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Tuesday, July 24, 2007

2007 Draft Signings: Latest Report

The Giants announced the signing of nine more players from their 2007 draft Monday at their website. As I was alerted to by allfrank last week, Tim Alderson signed, along with a number of other draftees. The Giants also signed LHP Joseph Patterson; RHP Chance Corgan, Kyle Nicholson, and Daniel Turpen; infielders Ramon Corona, Andrew D'Alessio, Josh Lopez and Evan McArthur.

In total, the Giants have signed 22 of their first 24 draft picks (obviously, Bumgarner and Fairley are the last two not to sign) and a total of 40 draftees. They had drafted a total of 50 players, so that is an almost complete haul of their draft picks. If I recall right, they typically sign 40-45 each year, so that's right on target, but this is the first time I recall them signing all of the players in the first 19 rounds or so. There is usually someone between 5 and 15 who doesn't sign, if I recall right.

As I had noted in a previous post before, the signings are much slower this year as the slots were down 10% over last year. And both Bumgarner and Fairley either have a lot of neighboring picks who have not signed yet or who signed for a below slot amount, and they appear to be waiting out the process, probably to see if they can get an amount closer to last year's slot, much like Lincecum last year, who was one of the later to sign but got more money from the Giants than the picks around him, on a relative basis. I've also heard the rumor that Selig asked teams to delay announcement of signings for players who signed above slot. I think they will sign by the end of the month, as that leaves them about a month to play professionally, enough to give them a good taste of being a professional.

Which brings me to Andrew D'Alessio. His signing was just announced. But according to the stats for the Arizona Rookie League, he has been in 21 games already, almost as much as Nick Noonan, who signed long ago and has played 24 games. And he is doing very well, thank you. The firstbaseman is hitting .274/.344/.548/.892 with 6 homers in 84 AB, with 9 BB/18K, which is OK, but not great. I had read somewhere that D'Alessio was a steal as he is a good hitter. Thus far, he has done very well but, still, it is rookie league, so it will be interesting to see if he gets to see some action at Salem-Keizer soon.

Among these named signings, there were a few other who have played and have stats. Josh Lopez has already gotten into 9 games himself and Daniel Turpen has pitched in 3 games. There is also a Joseph Paterson on the team; assuming it is the same guy, he's doing well in 3 games, 4 IP, nothing but 6 K's.

I think I had noted before that Noonan has been doing well in rookie league but Culberson has not, thus far, but I don't think I mentioned that Jackson Williams, our 5th pick, has been playing at Salem-Keizer and hitting .217/.345/.406/.751 with 4 HR in 69 AB, with 10 BB and 13K's. Those are pretty good and bode well that the .217 BA is a fluke, as that works out to a BABIP of .212 and most hitters have around .300, though that is not a given, as most hitters have a personal level of BABIP that they regress to a mean of. So there is the chance that the .212 is his career level. However, 10 BB is a lot and 13 K's is a pretty good amount to have with 69 AB, that puts his contact rate in the low 80's, which is good.

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