My notes:
- EME was promoted to AAA even though he didn't do that great in AA. I guess it was just time, plus our top OF - Neal, Ford, Kieschnick - was promoted to AA, so he needed to go somewhere if he was to start. I still think that if given enough time to get healthy, he can be a hitter again, but this season is probably do or die, if he don't do it, we should probably let him go. He really should be a DH if he ever makes the majors, so an AL team would probably pick him up.
- Henry Sosa: I read on Baggs or Schulman that Sosa that he'll be relieving there, not starting.
- Andy Sisco: He was a Royal's prospect a few years back, fireballer (theme for Giants) who could not find his control, but when he is on, he was a monster for the Royals. I hope the Giants can find the way for him to do his magic, he would be awesome to have in the bullpen. He's in AA, but I would have sent him to be with Steve Kline, who helped Runzler figure out the key to rise through the minors quickly and make the majors.
- Wow, I don't really recognize any of the starting pitchers for San Jose, I wonder if this is the year that they are not competing for the title.
- Got some prospects there - Adrianza, Belt, Peguero, Fairley - though I was surprised about Fairley, he didn't do that well last season.
- Augusta look barren too, Wheeler plus Joseph and Sanchez battling for time at catcher, they must be planning on playing Joseph a lot at 1B already, he really needs to play everyday so that we can see what type of bat he got.
- For some reason RafRod was not assigned. Sometimes a player rehabbing from something ends up in spring instructionals before getting assigned once he has recovered, but I was not aware of him being injured. I was expecting him to play in Augusta this season.
As I noted before, the prospect I am keeping a sharp eye on is Nick Noonan. He had a massive change in his strikeouts in his last two months of 2009 and if he can continue that into 2010, he is going to have a breakout year where he fulfills the prospect promise he had when we drafted him. He could be among those pushing to make the majors by season end, among many possibles in AA, partly made possible by the much better park there than at Connecticut.
Also, I should note two new additions to the farm system.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the Giants lost Ben Snyder in the Rule 5 Draft to the Orioles, who promptly traded him (along with Chris Ray) to the Rangers, but Rangers decided to return him and no team claimed him in waivers, with the intent of returning him. Then the Giants suggested a trade (details at Baseball America: http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/majors/trade-central/2010/269751.html).
The Giants are not in need of a back of rotation or LOOGY, at best, pitcher like Snyder right now, so they traded down and got a nice 17 YO lefty, Edwin Escobar, from the Rangers.
With Runzler and now Hinshaw, they don't need a LOOGY possibility like Snyder and obviously our starting pitching is stacked, so Snyder, while interesting, wasn't necessary.
Escobar is pretty interesting in any case. He will be 18 YO for this season, had a bad ERA in rookie ball, but that's not the key thing. First, 48 K's in 45 IP, excellent, but then only 16 walks, 3:1 K/BB ratio is excellent. He was just very unlucky with the hits (only 1 HR too!), with a BABIP of .366, despite having a fastball with sink that he got almost 50% groundballs.
Strikes out a lot, walks relatively little, gets a ton of groundballs: why did the Rangers trade him? Did they really need a middling pitching prospect that badly?
Now, Escobar appeared to be lucky with the HR as he only gave up 2.3% out of the few flyballs he did give up. Most give up 10%. Unsure if he was just lucky with that or if the sink will allow him to give up less. Also, he did that in only 47.1 IP, very small samples.
Still, very high strikeout rate, low walks, great ratio, lots of groundballs, that is a lot of good peripherals and even with only 47.1 IP, you don't do that over that many IP and games unless you got something going good for you, you don't really luck into that many strikeouts and groundouts.
Don't know why they don't want him, don't care, that's something you can work with. Great pickup.
First, addendum to Snyder/Escobar, according to MLB Trade Rumors, the Rangers had hoped to work out a deal to keep Snyder, so BA was wrong on that detail (MLBTR had a link to an article).
ReplyDeleteSecond, the Giants signed a Cuban pitcher, Reinier Roibal. A Cuban Ball Players website (http://cubanballplayers.blogspot.com/2009/10/ex-wasps-reinier-roibal-is-my-second.html), well, rates him as the second best prospect out of the bunch, presumably with Arodis Chapman as the obvious #1.
A RHP, he is 20 YO, 6'1" and 214 pounds. Excellent fastball, mid-90's, plus slider and sinker.
No word on bonus paid, so that's a sign of the big drop between Chapman and Roibal, I would think.
The history of Cuban prospects is not pretty, most have been overhyped, the one we signed before, Oswaldo Fernandez, fizzled out terribly.
Still, it is great that the Giants are going out and pursuing the best international amateur prospects, they will need to do that in spades to keep the prospect gravy train going if they start winning like I think they will.