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

08.19.2008
More Newbies, Please

As you probably know the Giants have set a franchise record for most major league debuts in one season. Now I’m addicted to the anticipation of seeing someone in black and orange for the first time.

I want more, but there aren’t many candidates left. Dig this: only one player on the 40–man roster has never appeared in the bigs. How often does that happen?

Of course, the odd man out is the guy I adopted last year on McCovey Chronicles, Kelvin Pichardo. (If you don’t know about McChronic player adoption, hmm, there used to be an MCC wiki page or something that explained it… anyone know what happened to that?)

Pichardo has been a rooting interest of mine ever since Sabean nabbed him in exchange for Michael Tucker. If Pichardo ever makes the bigs, I thought to myself at the time of the trade, that’s not a bad return for the late-season dump of a near-worthless veteran. Of course, I didn’t realize that everyone from A ball on up would make the big leagues in 2007–2008. Except Pichardo. Come on, Sabes! 

Come September, we’ll probably see call-ups who have made their debuts already: Schierholtz, McClain, Misch, Espineli, Matos, etc. I doubt we’ll see any brand-newbies; the Giants already have plenty of young guys who should get as much playing time as possible down the stretch.

Which current Giant minor leaguers are you eager to see in September? Discuss.



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[August 19, 2008 7:48 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Tee said

Nate of course and probably McClain. I want McClain to hit his first MLB home run.

[August 19, 2008 7:59 PM]  |  link  |  reply
delorean said
[August 19, 2008 11:27 PM]  |  link  |  reply
Tom Clifton said

Hey, if you see Kelvin in SF. Tell him that he still owes me $25. ;^p

[August 20, 2008 9:18 AM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

Hey, OT sort of, but Sandoval is now taking balls at 3B, when just a week or two ago, I recall it being reported that the 3B experiment was over. I guess it got renewed with Rohlinger's struggles while Sandoval and Ishikawa had early success.

[August 20, 2008 9:24 AM]  |  link  |  reply
Lyle said

I most want to see Schierholtz. Maybe a more interesting question might be: Who do you most want to see gone from the roster? In that case, I'd have to say Winn AND Roberts.

[August 20, 2008 12:42 PM]  |  link  |  reply
obsessivegiantscompulsive said

I want to see Denker and Horwitz, and if Frandsen is ready, him too. Pichardo will hopefully get the chance too. Oh, and, of course, Nate Schierholtz, maybe sit Lewis more regularly, and play Winn in LF and Nate in RF.

Amazing when you scan the 40 man list that there are not that many who have NOT been up to the majors this season at some point.

Faves of some fans, McCain and Leone are not on the 40 man, so they won't be making it to the majors unless someone is dropped.

Speaking of dropping, do you expect a wholesale dropping of, say, 5-10 prospects to enable new people to be able to make the team next season? And if so, who goes?

I'm not sure how many are ready to be put on the 40-man, perhaps a sprinkling of these: Brett Harper Matt Downs, Mike Mooney, Ben Copeland, EME, Adam Witter, David Maroul, Antoan Richardson, Joe Martinez, Adam Cowart, Ben Snyder, Joe Martinez, Andrew D'allessio, Jesse English, Kevin Pucetas.

Plus, obviously, Bumgarner and Alderson should be on, sooner or later, they probably won't be added until the Giants are bringing them up to majors, but the way they are performing, they could be up by the end of the season, even before September Callups. Other young guys like Clayton Tanner, and our new draft picks, particularly Posey, but maybe Gillaspie since he's 3B, could see 40-man roster at some point next season.

[August 20, 2008 1:10 PM]  |  link  |  reply
ELM replied to obsessivegiantscompulsive

First, we'll see some veterans drop from the 40-man, in descending order of probability: Vizquel, Aurilia, Walker, either Roberts or Winn. (As I've said, I think the front office will push hard to trade Roberts but not Winn this winter.)

Palmer needs to be lights out in his next few starts to stick.

Among the current minor leaguers, G-Rod's days are numbered, and the Giants won't want to pay Hennessey's arb increase, however slight it may be.

Other minor leaguers on the fringe, in my opinion: Timpner, Bocock, and Espineli.

That's at least five right there without digging into the more talented minor league pool.

[August 20, 2008 5:05 PM]  |  link  |  reply
PM said

I would like to see Travis Denker. He played well in the chances he got. We got to figure out if that was an aberration or something meaningful by getting him more starts. I would like to see Ishikawa, Denker, Ochoa, and R in the infield. Does Aurilia have enough to play regular 3B even if it is as part of a platoon next year?