dropping him off the 40-man to open up a spot, hoping nobody will want to take him while he's recovering from major surgery, and then they can tuck him back into the farm system while he recovers. He's still young and got a lot of speed and stuff, so there's still a chance. 
• Pill, 26, batted .275 (143-for-520) with 34 doubles, 16 home runs and 84 RBIs at Fresno. 
• OGC:  Some people were really clamoring for him after his good AA season in 2009, but they failed to account for the fact that he did it at age 25.  It was a nice season but Ishikawa had a much better season than Pill did in AA, it wasn't even close and he did it at a younger age, and yet did not get the hype I saw with Pill among fans.  I don't know if it was because Ishikawa started out with a lot of hope/hype due to his high bonus but then was a disappointment, then did finally broke out of it, while Pill wasn't on anyone's radar and suddenly had one good season, but I don't understand the difference in interest, particularly since Ishikawa has shown a lot more power, particularly HR power, and their fielding is probably equal.  It appears I was correct, Pill had a nondescript 2010 and was dropped.

2010 Spring Training Cuts

Hank Schulman captured the hitters cut yesterday and Andy Baggarly covered the pitchers today.

The hitters:

• Brett Pill, 1B
• Ehire Adrianza, SS
• Wendell Fairley, CF
• Johnny Monell, C
• Thomas Neal, OF
• Nick Noonan, 2B
• Hector Sanchez, C
• Jackson Williams, C

The pitchers:

• Craig Clark
• Rafael Cova
• Steve Edlefsen
• Eric Hacker
• Osirus Matos
• Clayton Tanner
• Dan Turpen
• Craig Whitaker

Plus, Steven Johnson, our Rule 5 draft pick passed through waivers and was offered back to the Orioles, who presumably will take him back, if not already.

None were surprising to my mind. Schulman noted the following, however, about Pill:

The only mild surprise is Pill, because I was told he would get a long look this spring. But that was before Aubrey Huff's defensive deficiencies became so apparent, prompting the team to give Buster Posey and John Bowker some longer looks at first base. Pill needs to get his work in the minor-league camp.

According to Baseball America, Pill is the best defensive firstbaseman in the Giants farm system, so that makes sense that they would want to look at him longer. However, as nicely as he did in AA last season, he was a 24 YO in a league averaging 24 YO and did not stand out from the crowd offensively. Only the best of the best in the league will move on to the majors and be successful.

For example, in 2008, Pablo Sandoval hit .337/.364/.549/.913, good for 9th in the EL. He was 21 YO. Wieters led the league in OPS and was 22 YO. None of the other "leaders" in the EL in OPS were highly thought of prospects, and age had to do with it. Only Nick Evans of the Mets (22 YO) was in the Top 10 and that young. Casper Wells (23YO) was 4th and is 16th in Detroit's system this season. Luke Hughes (23 YO) was 7th and has already fell off the Twin's prospect list.

It would have been a stretch to see Pill on the major league roster to start the season. And I suppose part of that interest to see him was driven by Ishikawa's injury with no clear take on what would happen until recently when they determined that he won't need surgery and would be ready for the season.

Meanwhile, Buster Posey continues to impress at 1B, which could be another reason Pill was sending packing (see Haft's nice article on Posey). Still, as this and other articles note, the Giants view Posey as a catcher, and Bochy's comments in this post affirm that: "I like the way he's catching. I want to keep him sharp back there." I think it is clear that Posey is the Giants catcher of the future and that the Giants will promote him when that time comes.

However, most probably that time is the second half of this season and I can see the Giants bringing up Posey and basically platoon him between C and 1B, giving Molina rests at 1B, and giving Posey AB's against LHP at 1B in place of Huff. And if they make the playoffs, he'll be a potent bat off the bench or perhaps even starting, depending on how poorly Molina and/or Huff is hitting, plus how tired Posey is, he clearly pooped out at the end of the 2009 season. And should they be lucky enough to make the World Series, he could be starting at either DH or 1B, depending on the situation regarding Huff's defense.

And that's the big news in this news blurb, that Huff's defense is causing a Giants re-think on how 1B is handled. Clearly, they need a strong defensive 1B on the bench now, meaning Posey won't cut it and Ishikawa, as long as he is healthy enough, will be that strong defensive 1B. Prior defensive stats (like UZR and Fielding Bible's Plus/Minus) suggested that Huff might have been OK enough there (about -0.5 wins) to warrant giving up the defense for his bat, but clearly there is some worry there now. And greater need for keeping someone like Ishikawa around all season for 2010, even though he's also a lefty and cannot really play any other position.

2010 Giants Non-Roster Invitees: 22 this season

This was blogged on by Henry Schulman last week, been meaning to get to it. Here is the list of names he reported on:

• Denny Bautista (RHP; was in majors before, I assume signed minor league contract))
• Santiago Casilla (RHP; former A's reliever, signed to minor league contract recently)
• Rafael Cova (RHP)
• Steven Edlefsen (RHP; BA rated him as best slider in 2008 annual)
• Eric Hacker (RHP)
• Osiris Matos (RHP; we dropped him from 40-man so apparently nobody claimed him and returned to us)
• Tony Pena Jr. (RHP; was in majors before, I assume signed minor league contract)
• Felix Romero (RHP)
• Dan Turpen (RHP)
• Craig Whitaker (RHP; top pick, been working his way up long time)
• Craig Clark (LHP)
• Clayton Tanner (LHP; local kid, been doing well, rising up, good luck!)
• Steve Holm (C; was dropped from 40-man last season when Whiteside brought up)
• Jonny Monell (C)
• Hector Sanchez (C; one of our better prospects)
• Jackson Williams (C; one of our sandwich draft picks, good/great skills, bad bat so far)
• Ehire Adrianza (SS; reported as major league ready SS skills, needs to develop hitting, still young)
• Brandon Crawford (SS; noted as SS of the future by Giants brass this off-season)
• Nick Noonan (2B/SS; hype has died down but this past season was first year he showed hitting discipline that scouts raved about when drafted, I'm very encouraged by his good improvement late in the season, but he needs to continue showing that)
• Wendell Fairley (CF; has been up and down as a prospect, but it's a good sign that they are bringing him up to spring training this year)
• Roger Kieschnick (RF; had very good first full pro season, still strikes out too much but shows all the skills he was advertised to have, very encouraging first year)
• Thomas Neal (LF, not RF as Schulman noted; breakout season, nice recovery from injury from a couple of years back, could be in majors soon if he continues hitting like that but in AA, remniscent of Pablo's rise)

Giants Thoughts

I totally and vehemently disagree with Henry Schulman's assertion that the Giants need to "develop three or four Pablo Sandovals and stick them on the field at the same time." It would obviously help, and I, of course, wouldn't mind that as that would give us one of the great teams in the history of the majors, but that is not critical to the team's success over the next few seasons. Perhaps this is why fans are so upset over the lineup, because reporters lead them to think that having so many great hitters (and Sandoval is a great hitter) in the lineup is a requirement to be successful every season in making the playoffs.

Heck, we didn't even have three or four Sandovals the year we went to the World Series (Bonds and Kent only, nobody else even broke 800 OPS).

Here is how special Sandoval was in 2009: only 6 hitters in the NL had a OPS as high as Sandoval's .943, only 4 hitters in the AL, for a total of 10 hitters in the majors, out of roughly 400 hitters. There are not that many players like Sandoval in the majors. So, no, we don't need to develop three or four Pablo Sandovals, that would be setting the bar waaay too high.

As I noted in my business plan series (linked to the side), when you have a great pitching staff, the offense does not have to be that good to win 90 games. With our defense (pitching and fielding) last season, we only needed to score 4.30 runs per game to reach 90 wins. That would have placed us comfortably 11th in the NL in 2009 (average runs scored was 4.43), behind the Washington Nationals which was 10th with 4.38 runs scored. With an average offense, we would have won 92 games.

Using Bill James projections plus our projected lineup, the Giants should score over 4.5 runs per game. To win 92 games averaging 4.5 runs scored, our defense would need a runs allowed average of 3.83, just slightly above last year's 3.77.

But James's projections tend to be on the high side, from what I recall. CHONE won for "best" projection for their 2008 projections, if I remember right. Using CHONE's projections, the Giants should score over 4.4 runs per game. If they did that, the Giants defense would have to allow 3.73 runs per game, or slightly better than last year's figure.

And I think that it is safe to assume something similar to last year's. Lincecum should be about the same. Any regression by Cain and/or Zito should be offset by Sanchez pitching well for a season (4.24 ERA overall but 5.54 ERA as starter before no-hitter and 3.46 ERA starting from no-hitter, and even without the no-hitter, he had a 3.83 ERA afterward, plus maturation and confidence and development for 2010, when he'll be 27 YO) and improvements in the #5 starter, whether Bumgarner or whoever, as our other starters (other then the four we have for 2010) had a 4.62 ERA collectively in 2009. Defensively, we take a big hit with Huff at 1B, but DeRosa and Sanchez are pretty good in the OF and 2B, respectively, which should balance things there. Plus Renteria's arm should be better with the surgery and Sandoval should be better with one more season of experience.

But I do agree vociferously with most of the rest of Schulman's post. "The Giants have taken the first step with some good position-playing drafts." I also agree with the Giants front office assertion that Baseball America was ill-informed when it criticized their system before, particularly in 2007 and 2008 when Sandoval was doing well but BA didn't think enough of him to put him in the Giants Top 30 prospects list.

I also whole heartedly agree that "Fans need some patience." Fans have not been patient. This is a long term process, and worrying that this might be the only year we can capitalize on Lincecum et al is fatalistic and shows lack of confidence, which I suppose is only fitting because these fans show no confidence in Sabean despite the great job he has done with the pitching staff. I, for one, am glad the Giants are taking the long view with regards to their strategy and not signing a Holliday (who I think is being overpaid in any case).

As I've been preaching the past few years, the Giants have been re-building and re-builds are never pretty nor cleanly done. It is never done with just home-grown players, there will always be free agents signed to fill in the gaps that the farm system could not fill. It will not be perfect, there will be mistakes, but you have to look at the big picture and see what team is coming out of the process.

What is coming out is a team dominated by a great pitching rotation, supported by a great bullpen, and has a developing offense, with Sandoval now in there (we have at least 5 more seasons of him) and Posey in the wings, plus a lot of good prospects percolating upward or already trying to make a name for themselves (Schierholtz, Bowker, Ishikawa, Burriss, Frandsen).

People are worried that the Giants won't be able to re-sign their young pitchers beyond our arbitration control because of the large contracts already committed (Zito and Rowand) but here I am putting my trust into Neukom's statement that he will get the money should we ever need it for a player. People have been assuming that applies only to free agents but I would have to think that it would apply to our own players as well, and Lincecum and Cain will be the first recipients of that largess, I believe.

Lastly, I would clarify one statement Schulman noted, that developing position players have not been the Giants forte. That's true if you are looking at the total number of position players developed. But that's not the whole story.

The whole story is that the Giants have been focusing their first round picks mainly on pitchers for the most part since Sabean took over as GM, and particularly after Dick Tidrow took over as head of player personnel. Those picks have the greatest likelihood of becoming a major league player, and even then, when you are winning, those picks become a good starting player around 10% of the time, which is pretty low odds. And they just get lower and lower, already around 1% by only the 4th round.

Picks like Posey (5th) and Wheeler (6th) become good players around 45% of the time, but by the 10th pick (Lincecum and Bumgarner) it has fallen to around 20% success rate for finding good starting players, and by the 21-30th picks, the ones that the playoff teams get, it is around 10%, as noted above.

That is a pretty low success rate, so while it is correct to say that developing position players have not been the Giants forte, there is a huge mitigating factor in that they had not been trying to be successful in developing position players, really, until 2008 when they drafted Buster Posey, Conor Gillaspie, Roger Kieschnick, and Brandon Crawford.

And, if Sandoval continues to hit like he did in 2009, what would you rather have: one Pablo Sandoval or a handful of Mark Teahen's, Bobby Crosby's, Dan Johnson's, Mike Jacob's? I would rather get a great player once in a while who you can't pick up easily via free agency, than a bunch of OK starters who you can pick up easily via free agency.

And Sabean has picked up great players over the years. Kent in 1997. Schmidt in 2001. Cain in 2002. Sandoval in 2003. Lincecum in 2006. And it is looking like Bumgarner in 2007 and Posey in 2008. Plus if Sanchez and Wilson continue doing well, I would add them to the list as well.

Oh, and I totally agree with Schulman that "they will be fun to watch."

Giants AFL Players Announced

Got the news from Baseball America. Here are the players, with one huge surprise:

• Steve Edlefsen, RHP: been on the prospect radar since he started out nicely with the Giants.
• Joe Martinez, RHP: gives him more experience with top level competition in preparation for next season since he missed all of this season, for the most part.
• Daniel Runzler, LHP: the huge surprise. Never heard of him until today when I was reading Andy Baggerly's blog, but he has risen from Augusta to Norwich this season, 24 years old, 0.80 ERA overall, reliever with 17 saves, 56.0 IP, only 21 hits !!!, 24 walks, and 80 strikeouts. Not too shabby!
• Buster Posey, C: needs no introduction. The recent announcement by Sabean that Posey would not be coming up in September, partly because he could be playing on Team USA overseas, implied to Baggerly that Posey is not ready to take over the starting job next season. If so, if the Giants want Molina back, he wants a two-year contract and hopes to get one. The article also notes that he also knows the Giants don't want to block Posey, but he doesn't believe the two choices are mutually exclusive, which implies that he would be ready to be Posey's backup buddy at some point during those two years, probably ideally he starts in 2010 while Posey spends a year in AAA, then if Posey is ready, he comes up in September and they split the games, then Posey starts in 2011 with Molina backing up plus getting regular starts if Posey needs to sit. That could work for me if the money is not too bad, but I expect him to want full price and that I don't want. Since the comment in the article linked about him auditioning for himself, he has a 4 game hitting streak, batting .294/.368/.412/.780 but only 1 RBI and 2 runs scored and 4 strikeouts in 17 AB.
• Brandon Crawford, SS: he had a great start to his pro career, then he got sent to that hell-hole of a stadium, Dodd Stadium, to play for the Connecticut Defenders. He suffered there. This situation should give us a better idea of where he is developmentally, the hot hitter he was in San Jose, or the lousy hitter he was in Norwich.
• Thomas Neal, OF: a mild surprise, though not too much since he hit very well there. He has hit .331/.422/.582/1.004 in San Jose this season, 20 HR in 428 AB, 80 RBI, but 91 strikeouts, though plus 55 walks. He outdid Kieschnick, who hit 23 HR in 471 AB, 101 RBI, but 118 strikeouts and 34 walks, .301/.351/.546/.897.