The Top Prospects of the San Francisco Giants in 2015: Tier 3

Welcome to Tier 3 of my top prospects. This is going to be the hardest list that I have ever done. A lot of guys are really eligible to be listed under or over Tier 3 but I am feeling good on this list that I put up. There might be some exclusions that I have forgotten again. This also shows how deep the Giants farm system has become. Not a lot of top-shelf, future franchise-changing prospects, but a lot of contributors that can have a significant impact on the Major League roster.

Note: All of the videos that I have placed on my posts are the videos that the players I feel have the best angle to look at.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to everyone who supported my blog! A deep thank you from me!

Out In Front: Why The Giants Should Take A Shot at Kenta Maeda

He pitched in AT&T Park before in the WBC in 2013. Is there a chance that we'll watch him again on cream & orange home uniforms next year?

                             

Foreword: Finally a blog post!

With Zack Greinke shocking the whole baseball world (including me) as he accepts the Diamondbacks' gargantuan contract offer pending physical, this looks like the time to move on from him and improve the rotation on another way. While some are thinking for the Giants to pursue Mike Leake and Jeff Samardzija up to the point of even pursuing Johnny Cueto, I am thinking that the Giants should consider another direction, coming from the far east.

According to the news, Japanese ace Kenta Maeda is going to be posted this offseason by his team in the NPB. Maeda won the Sawamura Award (NPB's equivalent to Cy Young Award in MLB) in 2015, his second of his decorated career in Japan that I will further talk about later on. Teams who will pursue the right-hander are expected to pay the full posting fee of $20 million to acquire the right to negotiate a contract with Maeda (in which I think is a bad idea, I am more inclined to do a full contract negotiation then pay 35-50% of the contract value to the NPB team as the posting fee). 

A lot of teams that missed on the big ticket pitchers like Greinke and David Price are expected to join the bidding war for Maeda which brings us to this. The Giants have missed on the big ticket guys and should explore other ways to try to improve rotation depth. The Giants have been known to not pursue Japanese pitchers in the past.