When the Giants Come to Town, It's Bye-Bye Baby

04.03.2008
Minor Rosters, Part 2

The top four affiliates all start their seasons today. Fresno is in Portland, Connecticut is at home against New Hampshire, San Jose walks the streets of Bakersfield, and Augusta hosts Greensboro. 

This, my friends, is where the real Giants season begins, where we start to form answers to burning questions such as…

* Is Pat Misch the new Noah Lowry without the injury problems?

* Can Nate Schierholtz hit with power and patience?

* Will Adam Cowart’s funky sidewindering fool the bigger boys?

* Are the Giants moving their recent draft picks too aggressively?   

* World Series: 2010 or 2011?

The Merc noted today that Manny Burriss is starting in Fresno because the Giants didn’t want to subject him to the rough weather of Connecticut. What, is Burriss some rare species of orchid? A tropical fruit-eating bat? The Merc also has this thumbnail sketch of San Jose’s top prospects.

A few other notable players I didn’t mention in the last post: Scharlon Schoop, a 20–year-old Curacao native, will play second base for San Jose. Steve Palazzolo, a 26–year-old RHP who fought his way up through the indy leagues, plays at AA for the first time. Go get ‘em, Steve! Wendell Fairly is the only one of last year’s five first-round picks not to get a full-season assignment.

What’s your biggest burning question about the minors this year? On which prospect are you irrationally pinning all your hopes for the future success of the Giants, the California budget negotiations, and the national health care system? Discuss.
Also on the Network:



[April 3, 2008 7:05 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Tom Clifton said

I guess my big question is how the teams are going to respond to new managers. All three of the single A clubs have new managers this season.

In San Jose, you could pretty much expect Lenn Sakata to get the team to win the first half. Now Lenn is gone, Roberto Kelly is with the big club and Steve Decker is in San Jose.

It is going to be interesting to see how the clubs handle new management. Though I am particularly interested in San Jose.

[April 4, 2008 4:15 AM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive replied to Tom Clifton

Why does it matter if there are new managers? Most of the good players graduate to the next level anyway, so they should be seeing a new manager, they won't be followed along by their manager.

The only significant prospect who conceivably could have seen the same manager again is Pablo Sandoval, who they kept at San Jose, reported to work on his defense and plate discipline. I would also suspect that the Giants perhaps took into account how much of a dog Dodd Stadium is and didn't want him distracted by trying to hit in that horrible park while also trying to learn to be better defensively at C.

[April 4, 2008 4:32 AM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

Biggest burning question for everyone has to be how Villalona handles A-ball and whether he can rise to Advanced-A-ball in San Jose this season. The sooner he rises, the sooner he's boosting our lineup and offense.

Close second has to be how Nick Noonan handles A-ball. Being labeled as a Chase Utley type with less (teen homer) power does that. He's also a good baserunner, he stole a lot of bases last season, that is not something Utley can do, at least not to that extent.

And if we can jump to the future, a close third would be how quickly our #5 pick handles the minors (if he can sign quick). He should be a highly developed hitter already, most probably a 1B college player, and if he can move fast, our lineup could get relief very soon, by 2009-10.

My pet burning question is whether Wendell Fairley can get the ball up there or not with regularity. It don't speak well of how long he's going to take to make the majors if he's not in a full season league this season.

I wonder if he costed himself valuable development time holding out for that extra $20K or so over slot that he got, which made him a million-dollar bonus baby. Meanwhile, Noonan signed fast and moved fast. That could have slowed Fairley up by a year to get to the majors, which would have more than made up for that measly $20K extra.

Then again, he's living the Fred Lewis Experience, all over again. He was not a full-time outfielder as he was growing up. He played football (wide receiver if I recall right) plus he was channelling Babe Ruth by being a starting pitching and then playing the big slugger in the other games in the OF. So he's going to be a bit raw as he finally starts devoting all his time to hitting and fielding.

He's also a bit immature, running into a variety of serious problems in high school. That don't speak well for the future and big money never makes things get better. But I got a good vibe from him when I heard his interview after the draft and will keep my fingers crossed.

Go Wendell!

[April 4, 2008 10:48 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Chris said

Wendell is definitely one of the guys I'll be watching this year because he could either take off or land with a thud. His tools are supposed to be tremendous and I think the Giants will take it slow with him because he's so raw.

I've read from a few places that he's battling some should problems right now -- old high school football injuries -- and that could slow him down some to start this year.

I would love to see Cowart do well this year. He has always been a "pet favorite" of mine because of just how unique he is. Love the sidearmers.

[April 4, 2008 6:24 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Frank said

I guess my question is, "will the Giants promote their prospects like they run the bases - station to station?"
Om the one hand, I think it is smart to hold a guy like Sandoval back to work on certain specific deficits. On the other hand, it would be nice to see someone, Noonan, say, fast tracked and be looking at major league camp next Spring, with AAA Fresno as the consolation prize. Lastly, it sure would be nice to see a couple of AA/AAA pitchers, and even some position player blossom, earn a real Sept call-up (with an expectation of being at least a part-time starter next year).

[April 4, 2008 7:39 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive replied to Frank

I think it is clear that the Giants will promote when warranted. Unfortunately (or fortunately) our long stretch of winning resulted in second rate talent for the most part so we didn't get to see that in action much.

But Schierholtz got promoted to San Jose from Hagerstown when he was blasting balls away early on. And Obviously Lincecum is the key example on the pitching side, though you can also note Jonathan Sanchez, Jeremy Accardo, Kevin Correia (jumped to majors pretty quick), Jesse Foppert, Henry Sosa, I guess you can throw in Villalona now, jumping to A-ball and skipping over S-K, Noonan and Culberson too, plus Alderson skipped two levels to San Jose and Bumgarner to A-ball without any pro experience. Particularly on the pitching side, the Giants could be considered pretty aggressive in promoting when they find someone they think is MLB-worthy.

It's easy to move players along fast when you got good prospects coming into the system and doing well. Not a lot of our players have wowed with their stats and forced their way up. Hopefully, as you note, the Augusta team together can push a promotion to San Jose by mid-season, wouldn't that be cool if the whole lineup and starting rotation just forced their way up to San Jose? :^)

Then assuming the Giants drop Connecticut like a hot potato after the season and get us a real ballpark to play in, then they can move some to AA and some to AAA, depending on how good they do.

I think it's clear the Giants intend to bring Bowker and Schierholtz up to the majors for good in Sept at the latest, if not sooner. I think trades will happen depending on how quickly other teams suddenly need a player like the vets the Giants got.

I still think it's best to keep Roberts and trade Winn, and I think that Velez could be forcing the Giants to use him as Robert's platoon buddy in LF, making Davis expendable in trade.