Scouting Reports for the 2016 Giants: Richmond Flying Squirrels Prospects

Hello everyone! I'm slowly closing in on the prospect reports as after this, it will be the Sacto reports and that should be it. I'll deliver the Draft part 2 after the reports and the offseason primer should be the last one for the offseason as I will be focused once again on studies. 

Richmond is a very talented team as some of the very best prospects in the organization are in this team and I know you readers will love it. I think there are some prospects that I missed that are not registered in the MiLB.com roster so if you notice someone missing, I hope you can comment it. You might see that Dan Slania will be on the list ebcause the last time I checked, his latest pitching performance is at Sacramento. Otherwise, I hope you enjoy the report!

Scouting Reports for the 2016 Giants Part 3: Duggar, Hinojosa, Shaw + Something Extra

In the Part 2 of my scouting reports, I'll focus on the three of the San Jose Giants that was promoted to Richmond all at the same time; Steven Duggar, C.J. Hinojosa, and Chris Shaw. Three different hitters all in the same 2015 draft class: Duggar as an OBP specialist with great speed to defend the OF and steal bases, Hinojosa as an all-contact hitter with little speed but great feel to field, and Shaw as a tank-of-a-human-being power hitter that is not just all-power. All are very impressive in my eyes. Let's get into it.

Out In Front: Latest Thoughts on Giants Prospects + Something Extra

Good day Giants fans! In this edition of Out In Front, I will be sharing my thoughts on many of the Giants prospects that are in the minor league camp. Roger Munter (follow him on Twitter @rog61 if you aren't) is unleashing videos and reports of several prospects on the camp, where some Dominican prospects have arrived to begin their American adventures and some draft picks last year are showing off their tools. GPT and Mr. Andrew Baggarly also has clips that I watched. I will talk about the prospects that have videos and gave my own thoughts on them. In Something Extra, it will be baseball from my home land. 

The Top Prospects of the San Francisco Giants in 2015: Tier 1

Welcome to the top prospects of the San Francisco Giants. 

You might notice that I didn't wrote Top 30 or whatever, it's because I hate rankings. I already told before that I really hate ranking prospects and having them organized in a numbered fashion. It just doesn't do them justice for me. Some are going to say that I ranked a guy too high or too low so I will use the idea of tiers. It's not because I'm playing it safe and I don't want criticisms, but this is for you guys to rank them on your own. I prefer a big board of prospects to choose from, given their different tools and talents and some prospects are just so hard to rank so I'll put them on the same tier because there are guys that are just a cut above in terms of ceiling, learning curve, and immediate impact. There might be more than 30 that will have that same impact, there will be less. The point of Tiers is to segregate them with my own judgement.

Instead of generating my own numbers and formulas, I will use the unbelievable amount of information from MiLB.com, FG, BP, and other information sites and together with my own scouting remarks and judgements, I hope I can do justice on why I rank them on the Tier that they truly deserve. I believe that the perfect marriage of scouting and analytics is the best way to run a team. I hope you enjoy reading. 

Out In Front: Wrap-up of Most Things Giants Farm System

It's another grace period from me (another string of holiday and weekend and the quizzes have just passed by) and I think it's time to run another round of Out In Front but this time, I will not talk about a specific thing or two (because Jordan Johnson thing was yesterday (not literally)) and instead, I'll do this new post like it's Something Extra, tidbits of information like you want to make a fruit salad with all of the fruits inside and out the refrigerator but expect that you'll read good thoughts from me in this one. 

Top 30 Prospects of the Giants in 2015

I decided to make the full Top 30 Prospect List for the Giants in lieu to the top 30 prospects made by MLB.com, Cove Chatter, and GiantsProspectTalk on Twitter. I thought that making a full list and not just a Top 10 would be the best way possible to really compare and dictate the prospects because even though the cream of the crop are all set, the rest of the crops are still important and there are possibilities that they are rising in terms of their stock or value. I remember when the farmers here are not wasting anything that they can still harvest even though the monsoon season reek havoc on their crops because they are still important. 

I'll do this Top 30 some sort of a Twitter style. Short, compact but solid thoughts about the prospects that I'll rank. There's a lot of prospects to choose from and I kind of hate ranking prospects because honestly, I would prefer a big board where I'll throw in the prospects that I like in here and you'll be the judge, just like the thought process in terms of the Draft. But I'll do this ranking to help you guys where I project the prospect's value for us. It is separated by tiers so that if you ever have problems with ranking prospects like I do, tiers can really help to differentiate the quality of the prospects and you can ignore the numberings altogether and just rely on the tiers.

I am writing this article actually just before the Trade Deadline and I am ranking Mella as the number 5 prospect and Duvall as the number 21 prospect before being traded. Now that it's now past the Deadline and they are just the prospects who got traded, it made me easier to just move up guys up the list.

I know there will be agreements and disagreements on my rankings but I made this Top 30 with all of the factors (age, floor versus ceiling, development curve, the feel to perform, performance this year) that I consider for ranking prospects. And just like what I always do, FanGraphs profiles will open for most of the prospects and MiLB.com for the select few prospects that I find their FG profiles really shady.

If you want to see who are the prospect risers and fallers this season, come check this really good post from Shankbone's blog and I will move some of the prospects that I listed in the top 10+10 before for the latest update. If you want to see a better introduction or overview of the Top 30, check out Mr. CoveChatter's introduction on his Top 30 before he takes his blog down and return to his original site. If you want day-to-day updates and the daily status of Giants prospects, DrB's everyday blog post is hands down the best in the business.

Finally, here's my ever expanding Scouting Reports series if you want to see my full thoughts on most of the prospects mentioned below and you could see my other previous posts of Something Extra for additional thoughts. 

Part 1 for Arroyo, Beede and Mejia
Part 2 for Mella (now traded), Okert and Santos
Part 3 for Blackburn, Garcia and Tomlinson
Part 4 for Blach, Marshall and Miller
Part 5 for Cole, Fargas and Williamson
Part 6 for Fox
Part 8 for Coonrod, Duvall (now traded), and Webb
Special Part for Crick

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 Report and Review on the Giants Day 1 Picks

      The first day 2015 MLB Draft has ended and surprisingly, the top 10 picks of the draft went as most of baseball fans expected as well as the draft gurus. There are surprising picks like Miami's Josh Naylor and such. The San Francisco Giants have the #18, #31 and #61 pick as you all know and I'll give you my thoughts on the guys that the front office has drafted for us. 

      You can find the stats of the draftees at Cove Chatter's compilation of stats and other reliable websites like BA.