Wednesday, January 10, 2018

DrB's 2018 Giants Top 50 Prospects: Honorable Mention Part IV

We added 3 players to the HM list:  Tyler Herb RHP, Eduardo Rivera RHP, Miguel Figueroa RHP.

Jake Greenwalt, RHP.  DOB:  4/301998.  6'1", 175 lbs.  Drafted 2016 Round 23.
R:  2-6, 6.98, 49 IP, 9 BB, 41 K, GO/AO= 0.98.  Greenwalt's slight build may have caught up with him as his ERA soared over his last 5 appearances.  Hopefully stamina will come with maturity.

Franklin Van Gurp, RHP.  DOB:  10/26/1995.  6'1", 210 lbs.  Drafted 2017 Round 25.
R:  5-1, 0.92, 29.1 IP, 7 BB, 41 K, GO/AO- 0.96, 2 Saves.  Nice numbers from a late round draftee, but rookie league.

Garrett Cave, RHP.  DOB:  7/18/1996.  6'4", 200 lbs.  Drafted 2017 Round 4.
SS:  1-1, 5.85, 20 IP, 12 BB, 29 K, GO/AO= 1.07, 3 Saves.  Hard throwing righty with a nice K rate.  other numbers were much better until he gave up 6 of 13 BB's in his last 3 appearances and 6 ER out of 12 in his last 2 appearances.  Breakout potential.  Could move way up next year's list.

Brandon Van Horn, SS.  DOB:  12/18/1993.  B-R, T-R.  6'2", 175 lbs.  Drafted 2016 Round 19.
A:  .262/.298/.333, 11 2B, 3 HR, 11 SB, 4.9 BB%, 22.3 K%, 305 PA.  Reputation as a defensive wizard at SS.  Offense took a step forward in 2017 though a bit old for the level.  Should get a chance at SJ in 2018.  Sleeper!

Jacob Heyward, OF.  DOB:  8/1/1995.  B-R, T-R.  6'3", 210 lbs.  Drafted 2016 Round 18.
A:  .223/.317/.351, 16 2B, 10 HR, 10.2 BB%, 26.7 K%, 412 PA.  Disappointing first full season even with a conservative placement.  Giants have so many OF's in the organization.  Will Heyward still have a place to play?

9 comments:

  1. Garrett Cave was a steal @ the 126th pick.
    And he probably ran out of gas last year: he was 1 out short of 62 innings for Tampa before the draft (after 34 ip in '16 & and 26 in '15 @ FIU).
    200 pounds @ 6-4 means there's bare meat on the bones, and he was probably on fumes @ 190 by the end of the year!
    Great prospect, could be Melancon's successor!

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  2. I'm pulling for Franklin Van Gurp big time; he's got an 80 on the name scale.

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  3. Glad to see the Giants escaped trying to compensate for the OF lumbering of Jay Bruce, who’s a Met for the next three years. Of course they still need to acquire someone better . . .

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  4. Dave Cameron leaving Fangraphs and headed to the Pesky Padres. Its going to be a big change to one of our favorite websites. Its also a big win for the Padres!

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    1. Dave Cameron pretty much WAS Fangraphs. Not sure why it's win for the Padres. Cameron is a good writer and has strong opinions, some of which I agree with, but I'm not sure how he's a difference maker for the Padres.

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    2. I guess what I'm saying is it seems like a much bigger loss for fangraphs than a gain for the Padres.

      Maybe it's just me or maybe it's the glacially slow offseason, but Fangraphs seems to be in a bit of a malaise and the quality of their product has been sliding for awhile. My suggestion to Dave Appleman would be to hire fewer, better writers and bring in a few guys who can put up articles over weekends and holidays.

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    3. I agree with DrB that it's a bigger loss for Fangraphs than a gain for the Padres. He's been good for guiding them.

      I view this more as a vanity hiring. I don't know how many Fangraphs authors or other sabers get hired into a MLB organization and then bounce back out soon afterward, but I've seen a number leave in fanfare, only to return to the outside.

      The only ones I've see that have stuck are Fox, who joined the Pirates and helped with building up their operations and Mike Fast, who joined the Astros (I'm sure there are others that I'm not aware of, but generally, seen more that bounce back to media). I don't know his background, but to me, it seems that the ones with real life skills in data analytics and/or programming seem to stick (Fox was programmer, for example). Even Voros bounced out of the Red Sox pretty quickly, though Bill James is still there, as well as Tom Tippett (not sure how to categorize him, he's definitely a top notch analyst, but he was the lead for an on-line baseball simulation game previously and wrote on baseball from that position). So, we'll see what happens, but I expect him back in a year or two, writing for someone. Maybe he'll move on to BP, who have stole a lot of the writers who used to write interesting things for Fangraphs, like Russell Carleton, aka PizzaCutter.

      The problem I find with most baseball sites is that you get one of two types of authors: generalists with the technical skills to do a lot of analytics and/or focus on one particular area, like prospects, or pitching, or hitting; or ones who are team focused. The generalists are great at broader type of studies, but when they try to write on a specific team/player, miss details any hardcore fan knows to be true. The ones devoted to teams tend to not know the technical details for analytics or prospecting or more detailed analysis, so you get more of the surface level type of analysis, which has it's purposes.

      So, like, for example, MLB.com had an article digging into Baseball Savant looking for the next Charlie Morton, and Chris Stratton popped up as one of the ones the author highlighted. Then they could have had a Giants writer add in that Stratton was viewed by management after the season as #4 in the rotation, that he seems to have finally overcomed the concussion he suffered within weeks of signing from a batted ball, that he's now looking like the pitcher the Giants fans were expecting after he was drafted. None of that detail was in the article, but would have been useful for gaining context for what him showing up on that list meant to Giants fans.

      What they need to do is force them to write in co-operative teams. The generalists will do the great stuff they do, but when they get into the nitty gritty, make their first pass at it, then let the team specialists add in the detail to make the analysis rock solid. They do this type of work-units now in programming, so this is not a new to work, just would be new to online content sites like Fangraphs.

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    4. Also, he was not an author I felt I needed to read when I saw the byline on Fangraphs. He's good but not must read for me.

      However, Eno Sarris has been a good analyst as well as focused on the Giants (and a handful of other teams) for Fangraphs, and I would be missing his good work right now if it wasn't that I signed up with The Athletic for a subscription. I've enjoyed it very much so far, and it gets me access to Andy Baggarly, which was the main reason I subscribed. Also, great articles on the Niners and Warriors, if anyone is interested.

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