Out In Front: Trade Deadline Special + Something Extra

Before I start I have to say that I'm back after almost couple of weeks of inactivity! I've been into stuffs recently. I've been playing MLB 15 The Show a lot and I'm a lefty pitcher with my legit weight and height (you could say I'm as tall and as heavy as Pedro) where I focused on control and pretty much my dream repertoire (4SFB, CH, CUT, CB) and luckily, I got drafted by the Giants and made their team in 2016 where surprise surprise, the Giants won the World Series.Then in the next season, I got traded to the Orioles for Manny Machado and I'm like what the hell man. I'm going to strive to make the Orioles a winner right now and prove to Bobby Evans that I'm not just a control dude and I'm an ace and will be the Steve Carlton for the deprived Orioles squad. Then there's the enrollment period in college. I was actually making this blog post then suddenly, my grandmother passed away so I have to go far away to visit her and spent days there. Now that I'm finally back on the place where the internet's good that I can watch Pedro's HOF speech (big Pedro fan), I can finally write my latest post.

In this edition of Out In Front, I'll talk about the trade deadline that will come on the end of July that I talked about on Twitter, I also will talk about a lot of something extra that I have missed and will be composed of a lot of other topics that I want to talk about. Let's get this thing started.

Out In Front: The Giants and Tyler Beede Are A Perfect Match

In this edition of Out In Front, I got a chance to talk with a "source in the industry" about the San Francisco Giants right-handed pitching prospect Tyler Beede, the number 1 prospect in my Top 10+10 Prospects list and as well as other respectable prospect lists. We talked about Beede's baseball life, from being drafted in the 2011 MLB Draft by the Blue Jays and passing it up, to pitching in the powerhouse Vanderbilt University, to being drafted by the San Francisco Giants in the 2014 MLB Draft, performance this season and more that you might have never heard before.

Notes before reading my full blog post: My source requests not to be mentioned his name in this blog post to protect my source's privacy and I respect his decision to keep his identity as a secret. I will not also talk about my source in my article and in my comments and instead, I'll focus more on Tyler Beede. I know that I am not a journalist or a reporter to present to you a top-quality article presentation-wise (I'm a chemical engineering student) but I assure you that the information that you'll see here is legitimate and I did my best to deliver the information to the readers of my blog. I edited some of the things the source told me to provide better clarity and is enclosed in a parentheses.

Out In Front: My Franchise Four of the San Francisco Giants + Something Extra

There's two days off after the All-Star Festivities and we need to take some rest off for the big league stuff and some of the Minor League levels are also having their All-Star Festivities but there's some minor league levels are playing and the teams are fighting it all out in their squads. Let's enjoy this break and in this portion of Out In Front, I'll talk about something that's not related to prospecting and the minor leagues.

There's this thing in the All-Star Game called Franchise Four where fans got a chance to vote the four best players for their respective teams, kind of like the Mount Rushmore of different teams and baseball overall. I was one of the fans who vote a bunch of times to vote for my Franchise Four for the San Francisco Giants. I also voted for the greatest Negro League Players where I voted Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson, Cool Papa Bell, and Oscar Charleston and the Greatest Living Players where I voted Hank Aaron, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, and Tom Seaver (I almost voted for Pedro in place of Seaver and maybe I'll vote for Pedro sooner than later). But I will talk about my view on the Franchise Four of the San Francisco Giants where I voted for Willie Mays, Christy Mathewson, Barry Bonds, and Buster Posey. 

Stats that you'll see here are courtesy of FanGraphs.

Out In Front: Takeaways from the 2015 Futures Game

The 2015 Futures Game is now over and I didn't really slept really well before waking up at 3 a.m. to watch the Futures Game in MLB.com live stream because I am so excited maybe or I just don't watch to miss it because it's 3 in the morning. I managed to watch the game until Mella's pitching but I wanted to watch the game until Sean Newcomb but my body is failing me and he wants to rest. It ended up as a commanding victory for the Team USA 10-1.

The Giants have two players that's representing the team for the game and they are Tyler Beede and Keury Mella. I'll write up what I saw on Beede and Mella for the first time live. I will write here also the other performances by the other players that I like.

Scouting Reports For 2015 Giants Part 8: Coonrod, Duvall, Webb

Welcome to the Part 9 of my scouting reports series where I write my thoughts and scouting reports for the different prospects, famous or not or just I want to write something about them, of the San Francisco Giants organization. In this part 9 of the series I'll talk about the 5th round selection last year by the Giants Sam Coonrod, slugger of the year front-runner Adam Duvall, and 4th round selection last year of the Giants Logan Webb. 

FanGraphs profiles are available once you clicked on their names. Enjoy reading!

Scouting Reports For 2015 Giants Part 7-ish: Eddy Julio Martinez (Maybe) + Something Extra

Ahh, Cuba. Formerly the home of the Communism in Central America, filled with their aspirations to be equal and guns and Fidel Castro, not to mention the missiles (much, much dangerous than Aroldis Chapman) and the failed Bay Of Pigs mission. Now, Castro's dead and it is now the home of the ever-famous Cuban cigars and the Cubano sandwiches. But maybe the best thing that has ever come from Cuba nowadays is high-quality baseball talents. It is now probably as powerful in delivering baseball talent than an old enemy of the United States, Japan. I consider Japan is the best exporter of international pitchers while Cuba is the best exporter of international hitters (let's give some exception to Jose Fernandez, the pitcher). Thanks to Obama, relations of the United States and Cuba has eased and the hitters can now experience easier and better opportunities to get a chance to play in baseball's biggest stage. 

July 2 is the biggest stage in terms of signing guys away from the places not covered by the Rule 4 Draft. This year is no different, with guys that are projected in the top of the class are possible future franchise changers and pillars like Vladdy Junior, Jhalyn Ortiz, Wander Javier, etc. At the peak of the deep mountain is Eddy Julio Martinez, a Cuban outfielder who's ranked at #1 by MLB.com and #2 by Kiley McDaniel (there's no ranking from BA because they probably don't rank the Cuban prospects the same way). MLB.com's Jesse Sanchez wrote yesterday in this article that the Dodgers and the Giants are the favorites to sign the Cuban defector and he's going to have more workouts scheduled for both teams this week. Kiley McDaniel on FanGraphs wrote in his Sortable July 2 Board that Eddy Julio will be projected to sign in the ballpark of $11,000,000, which is almost double of what Lucius Fox and his pretty deep eyes that almost scared me. Below is my scouting report for him.

Out In Front: Breakdown of Tyler Beede's Latest Start + Something Extra

Here on the latest edition of Out In Front, I'll talk about Tyler Beede latest start as I covered him on Twitter last night in America (early morning here). I'll provide an inning-by-inning breakdown about his latest start and probably, his last start before the Futures Game where he's included and together with Keury Mella, they represent the San Francisco Giants in the game full of top prospects and future stars in Cincinnati. Here I go.

Out In Front Part 1: What To Make Of Chris Stratton & Martin Agosta This Season

Welcome to the first Out In Front Series, where I express my opinions about the hot topics regarding Giants prospects in a playful but informative way that's backed by data that I have collected from various sites! 

In this first part of the series, I'll talk about Chris Stratton and Martin Agosta, the first and second round selections of the San Francisco Giants in the 2012 MLB Draft. In full honesty, I almost placed this in Something Extra together with the Top 10+10 to make it just a short and quick read but there's just something that tells me that I need to expand this thoughts of mine and that's the reason why I write my first Out In Front series. I will discuss here how Stratton and Agosta are performing this year and how they make my head and your head turn upside down and spin in circles and a lot, lot more.

Top 10+10 Prospects Post-July 4 Edition

Before I'm going to start this top 10+10, I would like to thank everybody for the warm and really positive remarks on my Lucius Fox blog post as well as in my previous. I thought I am who I am there as I shared my thoughts in a fun but informative manner. Once again, thank you so much for reading my blog and supporting me as I continue to write more things about the Giants!

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The 4th of July is over and after all of the fireworks, the backyard boozing and barbecue, the oozing patriotism, and some of the worst Independence Day uniforms I have ever seen, it is time for another Top 10+10 Prospect list. I have made a previous top 10+10 prospect list last month to highlight the prospects that are with us before the Giants' draft picks had signed. Now that all of the top 10 rounds selections had signed and are now playing in either AZL or in Salem-Keizer, and we signed one of the top July 2 prospects in Lucius Fox for $6,000,000 (but I bet for Bruce Wayne and him, it's just nothing), I feel that it is the right time to update my Top 10+10 Prospects list as you'll see the new guys in the list. 

This Top 10+10 list is not related to any of the Top 10 lists did by other people and dogs that are in front of the computer screen. I based the rankings on their performances, their age, their talent level, their development or the learning curve so to speak, as I did my best to balance those things out. The other 10 that you're going to see after the top 10 are the prospects that I personally like and there might be some bias from yours truly in terms of the other 10 but I am sure that those will be the guys that you'll love if you take a look at it. Just like the previous posts, you can see the FanGraphs profiles of the players when you clicked on their name. Less talk and more work, let's get this going. 

Scouting Reports for the 2015 Giants Part 6-ish: Lucius Fox + Something Extra

It's the start of the new international signing period yesterday and my Twitter is bombarded with tweets regarding it from two of the best in the business when it comes to international prospects, Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com and Ben Badler of Baseball America, starting at 9:00 AM ET (9:00 PM here). One of the biggest news of the international period is the signing of Lucius Fox. No, not the Lucius Fox that is the business partner of Bruce Wayne and his weapons supplier. But Lucius Fox, the Bahamas-born shortstop prospect that's #3 on both Kiley McDaniel's list and in MLB.com while he's listed #4 in Baseball America. He was signed for $6,000,000, the biggest non-Cuban signee in J2 history, according to McDaniel. I am really ecstatic when I read beforehand that the Dodgers are now out on him and the Giants became a front-runner for him. I love that the Giants are showing some commitment on quality prospects from the J2 market specifically this year even though we'll face a penalty that we will not sign players above $300,000 for the next two signing seasons. Below is my scouting report for him.

Scouting Reports for 2015 Giants Part 5: Cole, Fargas, Williamson + Something Extra

After a pretty brief rest, I am now going to continue the series with part 5 of my scouting reports for the Giants this year. It will now feature the breakout candidate Hunter Cole, the best name in the Giants system in Johneshwy Fargas, and the toolsy OF Mac Williamson. As for the other series,  FanGraphs profiles will be shown when you click on their names. Enjoy!