Another Great Giants Reporter Blog; Bay Bridge Baseball

Kudos to El Lefty Malo for turning me on to Bay Bridge Baseball, published by Jeff Fletcher, formerly of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat (best wishes for finding your next job!). His site covers both A's as well as Giants, but, of course, I link above only to the Giants side.

He had a great post here, where he interviewed Bobby Evans and it is chock full of questions and information that I would have asked (which, frankly, has been lacking in most interviews or Q&A with Giants execs that I had seen before). Of course, it helped that the questions came from his readers who left the question on one of his posts, but still, very good information at this link. I'll copy what I think is good information to pass on:

• Some people have been agitating for the Giants to sign Hudson, but Evans says it is not going to happen, that they have three options they like, Frandsen, Burriss, and Velez. "We worked hard to develop those players, and we want to give them a chance."
• About Pablo and hitting homers: "I think Pablo is very much aware of the kind of player he'll be, at least this year. We all know he has power potential, but his biggest tool is going to be the bat and not so much the power. The homers will come for him, but that won't be a focus." That's good, most players turn into bad hitters trying to swing for homers, look at McGwire, he was good at USC and first year with A's then basically became a Dave Kingman-type of all or nothing hitter.
• About Pablo and 3B: "I think we're confident enough in him at third to have him as the leading candidate to play third for us. We'll evaluate him along with other options in spring training. We're confident enough at this point we haven't gone out and brought in anyone else to play third. Truth be known, we spent a lot of '08 focusing on him behind the plate, but his best position is still a great debate. What we do know is his bat fits in the lineup somewhere." He also noted that it would be nice if he is 3B, as that is a nice fit for the Giants. I'm sure we all totally agree with all this. :^)
• Confidence in Ishikawa: "I think the highest level of confidence is that we have in him is defensively he'll be above major league average at first. The offense, at a major league level, is going to be an ongoing evaluation. He's shown us things in his development and progress that give us reason to believe he'll be a very capable offensive addition in bottom end of our lineup paying first base. Ultimately his progression offensively has gotten back on track. We're optimistic that he'll carry his load well over there."
• Question whether there is any prospect better than Burriss at SS, like Brandon Crawford: "When you say 'better than' it's a hard question to answer. We like Brandon Crawford at short. We like Ehire Adrianza. We like Charlie Culberson at short, although he may profile at second as well. And Noonan can play short, but we like him more at second. But those are all solid."
• About Nate Schierholtz in RF in 2010: "I think we'll find out a lot more about Nate Schierholtz in '09 in whatever role he has on this club. One of the goals of '09 is to know as much as we can about Nate so that we make the right decision going into 2010. How confident are we? We are as confident as we need to be right now, but we have whole year to evaluate." (NOTE: Schierholtz is out of options this year, and Bobby confirmed to me that means he will be on the team in some capacity, barring something unforeseen.) If the Giants give him enough chances, I think they will be confident enough to start him in 2010. At minimum, this hopefully means they are not entertaining any thought of signing Winn to an extension.
• About where Bumgarner will be assigned: "He's got a chance to start in San Jose, but he also could make the Double A club. It's awful cold in Connecticut in April, so he might be better to start in San Jose and move later on... He'll be in minor league camp (in spring), but he'll have his time to visit with Randy Johnson and some big league players."
• About Sanchez maybe relieving in 2009: "Back and forth between bullpen and starting is not necessarily in his best interest. At times it's been in the best interest of the organization's needs at the given time. That could happen again in '09, but no question it would benefit him to stay in one role and progress in that... His best shot to help the club is as a starter, but that's always a point of discussion with how things look this spring." That's bad news to me, with the silver lining that he saves his arm while Lowry builds up his value in order to be traded, allowing Sanchez to start for 3-4 months at the end of the season after Lowry is traded to a contender.
• About Matt Downs going up and down: "Matt Downs is a very capable offensive player as well as defensively he can play a number of different places. Basically he was in a position where he played himself out of the Cal League and we wanted to advance him, but as the roster became jammed at Triple A, it made more sense for us to send him back to the Cal League where he could finish the season and complete what was a good year, as opposed to creating a spot at Double A where the roster was already full."
• About EME: "Eddy is going to be in minor league camp with hope of making the Triple A club. Certainly last year he progressed with the bat, but didn't show the power he's shown in the past. Hopefully that will come back this spring and another year removed from having been injured, he'll hopefully play a role on the Triple A club this summer." Good to hear he has a chance for AAA, that would be best for evaluating him properly. He did show power last year, however, because, as I've documented, Dodd Stadium saps a hitter's power numbers, and his road numbers, while not as strong as previous seasons, does show a fair amount of power (roughly 35 AB/HR or about 15-20 HR season).