Giants News: DeRosa in DeDumps, Burrell Up the Ball, Prospecting

DeRosa Seeing Light of Surgery Tunnel

As reported (like by Baggarly) DeRosa was thoroughly unimpressed with his one rehab game in San Jose.  It was so bad that he decided to cut that short (partly due to sinkerballer pitching the next night) and spend the rest of the homestand with the team, before heading back to AAA for some more games, some more tries to salvage this season.

But it's looking more and more like he will be operated on.  He's seen the expert - the one he should have had done the surgery in the first place instead of the local doctor he chose instead - and the doctor said that "I can fix this."  Normally, it's 3 months to recover but since it's his second, it could take longer.

I think this is the best route.  Get him well before next season.  His skills still looked OK before his injury last season.

Apparently the only reason he's doing this rehab thing is because the Giants want him to, just to exhaust all avenue of getting some value out of him this season, it seems to me.  I think that this is a mistake.  If they operated on him a couple of weeks ago, he could possibly have been ready by September or October if we made the playoffs.  Now, it is iffy at best.  Plus, if there are any other complications, then he will have that much more time to deal with it.

The focus should have been on maximizing his value in 2011, 2010 is pretty much gone and was, to me, clearly gone the moment he said the surgery was a total failure.  Remember, he was horrible after he sustained that injury while with the Cards last season.  If he couldn't hit with it then, why would he hit with it now?

Pat the Bat Could Join Giants Soon

Hank Schulman blogged that it wouldn't be surprising to see Pat Burrell join the team sooner or later, perhaps as soon as Friday's road trip game.  Burrell has been hitting well in his time in AAA (though I would note that even career AAAA hitters hit well in AAA in their 30's as their experience gives them that great an advantage) and Schulman thinks that the team could use such a bat off the bench.  And the points he makes are very true.

The key question then is who gets voted off the 25-man roster then?  The two obvious choices would be Bowker and Ishikawa, as they have been used the least.  They appear to want Whiteside, though with Posey up, they could try to send him down and let Posey be the backup.  But I don't know whether they can option him down or not, without exposing him to waivers.  Schierholtz has no options plus has shown enough to keep him around, while Bowker does have an option.  And Downs is our only MI on the bench, so he's not going anywhere.  That leaves Bowker and Ishikawa.

I would think Bowker is the one to go.  He has an option left while Ishikawa would have to go through waivers and probably would be picked up by somebody.  He is an OF, which Burrell is too (though reportedly Burrell can play 1B too, but he is horrible defensively in LF and probably more so at 1B).  Bochy recently complimented Ishikawa's ability to hit from the bench, but Bowker has been good doing that too, so they are even there it would appear.  And we have three lefty options off the bench, but our two right-handed options are Downs and Whiteside right now, so one of the lefties should go, and, as noted, Bowker is the only one of them with an option left.

And definitely, no dropping of Posey to bring Burrell up.  Burrell should not be starting regularly.  He will have to earn that after the other OF (Schierholtz and Bowker) are given chances to do something.  He has stunk awful bad for a long while now, he needs to work his way back to starting, step by step.  First is being our power hitting alternative off the bench, the spot that Uribe was suppose to hold.

Luis Heredia Pursuit

It is time for rumors on which team is pursuing which Latin American 15 YO, nearing 16 YO (which is when he can sign) free agents.  I posted a blog on this recently, and the latest one I read about was reported on MLB Trade Rumors about Luis Heredia.  A tall 6' 4" right-hander from Mexico, Heredia is part of this year's July 2 class (that is the starting date when kids turning 16 YO can sign a contract with an MLB team) and apparently that is exactly his birthday.

I've never heard of this before, but I guess it is different in Mexico:  he is controlled by a team and they would need to make him available.  They will probably get a big cut of any bonus he signs for, the percentage I've seen for other international free agents is a third of the bonus, which the article says "could cost as much as $2MM".

The Giants are mentioned as one of the pursuers, along with the Pirates, Yankees, D-gers, Blue Jays, Rangers, and Mariners.  The article noted how the Pirates and Blue Jays have pursued international talent aggressively recently but don't mention the Giants.  I rectified that situation.  :^)

June 8th Amateur Draft

The draft is nearing and it will be broadcast live again on mlb.com.  I have enjoyed following along the draft, you can pick up a lot of information about the picks, particularly when there are interviews with the GM - that's how I learned about the Giants expectations that Bumgarner would be on the fast track and expected to reach the majors in two years.  There are also all sort of links to videos and other information.

I was hoping to show some analysis of the mock draft picks I've seen so far, but with the draft so close, I think I'll just link to the latest mocks instead and throw out names I've seen that might be available.

The latest mock is on MLB Fanhouse (an AOL site) by a former MLB scout, Frankie Piliere.  He sees the Giants picking Nick Castellanos, 3B High Schooler.  His commentary:

The guy who seemed to be their prime target, [Yordy] Cabrera, is off the board in this scenario. The White Sox seem to have moved off Castellanos and are focusing on the college ranks, so it's possible he could slide this far. He'd be on the Giants' short list.

He could be pretty good, as Jonathan Mayo of MLB.com sees him going 14th instead. BA's Jim Callis also thinks that he would go to the Giants as well.  BA ranked Castellanos as the 17th best prospect overall in their Top 200 list, so he is probably a name who will be in play.  Other names I've seen mocks having the Giants pick are Austin Wilson (BA 27th overall), OF; Justin O'Conner, SS/C (24th overall); Gary Brown, OF (14th overall); Christian Colon, SS (9th overall); and Yordy Cabrera, SS/RHP (30th overall), the Cabrera mentioned in the quote above.

Other names I've seen available and selected in the late first round include Brett Eibner (23rd overall); Bryce Brentz, OF (28th overall); OF/RHP; Kaleb Cowart, 3B/RHP (12th overall); Delino DeShields Jr., OF (55th overall); Asher Wojciechowski, RHP (22nd overall); Anthony Ranaudo, RHP (26th overall).  A.J. Vanegas (46th overall) caught my eye because of his high strikeouts and high K/BB ratio, which is what Bumgarner and Alderson excelled at.  The only others with similar stats were Stetson Allie (8th overall) and Dylan Covey (18th overall), both of whom should be gone by the time the Giants pick.  Still, stats is not all there is, it depends on the level of competition, but still, better to have than to not have.

Apparently the Giants have been scouting Cabrera heavily enough to catch notice.  However, most drafts I've seen had him being selected before the Giants can get to him.  But that could also be a ploy as well, most teams know that they are being watched as to their behavior.  Still, last year it was known that Sabean scouted Wheeler personally, so not all are ploys.  Sabean isn't scouting any amateur this season, stating that he is focusing more on the MLB team this season.  Barr and Tidrow have been handling the preparation for the draft.

Austin Wilson supposedly has top 15 talent (BA, however, as noted, only ranked him 27th, but did note that he "has the tools to match any prospect in the draft, save Harper"; Bryce Harper, if you didn't know, is the consensus #1 pick) but teams are scared off by his Stanfurd commitment and the money it would take to sign him away, $2.5M is the figure I've seen.  However, both Blue Jays and the Phillies have had high-ranking officials visit him, so I've seen a number of drafts have one or the other team select Wilson.  The Giants were only mentioned because Stanfurd is nearby in the one draft I saw previously.

This year I wanted to cover all the names I've seen who could fall to the Giants in certain scenarios as the Giants have usually not gone the way the experts think.  Most thought either Drabek or Bard when they selected Lincecum, and many had Lincecum falling past them.  Most thought a hitter like Mills when they selected Bumgarner.  Most did have them picking Posey, though.  And last year, nobody had them picking Wheeler, most thought they would go for Tyler Matzek, though Wheeler was noted as a plan B (turned out he was plan A as Matzek lasted all the way to the 11th pick, Colorado, who picked up a nice talent with a so-so draft position.).

There were more bonus babies falling the draft each year it seems, or at least more who fell and then signed - it could be that previously teams would not sign such players.  Perhaps there is a greater willingness to pay above slot bonuses.  The Giants #24 slot in 2009 was $1,242,000.  Prospects who fell and got significantly above slot (and more than the #24 slot) included #6 Zack Wheeler (who we got), #9 Zach Turner (Detroit has been picking off better talent with bad draft position), #11 Tyler Matzek (Colorado), #13 Grant Green (A's spending more money), #15 Alex White (Indians), #19 Shelby Miller (Cards), #22 Kyle Gibson (Minnesota!), #29 Slade Heathcott (NYY, of course), #58 Andrew Oliver (Detroit), #91 Wil Myers (KC), #107 David Renfroe (Red Sox), #122 Chris Dwyer (KC), #123 Max Stassi (A's).

This year's draft will be different in that the player we select will not necessarily help us soon, like Lincecum, Bumgarner, and Posey have risen through the minors.  Talent is lacking generally in the back end of the first round, though as I showed above, more teams are attempting to sign the signability picks that fall down to them.  And most did sign still.

Hopefully the Giants are devoting more money to the draft to pick up one or two of these signability picks.  They have been more aggressive in recent years to go above slot to get the guy they want.  And they have gone after picks that fell for other reasons.  And as noted above, the Giants are in the mix for at least two $2M+ bonus babies in the Latin American free agent market.