Wednesday, July 29, 2015

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.


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Bobby Evans looking at the field, thinking who will he grab that will fit the Giants before the Trade Deadline, at least that's what I think he's doing. 

Major League Baseball is in the dog days of summer but a storm is coming in really fast and that's the Trade Deadline in July 31, where contending teams are going to do their last-minute shopping that can make or break a postseason contender's dreams of winning the World Series.

For the Giants, the trade deadline is mostly a friend for them in the recent past with the additions of Javier Lopez and Cody Ross in 2010 that propels them in a cinderella-like fashion to win the title at that year and the one-sided Hunter Pence trade in 2012 that is an integral part to winning 2 of the titles that the club won in 2012 and 2014. But it's not really a friend for us, evident by the Carlos Beltran trade in 2011 that didn't pan out like the fans and the club had hoped, but you can also blame that on the infamous Buster Posey injury earlier that year. It didn't really bit us in the butt really hard though, as Zack Wheeler is still recovering after he underwent Tommy John surgery and while his stuff is most probably going to be back, his command that has plagued him since his Giants days is still in question that's going to be magnified even more as command of the baseball is the last thing that's going to come back after the surgery. Ever wondered why his elbow blew up? Combination of him throwing in the mid-90s and his injury-causing mechanics.

This year, I honestly thought that this deadline is going to be really tight and going to be really idle because of the vast amount of teams in the postseason contention thanks to the second Wild Card spot (We need to thank that spot for us last year). But suddently, the Deadline is shook by the Troy Tulowitzki trade to the Blue Jays that I really find baffling. Why the hell would you trade up for a high-octane but injury-plagued shortstop (the best in the game when he's right) and more importantly, another right-handed power hitter in the lineup that's righty-heavy with Donaldson, Bautista, Encarnacion, Martin and you gave up a future ace in Jeff Hoffman (pound for pound, his stuff is damn close to Lucas Giolito) and a future power closer in Miguel Castro? They didn't address their issues in the rotation. AA (their GM that's hard to spell the surname) has done a really great job on drafting quality prospects (you might remember him for the Young Beedah) but he's goddamn awful on choosing which prospects to trade (very evident when they traded Syndergaard that I liked way more than Aaron Sanchez, D'Arnaud and more for a knuckleballer and this Tulo trade). Great job by the Rockies GM for picking up the pitching prospects and knowing that they will not attract pitchers in the free agency and they need to acquire pitching via player development. Other big trades also happened like the Cueto to Royals and the Kazmir to Astros trade and many more. 
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Nothing is really happening for our side except for just the continuously brewing interest for impact pitching, particularly Cole Hamels, David Price and Aroldis Chapman. The three are possible game-changers for the Giants and their post-season chances as they're pretty much neck-on-neck with the Dodgers on the NL West title and given the Dodgers reputation to spend without thinking even though their front office have some of the best minds in the game. The Giants have no room to just sit and do nothing because the Dodgers for sure will do something in the Deadline. I'll give my thoughts on the three players and more.

First up, Cole Hamels. Cole Hamels will bring the postseason pedigree to the table for us. His changeup when right is on par with Felix Hernandez as the best in the game, his fastball velocity surprisingly improved this year, his pitching will really fit in the AT&T Park and he's already controlled for years to come thanks to his fat contract. When he's on, he's a legitimate ace to pair up with MadBum and with the two anchoring our rotation for quite some time in the future (he's controlled until 2018 at age 34 with a vesting option in 2019), the only problem is filling the gaps in the back-end of the rotation. The problem that I see in the system is on how Ruben Amaro Jr. will evaluate our prospects. He's pretty much the worst GM in the game and it will be really problematic on who will he tap on on our system because he's on full-tilt rebuild mode right now, unlike the time when we stole Pence from him for just 2 boxes of pizza and chicken. 

Second is David Price. He's the ace that lives on fastball and his plus command of it and is in the similar situation as Cole Hamels that's when paired with MadBum will create a two-headed monster at the top of the rotation. The problems that I see with having Price is that Dave Dombrowski is still making the Tigers as buyers even though their minor league system is the least talented in my opinion (so much for calling the Giants as a nuclear wasteland, seriously, look at the Tigers and their barren system that I can compare to Pluto) and they have very limited tools to trade for this season and with the uprising of the Royals, they should be thinking for a rebuild or more or less, a retool. He could make Price untradeable but I am pretty confident that we got the tools to grab him, re-sign him in the offseason and stay here. I love his attitude also and he's 2 years younger than Hamels. 

Last is Aroldis Chapman. Him and his rocket arm (quite literally) is possibly my most favorite thing  for the Giants to get in this Deadline. I said this many times but I'll say it again that in the postseason, relief pitching is quite realistically more important than starting pitching in the postseason with the exception of MadBum last year. Just take a look at how far relief pitching had taken the Royals to Game 7 of the World Series last year. Aroldis will solidify the bullpen that is good to great this year and thanks to the plethora of power bullpen arms in the minors, the future is bright as well. We can sign Aroldis to an extension that's cheaper than the SPs and Papelbon (somewhere in the Andrew Miller range) and we can sign an ace in the offseason. The Reds are clear sellers. It just takes the right amount of prospects to get him.

I now listed some of the primetime guys that the front office can nab on to but I can really see the Giants staying put on the deadline and will have to go with the same band and some help from the minor leagues (I'm looking at you Kelby) to help with the depth issues of the Major League squad. DFAing guys who made contributions before but won't now really helps. The problem if we an ace in the deadline is how to handle the 7 SPs that we'll have in the rotation that's minus Timmy after the hip issues that I'm pretty sure he'll sit out the season. We have a lot of backloaded contracts that are ready to be unloaded from the starting pitching standpoint at the end of this season, we are ready to overpay a bit for an ace in the offseason. I'm seeing the Giants to not be just the guy in the friendzone and actually getting some premier guys like Price.

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After I talked about some of the biggest names that the Giants are targeting heavily but there are a lot of other players worth targeting like Gerardo Parra, Jackie Bradley Jr., Ben Revere, After talking about the players, I'll now talk about the prospects that the Giants will need to shell out in order to grab the players. Everybody's talk in the town when it comes to prospects and trades is none other than the Young Beedah. He's being scouted quite heavily in his past starts and according to Josh Matthews on Twitter, scouts from 8 teams are on his latest game if I'm not mistaken and there's a possibility more will come. Personally, I will not trade the Young Beedah. I will not trade Christian Arroyo. I will render the other guys as available especially Keury Mella, the top prospect of the Giants according to MLB.com. (I'll talk about that later.) Keury is the guy that my heart is ready to let go if the opportunity comes. I'm ready to let go Adalberto Mejia as well. I am ready to let go Mac Williamson, Duvall definitely, Blach, Okert, Cricky and others if needed. Just not the draft picks this year, Beede and Arroyo. I forgot to add Lucius Fox to the untouchables as well. It's not like I am biased on the guys and there's some bias on it honestly, they are the guys that really fit on the Giants way philosophy-wise and development-wise especially Beede, who absorbed everything the coaches taught on him like a sponge. My heart is not ready to let go of guys who I think will be more than advertised and I'm hoping the ranking of Mella at number 1 can really help to improve the chances of unloading him and not Beede.

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The bottom line, the Giants are poised to prove that the odd-even curse is not real and this year is a really legitimate chance to prove that we're not going to suck this year then win it all this year and we're just a game or two back away from the Dodgers and we are in the striking distance to nab the Wild Card spot against the Buccos. The Giants actions before the Deadline will be pivotal on how the rest of the season will go for us, whether we can beat the Dodgers in their own game or not. If the Giants can nab one of the players that will solidify our team whether pitching or hitting, it will be a huge plus for us. I hope they will not suck.

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Something Extra

A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks of inactivity. In this edition of Something Extra, I will talk about tons of tidbits that will be compressed on one topic, the Top 30 Prospects of the Giants released by MLB.com. There are a lot of rants on the Twitter world regarding the rankings of the Giants Top 30.

First thought when I saw it is wow. They placed Keury Mella at number 1 over Tyler Beede. I understand that his pure stuff is probably better than the Young Beedah this year but come on. Beede's at AA while Mella's at A+ and if you put Beede back on the Cal League, he'll eat all of the hitters in that level alive once again, believe me. Beede proved that he's the top prospect in my mind, heck, even Arroyo is really performing really well that I placed him ahead of Mella. 

Arroyo is the Jesse Winker of the Giants system, all average tools except for the hit department which is plus. Mella worries me because of the amount of inconsistencies that he brings to the table this season. He can be super spot on and be unhittable or be really wild to consider him enough to make him just a reliever. His inconsistencies and my concerns for him regarding his mechanics and possible injuries scares me enough for me to consider giving him up. Maybe this top 1 prospect compliment will help other teams reconsider Beede and Mella's stock. 

I'm pretty shocked to see Sammy Coonrod on Top 6 of the list. And I'm like what the hell is he doing there. Is he pitching well enough to really consider him in the top 6? I would say no. He's struggling with his release point recently, his mechanics are giving me the goosebumps that James Andrews might have a new patient on his clinic. I talked about Coonrod's mechanics issues on my previous scouting report on him that you should read to understand my worries for him. I'm not against him being on the top 30. I'm against that he's on the top 10 even though some other people are playing better than him.

The list is good but there's just one bad omission. I think Chase Johnson deserves a spot in the Top 30. A guy pitching to a 2.77 ERA in the Cal League with his mid-90s FB is pretty spectacular, probably better than Coonrod. I'm like what the hell did they miss it. I'm happy that they didn't miss on Biagini but miss on Chase? Come on people. There are a lot of prospects listed high in our system that are really playing poorly this season that was overtaken by people with better stats and the same stuff as them like Chase. I don't even consider Cody Hall as a top prospect right now. Come on! 

I'm happy that Bickford is on the top 5 and I almost placed Arroyo ahead of him but his possible ceiling too high and he's advanced for his age to make me think like he's good enough to be ahead of Arroyo and Chris Shaw and Jalen Miller's ranking are really fine with me. But I'm pretty much bummed on how much the draft prospects are on the overall list. I thought this draft is a crap draft class. Then why did they rank Brandan Rodgers and Swanson in the Top 15 overall when a lot of prospects that are drafted before are way better than them at this point of their careers? I mean come on. Why the hell are they ranked so highly and pretty inflated while the other picks in a supposedly way better draft class in the last few years are much better in terms of talent? What the hell man. Before I forgot, if you want to watch Philly Bickford in a Giants uniform, you can watch him pitch in this video

If you check on my top 10 list and the MLB.com's, it's pretty close with the exception of Mejia being on my Top 10 list because of his performance this season. I know it's pretty awful to constantly change the top 10 prospect list every now and I am sticking to my guns on my list but the better parts of the list are in the Top 11-30 which I didn't make I'll continue my top prospect list within the week. I know that our system is a nuclear wasteland time and time again. But come on look at Hiroshima and Nagasaki now after atomic bombs were dropped on their towns. The people just keep on belittling our system but they continue to praise Detroit, Dodgers, and other famous team's minor leagues.

There are other performances to consider like Miguel Gomez's red-hot streak broken at 22 games which is still a franchise record. The guy can hit for sure. Just don't know how they'll handle him in the future. Luis Ysla has been pitching well recently and he did the best impression of Ray Black with 8 Ks in 3 innings. Speaking of Ray Black, looks like he's moved back to the pen based on what I read. I'm going to say, I told you so. 

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Thank you for reading this edition of Out In Front with Something Extra. I hope you enjoy reading this one. And trust me, I am liking Kiley McDaniel's list way more than the other prospectors out there that are nationally acclaimed and just like what he said about prospects, the sign that will make a player hit or exceed his future value is on his feel to perform. The Giants know that their minor leaguers have that feel to perform and exceed expectations over and over. I'll make my full top 30 within the week and update some of the scouting reports that I wrote before within the next month. And I might not going to be really active on my blog once I start going to class again in August but I'm still going to be interact with you, the readers. I really thank you all for reading and spending good time on my blog! 

20 comments:

  1. Trade talk-I think most teams are weary of giving us a player that could help us win another title.I like Bradley Jr's,and Revere's defense.I think Bradley just needs to get out of Boston.Our biggest need is in the rotation.I feel the same way about Muella.You have to trade quality to get quality.I don't have him at #1.Maybe a team we are trying to trade with does.

    Prospect List:
    I have Garcia in my top 5.He's hitting .271 AVG 14 HR 58 RBI,and he's doing it behind the plate.I have Fargas in my top 10,and I have Gomez in my top 15.

    Miguel Gomez-MiLB has a story on Gomez,and Salem Keizer site has new video of Gomez and Jebavy.His hitting coach in Salem Keizer said he's a hard worker,he loves baseball,and he has great hand eye coordination.I can't wait to see him get stronger.Some of the singles will turn into doubles,and some of those doubles,will turn into HR's.I might even have him,in my top 10.

    Crick-Richmond website has new video of Crick.Looks like he's slowed his leg kick.And,so far it has seemed to give him more balance.The slowing down of the leg kick allows him to maintain balance before he delivers his pitch.That fastball is live.If he can finish the year strong.Maybe we can get him a couple starts at the end of the year.He has to show consistency though.Coonrod might have had the same problem in college.Rushing through your mechanics and delivery will cause control issues.If you look at his college delivery.It's more drop and drive.Now,the leg kick is slowed down.And,he's upright before he delivers.They could be doing the same thing with Crick.

    Peace Wrenzie.

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    1. I think teams have been weary of the Giants for a long time, but sometimes they are forced to deal with us because they like our package more. A national baseball writer wrote such an article on us, I believe it was just before last season's draft, I think his name is Jorge Ortiz, about how teams would be stupid to consider trading with the Giants, and then he listed all the hits he got in trade and how he didn't ever give up much in exchange. That Wheeler, an average pitcher so far and not every experienced, is already on the list of best prospects given up by Sabean during his reign as GM, speaks to that.

      Thanks for the observations on Crick, that is very interesting.

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    2. It's all good.Price looks like a real option right now.Morosi reported they like our pitching prospects.They need arms too.Peace.

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  2. Sorry to hear about your grandma! My condolences for your lost. And to your family as well.

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  3. I like Hamels, Price and Chapman, but I don't like the price of getting them.

    For Hamels, my only main concern is LA getting him, and it sounds like the Rangers so far has the best bid, but if LA gives up Urias or Seager, I don't see how the Rangers can beat that (don't know their system, but know these two are very high up most Top MLB prospect lists).

    For Price, I wonder if this is a play to get a better offer for Price, who is a free agent. I don't think he's signing with any particular team who signs him, I have to think if he would, the Tigers would have signed him already, he's going free agency.

    I think Beede and perhaps Susac would need to be part of any deal for the above. Other teams will want our future ace if we want to get our hands on their current ace. As much as I like Hamels, I would not trade Beede for him, and I know I'm mostly alone in that opinion.

    It's not that I think Beede will necessarily will be better. Part of my lack of interest is that we would need to throw in a bunch more prospects along with Beede in order to get Hamels. I think we need to keep our catching prospects because Posey could go at any time (2011) or need to move to 1B, and that hampers things as they are our best trading chips. We could give up a bunch of our top pitching prospects, but it is not like we don't need cheap but good pitchers for our pitching staff in the coming years too, the Phillies will want at least one of our top bullpen arms as well.

    Plus, as much as people are worried about the Giants pitching right now, we just won 12 of 14 with those pitchers and their question marks, and just added Aoki back to the lineup, which should just only improve our lineup.

    Chapman is probably cheaper to get than the above. I think he's probably the best get among the three for both impact to our team and cost in prospects. Not sure what he would cost, but I would have to think less than what Hamels or Price would cost. However, probably would cost us Strickland and Okert probably, and a lower SP, I would think (Mella, Mejia, Coonrod maybe) plus throw in Crick perhaps, Chapman is a weapon.

    And we need weapons in the backend. Casilla has been vulnerable, Affeldt has been injured/declined and Romo appears to have declined, which is perhaps why the Giants did not offer him 3 years. Chapman would solidify that closer role, and the core four could mix and match to shut down 7/8 with Kontos. But do we want to give up that much for Chapman? Hopefully I'm wrong (and I admit I have no clue, this is simply my wild guess) and he won't cost that much for us to get him, but I suspect that the Reds will want some shiny prospect for Chapman.

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    1. Whoops, news just came out, Detroit and "rebooting" and both Price and Cespedes are on the trading block, 2 days to get a trade done now by Dombrowski. I wonder if the Hamels' "final best bid" request by Phillies had anything to do with that?

      Rebooting still means getting good prospects in return, and the Giants won't be able to that without trading Beede and Susac, I think.

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    2. Tigers like our pitching prospects.Beede,Muella,Ysla,and Biagini.I would trade Muella,Ysla,and Biagini.We'll see if that's enough.

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    3. That's not enough I think. I think Mella, Coonrod, plus a hitter (maybe Slater) for Price will be enough.

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    4. Or I'll add another player in it. Probably a PTBNL.

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    5. I would be cool with that.

      Trade notes-Gomez deal fell through.Maybe Brewers didn't like Wheeler's medicals.

      Hammels blocked trade to HOU.

      Minor Leagues:Arroyo hit a 3 run HR.Gomez continues to rake.Blackburn is having a nice outing so far.And,he has a HR.

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    6. I don't like Wheeler's medicals either. He's really tough to trade right now especially with the TJ. Well, it's a nice trade for the Rangers because they didn't shell out Mazara and Gallo which is really great for them. Nick Williams is someone who's going to be great too in my opinion.

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    7. Turned out the Mets didn't like Gomez's hip.

      Outside of Bickford.Taylor is the guy i'm keeping an eye on.Another solid outing.He should be in a rotation next season.

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    8. Yeah but Gomez is playing it out. He wants to play. That's some dedication right there.

      Corey Taylor could be good too.

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    9. If we can get Price without giving up Beede or most of our relievers who are getting close or Susac, I would be very happy.

      As Wrenzie astutely noted, other teams could be more interested in Mella because of his high ranking, and I agree about the ranking issue, I wonder if they are only taking into account what Beede is doing now vs. what he could be doing once he is allowed to use all his pitches, which we are doing. With Mella headlining a rental deal, that should be pretty good start, then throw in a bunch of other lower level pitchers who are doing well, one or two Top 10 prospects, and that should be a good package.

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  4. Leake should be a nice add to the rotation.He's a pretty good hitter too.If Cain continues to struggle.We should see Blackburn or Stratton.

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    1. Damn yeah. He'll slot in behind MadBum and will be a solid 1-2 punch. If we can resign him at around 5 year 60-70 M contract, I'll take it. I think he loves being traded for the Giants and he'll love to compete for the championship with us.

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    2. I'm pretty certain Leake will be the first guy we sign in the off season.

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