2011 MLB Draft: San Francisco Giants Review

That’s kind of my point. A few years ago we were in Norwich for AA and Hagerstown for low A. Hagerstown booted us out for the Red Sox and Norwich was a bad relationship all around. Now we’re in Augusta for low A and everyone seems to be liking the arrangement, and we’re in Richmond for AA, which is working well and has a decent chance of getting better through facility improvements — that simply wasn’t going to happen in Norwich.

The question is: does drafting players that make these teams good instead of toolsy, high-upside lottery tickets benefit a system more than is generally acknowledged due to the relationship with the minor league affiliates?

to every hitter in the system then. It doesnt look like its working particularly well for noonan this season. In all seriousness, I pretty content with the selections. Really believe in Panik and think Susac is going to develop if we can get him signed.

Belt’s 1 issue coming out of college was to free up his swing mechanics so that he could get his hips through and unleash his natural power. Belt already had a great batting eye, patience at the plate, and an advanced feel for batting and how to approach each individual AB. Oropesa is almost the exact opposite. The problem with his swing mechanics is that it’s way too long and too busy. Oropesa has no batting eye,
 
It’s much, much easier to tweak a physically-gifted batter’s swing in the minors than it is to teach him all of the things that Belt already had. To teach a hitter of Oropesa’s age and experience-level patience, how to develop an advanced batting eye, how to go about approaching each AB with a good plan, and how to adapt to how he’s being pitched to within each AB is very, very difficult to do.

Don’t expect Oropesa to develop into anything like Belt. Best to just hope that he can find the power that he lost in college this year, while making enough consistent contact for that his power can make him a legit prospect.

Rings, I suppose.

Pablo Sandoval ring a bell?

I think it is more a business case of focusing scarce resources on a particular asset, in this case pitching. Until Posey was selected, the Giants spent almost all their best odds of finding a good player (first round pick) on pitching. Of course, that could have been influenced by their poor picks before Tidrow came on. That could also been influenced by the late Pat Dobson, one of his most trusted advisors until he untimely demise, whose Orioles had a very similar rotation in the late 60’s and early 70’s.

My draft study showed that when you are winning and contending, and for a long while, Sabean’s teams won and contended, your picks in the last third of the first round had around a 10% chance of finding a good player (one that would start for you regularly), then the picks’ odds got worse fast, dropping exponentially from there to the second and third rounds. Contrast that with the Top 5 worse teams’ picks where the odds are around 40%+ of finding a good player.

So from a management viewpoint, it made a lot of sense to focus those picks on a particular asset. The odds of any of those picks turning out to be a good player was very low. In the Giants case, they chose pitching.

But pitching makes a lot of sense. If you get two great 1B from the draft, now you have a 1B and probably a poor fielding LF. If you got three, then you are screwed (see Texas with Teixiera, Hofner, A-Gon). However, if you get three great pitchers, then you suddenly have a great starting rotation. And each one you add on top, the cream will rise, unlike with position players, where you now need to trade your surplus to get what you need.

And a failed position player at best become a little used bench player. A failed starting pitcher can still become a great reliever or even a great closer. Pitching is very flexible in terms of roster management and gradual improvement of the group over time. Position players is inflexible, you can’t really plan for every position, and when you have a surplus, you are forced to trade and you won’t necessarily improve your team.

I would liken it to surgery, most of the time the surgery will go as planned, but surgery is surgery, there will still be the possibility for death. And so it goes with trades, you have the good player in your hands, and you trade hoping to get as good or better value. And sometimes the trade goes bad. That gives position player an additional risk in terms of roster construction, if the trade goes bad you are just screwed (see A’s with Hudson trade, lucky he also traded Mulder; or even Texas with Hafner and A-Gon ). Though that probably balances against the higher attrition rate for pitchers, though.

In addition, it turns out that the only way to have competitive advantage in the playoffs is via good pitching. Baseball Prospectus studied the problem of going deep into the playoffs and found that a team wanting to maximize their chances of going deep has to be great at striking out hitters, have a great closer, and a good fielding defense. In other words, be good at all the different facets of run prevention. They found that, once in the playoffs, offense is neutralized and provides no advantage to the team in terms of going deep into the playoffs. The Hardball Times studied just offense vs. defense, but found similarly that offense doesn’t matter in the playoffs, defense does.

So pitching makes a lot of sense for a lot of different good reasons.

I would remind people that Sabean was the guy in charge of the Yankee’s draft when they selected Derek Jeter and signed Jorge Posada. So it is not like he’s not familiar with what a good hitting player is. It is just when you are shopping in the free agent market and limited by players not wanting to come here for whatever reasons, you are forced to sign the next best thing if you are to do anything at all. And I think fans here would riot if the GIants did nothing and held onto their money.

My initial reaction on Panik was “wtf?” but then I remembered that I know close to nothing about who should go where in the draft… now that I’ve read takes from Sickels and some others who like the pick, I’m pretty happy about it.

Seriously, though… I did spend a few minutes thinking I was playing along with some McCoveyChronicles joke where the Giants selected some guy named “Panik” hahahaha.

I also thought that AFWTTTL was pretty accurate with his statements.

And there was meltdown over Bumgarner over Jason Heyward as well as Beau Mills. And I recall there was a meltdown that Smoak was not selected over Posey for that pick, at least from Grant’s perspective.

At no point did I write a “WHAT R U DOIN” post.

I don’t see how it can be early to pigeonhole any of these guys: that’s what scouts are for. It’s their job to provide these kinds of reasonable estimates in advance.

He has good range

 
Have you seen him play? I’ve seen this written in several places, but I don’t agree with it. I’ve seen him play twice this season, and while he has quick feet, good hands and good reactions, and good range for a college SS, he decidedly does not have “good range” for a major league SS. I would rate his range at very slightly above-average. When you add the arm and range together it spells 2B to me. Sure he could play SS in the majors, just like Tejada and Fontenot can play SS, but his arm and range will make him a defensive liability.

Jed Lowrie is playing a decent SS for the Sox and has a below average arm. So there is a chance, and why I think it’s hilarious to automatically assume the kid is a 2B.

As I said…the story is not written yet

He ahd surgery in 2009. There were questions about his arm-strength and range with regards to being able to play SS when he came out of HS.

I believe he led the cape in 2010 with 7 home runs, but not a lot of doubles, hence the lack of ISO, as well as a low BA.

The raw power is there, no question.