Abriendo Bitches OP-ED Piece #1 (apologies for the length)

I live in a world where the fact that the Giants’ and catchers reported to camp a few days ago did not excite me or get me pumped for the upcoming season. I like to believe I am a realistic fan. I don’t see the Giants competing for at least two full seasons. And I definitely don’t see us competing if we continue to act on the major league level the way we have been this off-season. We are a team marked by a definite lack of top-level talent in the higher levels of the minor league. We have, in my mind, three prospects, all outfielders, who have potential to be athletic players and make our team fun to watch. But, despite the fact that Brian Sabean stated outright he was going to be leading the team in the rebuilding direction this year and for the next few years, his actions speak consistently to plugging holes that aren’t necessary to be plugged. Look, I still believe Brian Sabean is a good GM, maybe even a great one if the settings are good. But he isn’t the type of GM the Giants specifically need at this time. When I originally started thinking about this post, I was planning on titling it “I wish Mark Shapiro was my GM,” referring to the Indians GM who famously said a few years ago that the Indians were at least two years away from competing, and then promptly went out and traded for young future stars such as Grady Sizemore and Pronk. Basically, Sabean is a GM built for the old style of baseball. One where teams had their superstar and the free agent market was ripe enough that a GM could fill necessary holes with savvy veterans. Look at the Giants winningest teams during his legacy. They are typified by two superstars or elite players (Barry Bonds and Matt Williams and Barry Bonds and Jeff Kent) surrounded by a mix of role players and good fielders such as Jose Cruz, Omar Vizquel, Ray Durham, the list goes on. During the period of 1993 to 2003, only the Yankees and Braves had more wins than the Giants and it seemed like every year the Giants were in the hunt until the very end of the season. But sometime around the turn of the century, baseball began changing. Contracts got longer and more expensive, the steroids era came to a presumable end and thus, younger and fresher talent, with high ceilings and low contracts, became the hot commodities. No more could a team look to fill important holes by signing free agents to reasonable contracts. As such, farm systems are more important than ever. The problem is, amongst the Giants’ successes of the past decade, they seemed to miss these subtle but overall important changes within the baseball world. They had the game’s biggest star, who was always a huge draw with his thunderous home runs and propensity for record-breaking. But, when his body began to finally fall apart, most likely aided by the lack of steroids in his system, the Giants were revealed to be the bare bones team they were from the beginning. Sabean, as good as he was at building a winning team around Bonds, isn’t built to reconstruct a team on young talent. Yes, the Giants did sign a player at the ripe age of 16 who looks destined to be one of the game’s next great home run hitters. And yes, our draft from this past year has already revealed to potential top prospects, Tim Alderson, who I am already sure is going to be the Giants savior at closer with his HUGE frame as well as odd delivery (more on this later), and Wendell Fairley, a black inner-city athlete who has already been given the ceiling of “Carl Crawford with more power.” But, that is less a result of Sabean and more a result of new hirings within our minor league system. Sabean, for his part, looks the same as he did in past years. His one major signing, Aaron Rowand, blocks the development of our only three high-level prospects that show any promise. Rajai Davis made a splash last year when he showed a knack for getting on base as well as stealing at will. Freddie Lewis has significant bop, hit for the cycle, and is still very much a raw talent because he focused on baseball so late in his career. Nate Schierholtz can flat out hit, and he has at every minor league level. He is still young, too, and if he is given the chance he could easily become a complementary player who hits 20 home runs and steals 20 bases. So why aren’t we given these players a chance to play? If we dropped Dave Roberts and ate the rest of his contract, what’s the harm? He is certainly not making our team better prepared for the future. All he does is block our few prospects we have from ever getting their fair chance. Plus, why sign Rowand, a 31 year old player who plays with a definite reckless abandon, to a five year contract? We are signing him for the years when he will decline the most. How does that represent a change in attitude, a focus on the future? I can’t fault Sabean because I simply think it’s really hard to change one’s perspective on the game. I think he would make a good GM for a team with a steady superstar like the Yankees. But, for the Giants and the future of the Giants, he definitely isn’t the right person for the job. I think Widukind and I should launch a coup, and take over the upper management. We’d be sick.

But, what does excite me about this time of year now, besides fantasy baseball, is this is the time when the 2008 top prospects come out. YAY!!!!One!111 So basically, in the last two weeks two of the more important top prospect lists have come out. One from SI’s Kevin Goldstein available at this link

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2008/baseball/mlb/02/08/goldstein.top100/index.html

and one from ESPN’s Keith Law available if you have insider at this link

http://insider.espn.go.com/mlb/insider/columns/story?columnist=law_keith&id=3221365.

Both are fairly trustworthy, but I put both behind Baseball America’s top 100 prospects in terms of accuracy. Unfortunately, BA top 100 for 2008 doesn’t come out to the general public until after spring training, although the list is already available to the members of BA’s subscription service (you have to pay a lot of money, so I didn’t do it).

Now, on to my analysis: these two lists agree in principal to many of the top 20 prospects though they differ widely as the list continues on. Law picks Evan Longoria as his top prospect and Jay Bruce as his second best, while Goldstein picks Bruce as his top prospect and Clay Buchholz as his second best. I tend to agree with Goldstein. I think Bruce is the top prospect entering this season. He won last years’ Minor League Player of the Year award and has shown tremendous power potential as well as good plate approach. Everyone keeps calling him the next Larry Walker, which makes me balk a bit because it took Walker seven years in the Major Leagues and one trade out of Montreal before he hit his stride. With the new emphasis on prospect development, prospects are now expected to make immediate impacts and the comparison to Walker suggests Bruce might not be able to do so. That said, I think he will probably make more of an impact than Walker did in his rookie season (.241/.326/.434) and will probably win ROY. I wouldn’t be surprised to see numbers nearing .275 with 25 home runs, with his power growing over the course of the season. I think Longoria is going to be pretty fucking good too, I just think he isn’t surrounded by any players who can really back him up besides Crawford. I do agree with most people though that he will near the numbers of David Wright’s rookie year.

But the thing that really jumped out at me was the inclusion of Angel Villalona in both lists as well as his placement. In the Keith Law one, Angel is listed as the 20^th (he’s 29^th in the Goldstein one). Jesus Christ, the Giants got fucking lucky. For those of you that don’t understand how ridiculous that number is, let me explain it to you. The top 100 prospects is a “whose who” of the next top players in baseball and the top twenty are usually saved for players on the edge of making an impact in the Major Leagues within the next two seasons. Angel is 17. He is Simone Stolzoffs age. And he is the 20^th best prospect in baseball. Last year was his first year in organized baseball. And he is the 20^th best prospect in baseball. He would be a junior in high school right now (or a senior, depending on when he entered kindergarten…if he entered kindergarten). And he is the 20^th best prospect in baseball. Ryan Braun was the 26^th best prospect in baseball before he took the league by storm. I’m so excited. Early scouting reports say his bat is the best to come out of the Dominican in a decade. Think Manny Ramirez, including even the outfield laziness. He’s going to be really really really good. I pray about it every night. Law even has him listed as the top first base prospect in the game already. The two other Giants to be included were Henry Sosa (who is around 80 in both lists), a single A pitcher who posted an ERA sub 1 in the rookie league last year who can literally throw 100 and Tim Alderson, a 19 year old pitcher we drafted in the last first round last year. Alderson is the one who impresses me more of the two and he is listed at 59 in Law’s analysis, high fucking marks for a 19 year old with only about 20 minor league games under his belt. Right now they are billing him as a starter and some projections have him as a potential good number two starter, but most are saying he will eventually move over to closer where he could dominate. Historically, most closers share the trait of having a slightly unusual windup to go with their dominating stuff. It prevents hitters from establishing good timing in only one inning. Frankie Rodriguez, Robb Nen, Trevor Hoffman, Billy Wagner, the list goes on. Alderson has a significant hitch in his delivery as he brings his 6 foot 7 body (he’s fucking huge) down quickly in his windup, hiding the ball really well the whole time, only to surprise the hitter by throwing his body upright once again and coming out from a high three quarter release. I can’t really describe it so here is a link that shows it pretty well:

http://www.pitchingclips.com/players/tim_alderson.htm.

Alderson has pitched from the stretch only since high school so he seems groomed for the position. Hooray.

Apart from that, this blog is supposed to be a Giants and A’s blog so I guess I would be doing an injustice if I didn’t analyze the A’s in my report. I would like to be the first to say Juanfish, I’m jealous. The A’s absolutely raped the White Sox in the Swisher trade. Gio Gonzalez, Fautino de los Santos, and Ryan Sweeney are all mentioned in the top 100 prospects. At the same time, Carlos Gonzalez, the best prospect from the Haren trade, is also considered a top prospect, ranked as high as 26 (Goldstein). Billy Beane is fucking ridiculous at building up a system out of nothing. That said, Daric Barton, believed to be the A’s top prospect currently seems to be losing supporters. His power hasn’t developed as much as people expected (The most homeruns he has had in a season were 13) and at first base his peripheral stats do not make up for poor power numbers. Still, you have to applaud Billy Beane.

Some other things of note, Texas used the Mark Texiera trade to stock their system as they have five of the top prospects and my personal favorite is Elvis Andrus, an athletic shortstop who looks to have incredible range as well as a good bat. The Rays have an impressive 9 in the group, but they are still going to suck for eternity (I mean seriously, they have had a top three or five pick for pretty much the entire existence of their organization and have yet to put together any sort of impressive team. Delmon Young was the top prospect for two years and a row and they traded him to the Twins. That franchise is doomed for sure). I think Buchholz is an interesting prospect to watch because he is basically already a finesse pitcher coming out of the minors. I also think he is interesting because he stole 29 laptops from his high school and sold them, and was simultaneously recruited as a wide receiver at Texas and Purdue. A white wide receiver? Must be a helluva athlete for a pitcher. That said, I don’t think it’s really important that he threw a no-hitter in his second start because the only other pitcher to do so in the modern era is Wilson Alvarez. Two last things (I don’t post often so I have a lot to write): I’m scared shitless of the Diamondbacks right now who have a lot of very good pitchers in their system as well as a few hitters to supplement an already stacked major league team. I mean, if Upton was still in the minors he would easily be the top prospect. They’re good and gonna stay good for a long time. And I think Brandon Wood is an interesting prospect to watch/look into. Wood clearly needs a change of scenery after being a top 10 prospect last year and now projecting around the top 40 range. His problem seems mental to me. He’s too pull happy and is overly aggressive. But if he fixes himself, he projects with plus power (think 30 home runs a season from third base) and is a superb infielder, especially at third base. Only problem is, the Angels already have everything they need so someone is going to need to include low level, high ceiling prospects in any potential trade. I think it would be worth a shot for any team with a hole at third base and low level prospects to spare to look into.

Okay that’s it.

Sorry for the length.

Out like my credit card.