Spring Training Opinions Part 1

Hello! It's been a bit since I have posted. I have been particularly been busy watching the draft prospect performances online as well as WBC in my free time so I haven't really take a real deep look at the Spring Training games until lately. Here are my first opinions on the recent prospect performances in Spring.

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!

Out In Front: Comments on the Prospects on SF-MIL Game

It's the first Out In Front in 2016 and it will feature several comments about the Giants prospects that are tasting playing time in Spring Training. Most of them will be sent down to the Minors for more seasoning but the experience to face hitters or pitchers that they can soon face and learn something from it is incomparable. This will be pretty short as it will be mostly comments on prospects mostly the pitchers in their game versus Milwaukee.

Out In Front: The Eddy Martinez Signing + Something Extra

In a pretty surprising fashion, the Giants, yes, the Giants, not the Dodgers, the Reds, and any other team, the Giants, signed Eddy Julio Martinez, the Cuban outfielder who has been flying off the radar since July 2, with Jesse Sanchez of MLB.com first to report and Mr. ogc first to notify me. 

Martinez signed for $2.5 million, waaaaay less than what I have predicted, Kiley McDaniel of FG and pretty much everybody had expected which is $10-11 million. I was pretty shocked to see him sign to the Giants for so cheap when the Dodgers can offer him triple of quadruple that amount of green stuff. It is even less then half of the money that the Giants paid for Bahamanian prospect Lucius Fox (enough with the Batman puns) of $6 million, penalties not included. I followed Eddy on his Twitter account for about a week ago or so when it was still got like 10-20 followers (MLB Pipeline followed him 2 days ago if I'm not mistaken), and I noticed that you look closely on his profile picture, he's donning the Giants workout shirt and Giants workout shorts, which is some premonition that the Giants are probably the favorites to sign the Cuban defector but there's also the cover photo of him donning a Pirates shirt but reports weren't saying that the Pirates are players for him so there's that. 

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

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: 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.

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 Prospects Part 1: Arroyo, Beede, Mejia

    We are now on the heat of the 2015 season and a lot of the best prospects in baseball have been promoted to the Show and are living up to the expectations and the hype so far. For the Giants, there are prospects that are contributing well so far. Hunter Strickland, Matt Duffy, Andrew Susac, and Chris Heston are all doing well this year. So much for the consensus saying that the Giants have a barren farm system. It is a great organization for developing prospects and once they reached the Majors, they are performing better than what everyone expected. 

      In this series of scouting reports, I'll scout the top prospects of the Giants until the end of the season. I'll point out their mechanics, my grades for their tools and my ceiling and floor of the prospects just like the scouting reports that I wrote for Phil Bickford, Chris Shaw, and Andrew Suarez. The grades might change either be better or worse in the future (as soon as the end of the season.) The player's stats are going to show when you click on their name and courtesy of FanGraphs.

MLB: Giants Top 10+10 Prospects Post-Draft Edition

     With the 2015 MLB Draft now finished and more than 1,000 players selected by the 30 MLB clubs, the final hurdle for the clubs is the signing deadline for the draft selections. For the Giants, all the players selected in the draft in the first 10 rounds have a good chance of signing but I want to exclude them from this top 10 prospect list until they are officially signed. This top 10 prospect list is based on the performance and my own personal judgement on the development of the Giants prospects so far this season.

Note: I didn't include Andrew Susac, Chris Heston, Matt Duffy and Hunter Strickland because I feel they have graduated the minors already. Once the top 10 draft picks of the Giants have signed and how they perform there, I'll make another top 10 prospect list.

The player's FanGraphs articles are going to open when you click on the player's name in bold with their stats and advanced metrics. The stats that you see throughout are accurate as of June 10, 2015 if you're living in the US. Here's my top 10.