2011 Draft: Prospect Profiles on the New Giants

Ah, the draft. For a prospect hound like me, it’s like Christmas in June. The future of baseball, getting distributed to teams in front of your very eyes. The Giants’ run to the World Series Championship last year was fueled largely by players selected in the Rule 4 draft in the last half decade or so. Just look:

First round, 2002: Matt Cain
24th round, 2003: Brian Wilson
27th round, 2004: Jonathan Sanchez
25th round, 2005: Sergio Romo
First round, 2006: Tim Lincecum
First round, 2007: Madison Bumgarner
First round, 2008: Buster Posey

That’s seven drafts in a row that the Giants picked someone who was a major contributor to their World Series Championship.

So the draft is important, no doubt. How did the Giants do this year? Let’s dive right in, shall we?

First Round, Pick 29: Joe Panik, SS/2B, St. Johns

Yes, there were plenty of puns to be made when the Giants drafted Panik about, oh, twenty or so slots above where he was projected to go. I, for one, definitely Paniked (alright, alright, I’m done, I promise) when I heard Bud Selig announce the pick, but I’ve come around on the selection. Panik is listed at 6’1”, 193 lbs., and is built pretty solidly. His range is adequate for short, but his arm will likely necessitate a move to second in the future. He should be a fast mover as he’s a very polished college player. At the plate, he’s got a nice, fluid swing. He won’t produce a lot of power, but his contact skills are second to none. This season, he walked more than twice as often as he struck out (38-17). His top comp in the majors is probably Freddy Sanchez, although if you squint really hard you can see a little Dustin Pedroia (size difference nonwithstanding). It’s worth noting he struggled in the wood-bat Cape Cod League last summer. I expect Panik to sign quite soon, and start at either shortstop or second base for the Low-A Salem-Keizer team. On my prospect list, I would put him at 9th, behind Ehire Adrianza and ahead of Charlie Culberson.

College Stats

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First Round, Supplemental, Pick 49: Kyle Crick, RHP, Texas HS

Going into the draft, I didn’t know a whole lot about Crick, but the more I see him the more I love him. He reminds me a lot of Matt Cain: they’re of similar size (Crick is 6’4”, 220, Cain is 6’3”, 230) and he’s got a low-90s fastball similar to Cain. He’s also boasts a hammer curveball that grades out as a plus pitch. He also apparently throws an average changeup and a fringe-average slider. His big issue is command; he walked 44 batters in 63 innings his senior year. Still, his stuff is impressive. He’ll be a bit of a project, but I look forward to seeing how he develops. He becomes the Giants’ third most exciting pitching prospect, after Zach Wheeler and Eric Surkamp.

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Second Round, Pick 86: Andrew Susac, C, Oregon State

I actually played high school ball against Susac, and I can tell you from firsthand experience he has the defensive skills to stay behind the dish. A broken hamate bone in his left hand held him to only 96 plate appearances this year, so opinions are mixed about his hitting ability. Some see him as a 10-15 HR a year, low contact, plus power kind of hitter, in the mold of Russell Martin or a Chris Iannetta, others think he’ll be a defense first catcher that will struggle to start in the big leagues. I sit more in the second camp, but Susac is intriguing enough to take the chance on. He fell perhaps as many as forty slots as teams were scared off by his hand injury. He becomes the Giants’ third best catching prospect, behind Tommy Joseph and Hector Sanchez. There are also some concerns that he might not sign, as he’s a draft-eligible sophomore, but I doubt the Giants would have picked him if they didn’t want to make a run at signing him.

College Stats

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Third Round, pick 116: Ricky Oropesa, 1B, USC

Ricky Oropesa is a one-tool player, but oh my, what that one tool is: power. In the third, the Giants grabbed a guy with truly elite power potential, and I can’t fault them for that, but I don’t see Oropesa becoming an everyday player in the big leagues. He had contact issues in college, striking out in over 20% of his at-bats his junior season. He also slugged .710, so I can live with the strikeouts, but I just don’t know if I see the power translating to wood bats. I heard a comparison to Chris Dominguez, and I think that’s probably pretty accurate. He also struggled in the Cape Cod League last summer with wood bats. He’d slot somewhere between 17 and 21 on my prospects list.

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Other draftees I found interesting/noteworthy:


Fourth Round, pick 147: Bryce Bandilla, LHP, Arizona

I’ve played baseball with Bryce (can’t bring myself to call him by his last name) since we were 8 years old. The thing I remember most about him is him giving up one earned run in 55 innings his senior year, and striking out 78 batters while walking 7. Three years later, he started the season as Arizona’s closer but lost the job early in the season. He’s got an electric fastball that sits mid-90s and can touch 97, and he compliments that with an above-average curveball. He’s got a profile that suggests he can handle more than being a LOOGY. He has a history of starting, as well. Control is a major question mark; he walked more than 6 per nine this season. He’ll be a project for Tidrow. His motion isn’t going to settle any fears either, as it’s quite violent.

College Stats

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Sixth Round, pick 207: Josh Osich, LHP, Oregon State

So we grabbed the Oregon State ace and his backstop. Osich fell this far due to health concerns; he reported left his last start after only 12 pitches after feeling some arm pain, and he sat out last season with Tommy John surgery. I love this pick, and I think it’s potentially fantastic value in a mid-round pick. He’s a senior, so signability isn’t an issue. He’s got a live fastball that can touch 97 and an average to above-average changeup. He’s also got a slider that is a work in progress. Similar to Bandilla, he profiles as a reliever even though he has a history of starting in college (he threw a no-hitter against UCLA this year).

College Stats

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Eighth Round, pick 267: Jean Delgado, SS, Puerto Rico HS

Finally, a hit-first SS prospect! Delgado was ranked the 5th best Puerto Rican prospect before the draft by Baseball America, and the best hitter. He’s 5’11”, 150 lbs., so he’s got room to fill out. Every report I’ve read indicates that he should be able to stick at SS, but he’s not going to be a Gold Glover. He was the highest drafted of the four Puerto Ricans taken by the Giants (one other, Christian Otero, was ranked as the best fielding prospect by BA).

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General impressions on the draft:

Taken as a whole, the front office had a decent draft. The top three of Panik, Crick, and Susac are solid, even if they were drafted in the wrong order. However, there were opportunities for greater returns on that pick. Mikey Mahtook, the outfielder from LSU, was still available, as was HS pitcher Henry Owens. Even if the Giants brass were committed to taking a middle infielder, Levi Michael, Trevor Story, and Jake Hager were all still on the board, and all three were widely considered better prospects than Panik.

What I think happened was all the high-upside pitchers the Giants really wanted came off the board right before pick 29. Tyler Beede went at 21, Taylor Guerreri went 24th, Joe Ross went 25th, and Robert Stephenson went 27th. The draft room panicked (avoiding the pun) and went for need.

That being said, they’re the professionals, and I’m just some kid who should be studying for his finals. They managed to grab a 1st round talent in the 2nd, and in between took a projectable high school pitcher, the type of player they’ve been successful developing in the past. It became apparent after the draft that the Giants probably weren’t drafting with as deep of pockets as we outsiders may have thought they were. Crick and Susac are probably the only two picks that will require anything above slot to sign, and I don’t think they’ll want that much more. All told, this draft will probably cost the Giants $4-5 million, which is quite low. All in all, I thought they had a solid draft.

Now it’s time to get these kids on the field.

The Giants Are World Series Champions

You know what’s funny: I’ve never rooted for a team that won. Ever. I was too young to experience the 49ers in 1994, and that’s the only Bay Area team that has won a championship in my lifetime. Or, excuse me. Had.

Even the Sacramento Kings came thisclose to winning a championship before it was stolen from them. I mean, before they blew it. Heck, no team I’ve ever even played on has won a championship.* So I think I can be forgiven for not ever letting my guard down as the World Series commenced. Once upon a time, the Giants were 97% favorites to win the Series.** Forgive me for not trusting a 3-1 lead in the hands of Brian Wilson.

*And don’t even get me started on the IM Ultimate team my freshman year. Ohhhhhh man.

**So all the way through the Series there have been, naturally, a lot of comments made about the debacle in 2002 and leaving Russ Ortiz in and the Spiezio home run, but here’s what I had forgotten. The strange tricks of memory had me convinced that the Spiezio home run put the Angels in the lead, but that, of course, isn’t true. The Spiezio home run made the score 5-3, taking the Angels from a 7% chance of winning to a 19% chance. That is, even after the Spiezio home run, the Giants still had an 81% chance of closing the game out. It seems to me that Giants fans have been unduly harsh on Felix Rodriguez, and instead should be mad at Tim Worrell, who started the 8th inning with a home run by Darin Erstad, then gave up back-to-back singles to Tim Salmon and Garret Anderson. Anderson advanced on a Bonds error and Worrell was taken out. Troy Glaus then hit a 2-run double off of Robb Nen, and the rest, as they say, is history.

But after all that, they did it. They actually did it. The Rally Thong has replaced the Rally Monkey. The ghosts of 2002, 1989, and 1962 are gone. The Giants are World Champions, for the first time ever in San Francisco.

Man. Let that sink in a little bit.

They did it with pitching. You know what’s funny, for three seasons now, the experts have been saying, “This Giants team would be very dangerous if they could only get to October.” Well, they made it to October, and what happened? They were underdogs against the Braves. They were underdogs (big ones) against the Phillies. And they were underdogs against the Rangers. Haters gotta hate, I guess.

The pitching and defense were spectacular all season. The Giants allowed 583 runs this year, which is the lowest in a 162 game season since the true Year of the Pitcher in 1968. In that year, the league OPS was .641. This year, it was .723. These Giants were also the first in the league in Defensive Runs Saved Above Average, thanks in large part to Andres Torres (no surprise) and Aubrey Huff (big surprise). Even more surprising is Pat Burrell, who actually saved 6 runs in just over 600 innings, a fantastic rate. In all, Torres, Buster Posey, and Freddy Sanchez finished tenth in their respective positions in the Fielding Bible Awards, and Huff Daddy and Burrell both received votes.*

*Interestingly, Torres, Posey, and Sanchez all received a significant boost from one voter in the awards, the Tom Tango Fan Poll. The Fan Poll had Torres as the second best CF in the game, Posey the fourth best catcher, and Sanchez the fourth best second baseman. Giants’ fans are nothing if not loyal.

And the truth of the matter is, the offense was really not as punch-less as advertised. They hit 162 home runs, 12 above the major league average, in a park in which it’s very hard to hit homers, especially for lefties. Their team OPS was seven points higher than the NL average. Sure, they have their faults. They ground into way too many double plays (158, the most in the NL), and it really wouldn’t kill them to take a walk every now and then. But this wasn’t the Punch-and-Judy lineup of, say, 2007.

The 2010 Giants surprised some people. Hell, they surprised me. I mean, if it was my team I would have fired Bochy last winter and Sabean sometime around the middle of May. But that’s baseball, ain’t it? The Giants are World Series champions.

“The right-hander for the Giants throws, and SWING AND A MISS! AND THAT’S IT!! The Giants…are World Champions!”

Enjoy it. I know I will.