Interview: Former Giants Top Prospect Gary Brown

Ran across this recent interview by Tyler Boronski with Gary Brown that is on YouTube:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=youtu.be&v=-ws1d_CvOvs



ogc thoughts

I had such hopes for Gary Brown.  I thought that just from defense that he would be able to provide a lot of value, giving him a pretty low bar for offense in order to be a Gregor Blanco type of complementary bench player, and hopefully to break out, like he did for the Cal State Fullerton Titans in his junior season.  Even a bench player like Blanco can provide good value for a draft pick, even a first round pick, because most draftees don't even do anything in the majors, let alone be an average player like Blanco was for the Giants.

Also, I was swayed by the fact that he had Scott Boras as his agent.  Boras, for all the bad he brings to MLB baseball, he does look after his clients and does some good for his players by providing them experts in a variety of fields, both baseball related and soft-skills related, like discipline and mental preparedness.   In baseball, as we saw with Matt Duffy, you need every edge that you can get.

Unfortunately, that was not to be for Gary, as the Giants DFAed him and the Cards picked him up, though only for a month before DFAing him, and the Angels picked him up at that point.  After a year, they DFAed him, and nobody picked him up (including, surprisingly and tellingly, the Giants, who seem to go after a lot of their former prospects) so he has ended up playing independent league baseball, for the Southern Maryland Blue Crabs.

He did not do so well in 2016, but has brought things up a lot in 2017, hitting .811 OPS after 17 games.  He is actually young for the league, despite being 28 YO already, and the league is actually pitching dominated, as the league average is .703 OPS.  But he's not even in the league's top 10, I see a lot of former MLB players and prospects in there - Nate Freiman, Nolan Reimold,  Caleb Gindl, Alberto Callaspo, even Sean Burroughs, still battling at 36 YO.  Have to be in the .900+ OPS range to be a top leader, basically.  He is 24th in the league, just ahead of another former Giants prospect, Darren Ford.  

He at least is among the league leaders in SB, which was one of his strengths, and only 2 CS so far, which was his big weakness.  He also needs to cut down on his strikeouts and increase his walks, again, two other weaknesses in his game while in the minors.  Since he is entering his athletic prime, now is the time for him to show what he got, hopefully he is starting to do that.

It was a nice to catch up with what is happening with him and to see him again.  Wish him all the best.