Friday, July 10, 2015

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.



Eddy Julio Martinez  OF
6'2" 195 lbs.  R/R  Video: Full credits to Baseball America and MLB.com

Martinez looks really physical and athletic in my eyes and what I'll call a prototypical athletic body that's really meant for baseball. He got good big muscles in arms, broad shoulders, and good torso and I don't really see a need to fill up his body even more. As Kiley said in his thoughts for him, he's cleaned up his frame a bit since leaving Cuba and also added more power and speed. He got the frame that I can say that will generate close to 20 homers a season in the Majors.

He stands pretty tall in the batters box and his feet are separated almost as long as one and one-half of the length of his shoulders while his hands are quiet at the same level as his head. He got a more conventional swing than Lucius Fox in terms of his back leg which is straight while Fox is more crooked in his back leg. In my opinion, that allows Eddy Julio to load onto his back leg more and generate the most power that he can. He loads into his back leg well thanks to his pretty big leg kick. His hands also load well, getting into a nice position to swing that it's pretty far back from his body. What I love about Eddy Julio is that he gets to a nice crouched position that allows him to get to a really good center of gravity when he starts his swing, causing a good explosion of his potential energy to be converted to kinetic energy to his bat. Several legitimate sluggers do this too like Miguel Cabrera and Albert Pujols. His swing path is good and is pretty compact that's more of a line-drive swing than a homer-or-nothing swing as Kiley said that he's more contact-oriented approach that the Giants truly love in the recent years. His bat speed is good thanks to his superb athleticism and he can translate his raw power into loud contact pretty well. He got a stiff front foot in his swing with a one-handed finish. Eddy Julio's batting stance is quite similar to Alex Rodriguez when he's still young. 

He is a plus runner in the bases and will always be a threat to steal bases whenever he's on (probably 30+ bases in the Majors) and that will translate range well in his defensive range. His arm is good for CF and he's still got an adequate arm to play in the corner OF slots when he's needed to do so pair that with his plus defensive potential thanks to his speed and instincts. The Andruw Jones comparisons for me are pretty overblown but his superb athleticism and hard-nosed attitude plus the five-tool potential earns a lot of high remarks for me. The Dodgers are going to be the main problem for us, but stealing this type of talent him away from them is gonna be so, so sweet.

My Grades: Hit 50+ | Power 50+ | Speed 65 | Arm 55+ | Glove 60

Ceiling: Possible All-Star OF     Floor: 4th OF bat/defense     ETA: Late 2017/2018


I will list below why I really love the guy if we ever grab him:

- First, Eddy Julio's got the experience playing in good competition like Lucius Fox experienced in America. Eddy played for Cuba's junior national team and even played in Serie Nacional, Cuba's equivalent of MLB for two years. Cuba's been the deep well of tremendous prospects like Jose Abreu, Aroldis Chapman, Yoenis Cespedes and more and the pedigree that Eddy Julio experienced and the competition there shows some good flashes of what he can do on America.

- Second, he's 20 years old and he is not just an ordinary 16 year old Dominican that got full of doubts. He's got the experience at a pretty good competition, and given that there's still prevailing doubts upon him because he never faced American experience like almost all of the international prospects available (look at Yoan Moncada this year), I'm pretty confident that he'll make the transition pretty well and the Giants love previous work experience and success. The window time in the Minors that I'll expect from him is 2 years.

- Third, he is a full pledged outfielder unlike Lucius Fox that will be probably converted to the outfield someday although Kiley wrote that he's got some experience on the mound and on first base due to give way to more experienced defenders. We all know the possible problems of our future outfield given the age of the current outfielders now on the wrong side of 30. Eddy Julio and Lucius will infuse our outfield with the type of athleticism, speed and youth that I have never seen in the past 5 to 10 years if they developed nicely.

-Fourth, since we just broke the bank for Lucius Fox that will penalize us for the next two years, why not we broke it altogether with the signing of Eddy Julio. Besides, the Dodgers spent $16,000,000 for Yadier Alvarez. We spent $6 million on Lucius and the possibility of nabbing Eddy Julio for the price tag of $11,000,000 will make us spend $17,000,000. We just spent $17,000,000 on two possible impact bats while the Dodgers spent $16 on a possible impact arm. That's two for the price of one (well, we'll be a $1,000,000 more than them but they have spend a whole lot more for the other Dominicans like Starling Heredia which is like the cost of all the other J2 that we signed) and that for me is a bargain. Besides, what's best than swooping another prospect away from the Dodgers. 

-Fifth and possibly the best, our farm system will be really injected of future impact guys not just in the pitching standpoint but in the hitting standpoint. The Giants will say a big in your face to all of the prospect gurus that always said that our farm system is the Chernobyl of baseball but we kept on putting up guys that perform way better than their scouting reports like Panik, Duffy, Crawford, etc. Our future will be much better if we have Eddy Julio on our side in the OF. I can now see the Eddy Julio, Lucius, and Mac Williamson outfield trio in the future.

As you can see, the reasons that I spew out are pretty similar reasons that I said for Lucius Fox. That's because I can see similar kind of impact from the two players and I really hope the Giants will swoop him in, develop him nicely, and maybe we'll see some Cubanos in the Bay Area and in the AT&T concession stands by the time he has arrived, beside the Lucius Fox cutout picture stands and possibly Morgan Freeman as Lucius Fox himself.


Something Extra

- Aside from the Lucius Fox and Ricardo Genoves, the Giants officially announced 13 other guys that they have signed (15 total courtesy of Grant Brisbee's article) and two of them have videos and they are Wascar De Leon (switch-hitter with a pretty intense leg kick on the right side and no leg kick at all on the left side with a long swing and some power and a 4.13 home to first time but not the best time that he can do) and Miguel Figueroa (highly projectable body at 6'3" 175 lbs at got a power T in his motion ala Jacob DeGrom and it looks like a good low-90s MPH FB in my eyes with a CH and a SL(?)) that trained in Banana Baseball Academy. I hope the Minions will not attack that facility and I'm hoping the other 13 that I have no idea about before will have a future impact for us.

- Martin Agosta hurled possibly his best outing of his career, going 8 innings with 3 hits, a walk and 8 strikeouts. Joe Ritzo tweeted that he was ranging from 86-93 MPH on his fastball which is pretty pedestrian. A known flyball pitcher, he got a 4-4 GO/AO ratio in this start which is something I'll commend on him. I wrote up on him in my previous article about his high BABIP and his homer-happy pitching but his K/9 and BB/9 numbers are really, really crazy like he's the Noah Syndergaard of the Cal League. My breakout guy for next year is him if he continues this thing until the end of the season.

- Logan Webb made his best start of this year also, twirling 6 innings of 5-hit ball with no walks and 4 Ks. His fastball is good with a good zip on it, ranging from 89-94 MPH in is previous starts and I think that the Giants did a great job keeping his arm fresh due to him being thrown into the fire often in his HS days, making scouts puke with his mid-80s heater when he's overworked (he once threw two days after he threw 140+ pitches if I'm not mistaken). He's so young (just 18!) and have a good impact potential for us. I'll touch him up in future Scouting Reports series.

- On other Salem-Keizer news, Miguel Gomez is also flashing a hot bat so far, batting .351 in the NWL with 4 2B, 3 HRs. A three-year employee in the DSL, he's about the same age as a college senior and I would love to see him play in the higher levels pretty soon. Mac Marshall made his S-K debut, allowing a 3-run dinger in 3 innings of work with 5 Ks. Yes. 5 Ks. Pretty good outing for me. Wrote my thoughts about him here.

- 2nd rounder last year Aramis Garcia hasn't quite liven up to his draft choice expectations this year but he's playing pretty well this season so far in my opinion with a good chance to stick at catching thanks to his good pop time and better receiving so far (only 7 passed balls in double the games that he played this year compared to last year). His batting average seems to be pretty down (.244) but his .423 SLG is what caught my eye because he got good power numbers even though his average is not good. Let's see if he finishes the season in Augusta or he'll play in a better hitting environment in the Cal.

-Michael Santos finally returned after almost 3 months when he got pulled out of his Augusta debut due to a shoulder injury. He came back strong, pitched one inning with a walk and a K. I personally think that this is just going to be a rehab duties for him and he'll be thrown into the Sally again after a couple of weeks or three starts. Glad to see that his FB velo is up to 94 MPH and I'm glad to just see him pitch. I'm just happy to believe in him all again and he's all healthy. Projection!


That's the end of the part 7 of my scouting reports series about the maybes and the what ifs of the Giants pouncing on Eddy Julio Martinez or not. Let's just hope that he'll consider the opportunity that we bring to the table and his possible defection from Chavez Ravine. Please get him signed up Bobby and Sabes. I'll check on the Cape in the future to see if there will be some future Giants next year playing there. I hope you enjoy this one. Cheers!

21 comments:

  1. Nice report. Hate to get my hopes up too high, but yeah, only downside to signing Ready Eddy at this point is the money and I assume the Giants that would be a drop in the bucket for the Giants, even with the dollar-for-dollar penalty. Eddy would immediately become no worse than the 3'rd best prospect in the Giants system, IMO, and possibly #1 over Beede and Bickford, although they would be very hard to compare.

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    1. Wow, he is that good?!? That would be great if we can get him, then, but Fangraphs project him to get $11M, which means $22M total to get him, so you think that he's worth that?

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    2. Is any prospect worth $11 M? Like I said, I don't think $$$ is the rate limiting step for the Giants and they've already punted any 7 figure bonuses for 2016 and 2017.

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    3. Thank you for loving it, DrB! I agree that $$$ is not a limiting step because like Yoan Moncada, you can go $1 more and you'll sign the guy and you could put $1 more until one of you is gonna give up thanks to inflation. Based on what I saw on the 2016 pool, Kevin Maitan is just the only guy that's worth signing the big bucks and he's hailed as the next generational talent compared to Miggy and Felix and I don't think the Giants could prowl to him because there's a lot of teams that will sign him (ehem, Rangers and their fetish for Latino middle infield prospects). I have no idea about the 2017 J2 pool though. The J2 system is as broke as it is and as long as you got the money and the determination, you can sign anybody. I hope the Giants can tap onto that because personally, we're a year late because of the talents that have come by.

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  2. Hi, nice post on Eddy.

    Tip on formatting, blogger has a icon tool, Insert Jump Break, which only exposes as few paragraphs as you like on your main blog page, then provides a link to open up your whole blog post. That way, your readers can scroll down easily down your main page and see a little on each post before deciding to read one. With your full posts up, it took me forever to get to each post (I was trying to find a comment I made).

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    1. Thank you so much Mr. ogc! I'll take that notice because I have no idea on how to do it like you do because I just have no idea on how to that. Thanks for that and I'll do that asap!

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  3. Martinez and Fox are both hard nosed players.That's the kind of player you invest on.

    Webb-Like the easy athletic delivery.Strike thrower.It's gonna be nice to see his arsenal improve as he gets stronger.

    Gomez-We'll see how his bat plays at higher levels.

    Marshall-Gives up a 3 HR.Doesn't get shook.Keeps throwing strikes.Good sign.

    Garcia-I like his game a lot.Another hard nosed,hard working player.He's really starting to settle in.

    Santos-Can't wait to see how he does in Augusta.

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    1. Thank you for reading Mr. David!

      I love Logan Webb's athletic delivery and his zip on his fastball. I actually wished Kyle Crick will have the same follow through and the same finish as Webb because it's north-south and that could prevent Crick from spinning around and sorts. I would love to see his curveball to have a better and tighter break on it but his arsenal will improve.

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    2. Crick pitched a scoreless inning tonight.Two positives.He didn't strike anybody out and got through an inning.And out of the 15 pitches,10 were strikes.Hopefully we'll see more of that.

      Webb has been pitching well.

      Garcia had another multi hit game,including a HR.

      Arroyo has 2 hits so far including a 2B.

      Shaw has another multi hit game.

      Miller continues to hit

      Bickford pitched 2 scoreless


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    3. Great stuff from Cricky. He just needs to find the strike zone more. He just needs to throw more strikes. It's like my point before. his stuff will take care of hitters if he can throw it at the heart of the plate.

      Aramis surely has the good hit and the definite power stroke right now. I am amazed that he got possibly more power than what I expect from him this year.

      Arroyo should be promoted soon. A 20 year old in a possible AA promotion is astounding. Shaw could be promoted soon as well once he keeps showing the good hit and the better eye than what I have expected from him.

      I haven't seen any velo readings in Twitter but I have seen a picture of him on the stretch. He looks so skinny and projectable. But I am not really sure if he can really add on that weight because he pushes his elbow when he throws the ball which looks pretty painful but is clean.

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    4. Tomlinson has a 9 GM hit streak.And,has reached base safely in the last 13 games.

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    5. Hey David, do you know who in our minor league system reached base safely TWICE per game for 52% of his games last season? And 45% of his games in 2013?

      Jean Angomas. Dang. 30%+ of his pro games, have been multi-hit. Yeah, 31 of his 99 games in his first two seasons where he had at least 2 plate appearances in each game. This season, he's only played the outfield for 3 of 17 games. 19 PA total. I'm so upset. I *really* want him to get his shot. I was so excited to follow him this season. : (

      But, hey. I still think we're looking at a couple more IFA's. Some of the Cubans aren't yet cleared. We'll see.

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    6. I'm really boggled by the lack of games that Angomas have played. I am not really sure what's going on in the AZL because I'm pretty sure they are trying their best to give guys enough playing time to have a good enough exoerience. He's blocked by a lot of guys.

      Philly Bickford made his debut today. Haven't seen any of the other stuff that I want other than the boxscores like what is his fastball velo and how's the break on his slider and sorts. Nice outing to get his feet wet and I don't think he'll pitch a lot of games because he's pitching since January and even though he got some layoff before his debut. I'm sure they know how to protect young arms.

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    7. Hey Wrenzie. You already know about why I support Angomas so strongly. So, you know I'm so frustrated and also share in being boggled. WHY? He's basically played 2G in RF, 1G in LF, and 2 as DH. Yeah, he pinch ran and played 2 more innings in RF. Seventeen games have passed. And it ain't like Mikey Edie, Roger Edwards, or the AZL Giants are exactly tearing it up right now. In fact, Edie has been dropped to 7th instead of hitting up top in the lineup.

      Seems like too many outfielders at AZL. I hope somebody gets promoted soon. Salem-Kaiser really has just Jebavy who needs regular playing time, maybe Duggar. But... How does one get promoted when they're not hitting that well? I guess Fulmer or Murray could get the nod, no idea. Yeah, that logjam makes no sense. Just not enough opportunity to give these kids the experience they all need right now.

      Yeah, Bickford might not pitch a ton. I find it hard to guess. Development can mean a lot of things. Like not wanting to put him on the hill if he's working on a serious fix in his mechanics. Get that sorted first. Then again, maybe they want to see Bickford throw 35+ pitches in a few games, to know what needs what. You know what I mean? But yeah, I'm sure they will be cautious of giving him a heavy workload.

      I'm so furious about Angomas not playing! Last year, THE guy I "picked" to follow was Ben Turner. I'd say that worked out nicely. Cheers.

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    8. Edie's been scuffling as of late. I think he deserves some more playing time because of some guys not performing. Angomas has looked well for me. Especially in the times of RISP opportunities. He's so good at situational and clutch hitting.

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    9. Eh, let's get real here about Angomas. The Giants are not in the business of burying promising prospects. He's a guy who spent the last two seasons being a bit old for the DSL while drawing a lot of walks in a league known for it's wild pitchers, and getting caught stealing in about 50% of his attempts. He admittedly has not gotten a ton of opportunity in Arizona, but he hasn't done squat with the AB's he has gotten. I am sure he is playing in camp games and will get his shot when he shows the coaches believe he's ready. In the meantime, I would definitely not want to see him take PT away from Mikey Edie or Byron Murray.

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    10. Thank you DrB!

      Does it make any sense that the Giants see something that others don't with Belt, Crawford, Panik, Duffy, Arroyo, and then go an bury/ignore another prospect? Not that they are perfect, but they have a lot of experience and expertise doing this stuff, perhaps you should keep an open mind that perhaps they see something wrong that you currently do not? Does not mean you can't believe you are right, but at least be open to the possibility that the Giants might know something that you don't.

      Taking a look for information on Angomas, I found a conversation on DrB regarding Angomas vs. Edie. http://whenthegiantscometotown.blogspot.com/2014/12/drbs-2015-giants-top-50-prospects-6.html

      First, I would note something everyone here knows, that batting lines can be very volatile, particularly if you are talking about half a season's worth of AB's. That makes taking splits much more subject to SSS issues. So I don't see any value from looking at any splits other than Home/Road or L/R, and those only to note any extreme splits and tendencies.

      Besides which, how can one prevent double counting for things like "first inning, bases empty, no outs" which appears to add the three together? Unless you have the raw data from SABR, and then parsed for that, that is. But looking at the data, I'm thinking that there is a lot of double counting (for example, 215 PA low leverage, 244 PA high leverage, but only 246 PA overall? They should add up, but is almost doubled). I have no idea how skewed those numbers are. While if everything was doubled, the batting line would stay the same.

      Plus, I've seen no study that found any large significant difference between high leverage vs. low leverage (i.e. studies on clutch hitting), suggesting that any large differences tend to just be noise and randomness.

      Most of all, lets take a look at just the overall comparison:

      Overall 2014 MiLB DSL season:
      Angomas: _ .298/.374/.394/.768, .344 wOBA, 8/5 SB. 37 R/33 RBI, 25 BB/24 SO, 86 TB in 246 PA.
      Mikey Edie: .298/.424/.383/.807, .372 wOBA, 14/8 SB. 54 R/24 RBI, 22 BB/30 SO, 72 TB in 232 PA.

      First off, Edie outhit Angomas by a good margin, but was only 16 YO for the season, while Angomas was 19 YO. That is a huge difference for teenage prospects, huge difference for any prospects (for example, a 25 YO hitting the same as a 28 YO). The average hitter in DSL was 18.3 YO, average pitcher 18.9. Thus, not only was he younger, Edie was significantly younger than the league, whereas Angomas was actually old for the league.

      As we all know, Edie, being much younger and inexperienced, should have a harder time than an older player, and yet, at 16 YO, hit significantly better than most in the league. That is huge, being one of the better hitters while being significantly younger.

      Studies have shown that it is very hard for prospects who are average aged or older to make it to the majors. Not that it can't be done, but it is nothing like prospects who are younger than the league and doing better than average.

      Angomas, being slightly older, should hit better, and did hit significantly better too, just not as good. This should have been highlighted in any effort to show how good Angomas is. Comparing to Edie just defeats any efforts to show how good one thinks Angomas is.

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    11. Now, lets look at relative ranking. First, average DSL hitter hit .245/.339/.331/.670. Angomas was significantly higher, but if you look at the Top 100 in OPS for the DSL, he was 98th. Meaning 97 hitters hit better than he did and he was older, and theoretically should hit better than the younger players, being that much more experienced. So I like to remove the players older than the prospect is and re-rank among more age appropriate: 26 older players, so that still leaves him 71st in the league among 19 YO and younger players.

      Edie being 16 don't have many same or younger. Overall, he was 67th in the league. There was nobody his age above him, and I could only locate three other players age 16, and he hit the best. But while he hit much better than average, there is still a lot of guys who hit better. Limiting to just 17 YO, there was still 18 with better OPS, top guys hit nearly 1.000 OPS.

      However, older guys generally are more developed, and their power has kicked in more. Looking just at OBP, which is less age dependent, Edie is now 40th with only seven 17 YO prospects above him. Now that is good performance. I have more hopes for prospects who end up on the top end of the scale like that.

      Angomas, however, did not even rank in the first 100 in OBP.

      So, just by the numbers, Angomas don't look all that great. While he hits better than average, there is still a lot of better hitters than he is in the DSL, and what are the odds that all of them become major leaguers? And in the category that he did best in, OBP, he didn't even rank in the top 100.

      That's what makes sites like DrB, Shankbone, Cove Chatter, and Wrenzie so valuable, as they bring in scouting perspective and knowledge.

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  4. I've never heard of Angomas.I'll have to keep an eye out for him.

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  5. OK, now I remember why I came here. I don't recall you putting this info anywhere here yet, if you had, my apologies.

    http://m.giants.mlb.com/news/article/135737964/dodgers-giants-may-ink-top-international-name

    In this article, mainly about the remaining Cuban who might get over $10M bonus, they noted that the Giants signed Venezuelan pitcher Jorge Labrador for $250,000, and I don't recall seeing his name anywhere here yet, so ICYMI.

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    1. Yeah. Saw Labrador's name on that article but I have no idea who the hell is that guy and there's no videos of him whatsoever on the internet.

      Kiley McDaniel in his latest prospect chat about the status of Eddy Julio and it is written that "(he) got some word this weekend that the Giants likely don’t pay what’s necessary to land Martinez after paying Lucius Fox $6 million, so (he) think(s) the Dodgers are the landing spot for Martinez as (he) projected a few weeks ago. May be a little lower than the projected $11 million, too."

      P.S. GPT is good in talking about prospects. I don't know if he's better but I think I'm okay with my prospect reports. :^)

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