Thoughts on the Giant's Haul in The Prospects Live Mock Draft + Something Extra

Hello everyone. I hope that everyone of you are well in this dire time. In this quarantine period, I've let loose, like really let loose. I have a lot of interests aside from baseball and in the almost 2 months of quarantine in my country, I've dug deep into my other hobbies and interests like watching Formula 1, tennis, basketball, American football among others, read a lot of manga and watch anime, watched and played League of Legends, etc. I escaped baseball at all. Literally, I gave zero time to baseball, all facets of it. But recently, I felt the itch to do baseball stuff and here I am, writing about the most exciting event of every year, the MLB Draft.

It's nice that the MLB will follow suit with the NFL and hold the draft virtually. In my opinion, I think that this is a great opportunity to squeeze as much publicity as they can towards the draft prospects because possibly for the first time ever but certainly the first time since I started following baseball more than a decade ago, all the draft-eligible prospects will be available to attend the event (albeit virtually). I think that it's a great time to showcase these players and especially for the case of baseball, any publicity is good publicity. 

I wanted to do a draft special regarding the prospects that I like but I don't have a way of connecting the dots together in one swoop. Thankfully, Prospects Live did a virtual mock draft a couple of days ago and the Giants' GM in the draft was Roger Munter with the aid of Brian Recca and Marc Delucchi in their war room. The Giants needed arms to compliment their stout hitting foundation in their farm system and the three sure did in their mock draft, grabbing four pitchers in the first two rounds, and boy, they are electric. I'm going to break down the 5 players that they drafted, grading their selections and giving my reaction on it.

2018 MLB Draft: Early Draft Rumblings + Something Extra

Hello, folks! Baseball is certainly in full swing as Spring Training games are underway and the college baseball and high school baseball in the warm areas are also in their early season. With plenty of early season baseball also comes the early performances of top prospects for the 2018 MLB draft. I'm going to share my thoughts on the prospects and possible draft strategies that the Giants could run. Also, I'm going to share my opinion in the recently released MLB.com Giants Top 30 list.

Out In Front: Post-Trade Deadline Opinions + Something Extra

For what it's worth, the Giants didn't made any deal at the trade deadline and opting to wait it out and evaluate the waters in the offseason. I think that's pretty fair considering what the Dodgers got for Yu Darvish which is like swapping 75 cents for a dollar. We could've seen some of the core players like Joe Panik, Brandon Belt, Johnny Cueto, Jeff Samardzija, and Hunter Pence get dealt to playoff contenders but based on the value that the prime cuts of meat received, it's a fair decision to stand pat. But, the Giants did trade one of their decent players in Eduardo Nuñez to the Red Sox for minor leaguers Shaun Anderson and Gregory Santos.

Out In Front: Evaluating the Melancon Deal + Something Extra

When I told people that I have plenty of unfinished posts, I did have plenty of unfinished posts at hand. This is one of a few that I have left unfinished before I hibernated.

With the offseason in full swing and the Winter Meetings just recently concluded, the Giants made a notable acquisition signing Mark Melancon to a 4 year-$62 million deal. The deal looked like an slight overpay to a guy entering his age 32 season in Opening Day but when Aroldis Chapman and Kenley Jansen to $80+ million deals, Melancon now looked like a fair deal. This is one of the most obvious signings in the offseason as the Giants was meant to sign one of the top-shelf relievers available after they had an awful bullpen corps this year, blowing more saves than I have ever seen from a Giants team in recent memory. I am digging deep on what the Giants going to get on Melancon.

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: Review of the Futures Game + Something Extra

The 2016 Futures Game is done and the World Team won by a score of 11-3 on an impressive offensive performance by Yoan Moncada and defensive gems by Manuel Margot and Eloy Jimenez. But for me, that's not what I am concerned at the most. I'm more concerned on the performance of the two Giants prospects that played in the Futures Game, Phil Bickford and Adalberto Mejia. In this edition of Out In Front, I'm here to talk about the performances of Mejia and Bickford and in Something Extra will be the performance of some interesting prospects.

Scouting Reports for the 2016 Giants Part 2: Howard, Krook, Quinn + Something Extra

Good day to everyone and it's time for some scouting reports! This time, it will be the recent signees in the 2016 draft class for the Giants, shortstop prospect Ryan Howard, lefty pitcher Matt Krook and outfielder Heath Quinn. For those who don't know it, Howard is a 5th rounder from Missouri, Krook is a 4th rounder from Oregon but a Giants fan growing up and Quinn is the 3rd round pick from Samford. If you have missed it, I already did a rough scouting report on the three and other 2nd day selections here and I want to focus on the three because first, they have already agreed to a contract with the Giants and second, I think that they have a good shot to be valuable contributors for the big league club in the near future. Enough chatting, it's time for the scouting.

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. 

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. 

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.

Out In Front: Breakdown of Tyler Beede's Latest Start + Something Extra

Here on the latest edition of Out In Front, I'll talk about Tyler Beede latest start as I covered him on Twitter last night in America (early morning here). I'll provide an inning-by-inning breakdown about his latest start and probably, his last start before the Futures Game where he's included and together with Keury Mella, they represent the San Francisco Giants in the game full of top prospects and future stars in Cincinnati. Here I go.

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 Part 5: Cole, Fargas, Williamson + Something Extra

After a pretty brief rest, I am now going to continue the series with part 5 of my scouting reports for the Giants this year. It will now feature the breakout candidate Hunter Cole, the best name in the Giants system in Johneshwy Fargas, and the toolsy OF Mac Williamson. As for the other series,  FanGraphs profiles will be shown when you click on their names. Enjoy!