Giants beginning to be active in Australia?

by FavoriteSpring on Feb 20, 2007 2:05 AM PST Comment 11 comments

The BA transactions page lists two new Giants minor league moves. Most importantly, the Giants signed an Australian high school pitcher named Cameron Lamb (great name). Googled this article from Australia about the signing, with more encouraging stuff about the Giants enhanced scouting efforts abroad:

http://www.baseball.com.au/site/baseball/abf/downloads/PRO%20SIGNINGS/Giant%20Australia%20Day%20for% 20Perth%20Teenager.doc

The second move isn't significant, just cute: the Giants traded catcher Nick Conte, Stan's son, to the Dodgers (for "future considerations", which means zilch). He was a 13th-round pick in 2003 but never progressed beyond low-A.

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Re: Giants beginning to be active in Australia?

Nick Conte's numbers show that he can't play a lick. He was probably drafted by the Giants as a favor to his dad, and he was acquired by the Dodgers for the same reason. Good job by Sabean to purge the Giants of all things named Conte.

by rxmeister on Feb 20, 2007 4:36 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

Re: Giants beginning to be active in Australia?

Played ball with Conte in ol' San Carlos. Was a good kid but from what I remember, he was one of the smaller guys on the team. I was quite surprised when I found out he was with the Giants and am very sad that he now must don a blue cape from hell.

-D

by dw4848 on Feb 20, 2007 7:36 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

Re: Giants beginning to be active in Australia?

Here's a non-download version.

Never mind whatever I do!!! Fan is my tresure!!!

by leftymalo on Feb 20, 2007 8:54 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

Re: Giants beginning to be active in Australia?

Interesting kid. I'm assuming he's under 18 considering the league they scouted him in. Supposedly throws 88 already with good command of 4 pitches. And he looks big too.

by mxmob33 on Feb 20, 2007 9:04 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

Glamour club?

Good news about international scouting, and I guess the kid's gonna be around for a while:

While the rest of Australia was celebrating our national day the lanky right hander agreed to be the San Francisco Giants first Australian recruit when he signed a 7 year deal with the glamour club.

"Strikeouts are boring. Besides that, they're fascist." Not fascist: SF Dugout

by BaronVonCurrentEvents on Feb 20, 2007 9:13 AM PST reply actions 0 recs

Re: Glamour club?

The writer must have visited the ballpark on Official Beach Blanket Babylon Day.

Never mind whatever I do!!! Fan is my tresure!!!

by leftymalo on Feb 20, 2007 11:54 AM PST up reply actions 0 recs

Re: Giants beginning to be active in Australia?

This illustrates the point I having been trying to make to the Sabean haters who have complained mercilessly about the state of the Sabean/Giants farm system. My asse4sment is that in the early '00s, with the new stadium, the Giants had a tighter budget. They also had Schmidt and Bonds - and some other decent pieces, depending on the year. In an effort to funnel more money to the major league team, Sabean diverted some of the minor league budget to the major league budget in an attempt to maximize the Barry "Bonds phenomenon - and try to get to the World Series.
To be sure, I do not think Sabean is an idiot. I have been arguing that once the Bonds era ended (which it has), the team would change their strategy. To wit: they would increase spending on the minors/prospects, they would sign fewer (not NONE) FAs, would find the majority of their pitching staff from within, and would begin to draft more position players. IMHO, they have begun all of these things.

by allfrank on Feb 20, 2007 10:45 AM PST reply actions 0 recs