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Minor League Camp Update

I only got to see two days of games; first day was the so-called Triple-A and Double-A squads against the Rangers; Day 2 was the two Single-A squads against the Angels.

Keep in mind that the players listed each day are NOT final team assignments, as there are a lot of guys still in major league camp to be assigned, and a ton of guys who will stay back in extended spring training.  These were the first two days of games.

You can't view games except from up high, so no radar guns and it was hard to keep track of who was whom and where.  You don't know how much you miss scoreboards and PA announcers until they aren't there.  There are 170+ players in camp, so numbers get double-signed a lot (Taylor Creswell and James Simmons were both wearing 21; Creswell played left, Simmons was in center....YIKES!).  And watching 2 games at once is not as easy as it sounds.

The sun beats down, and there is no one selling water in the Giants complex.  That was tough to get through, and after Day 1 I was sick with heat exhaustion.

Day 1:
This was a tough day for me, and it was hard to watch.  I spent a lot of time talking with the families of players, including Trey Webb's wife who graciously bought a lot of people bottles of water from a nearby gas station.

Notes:
Good impressions:

Pereira - A little wild, but a quick outing.
Cowart - Working the Double-A squad, and had hitters off-balance.
EME - Swing looks good, knocked a couple of solid balls, one double I saw.
Ishikawa - Squaring the ball well, though a couple of deep fly outs.
Espineli - He always seems like he's falling off the mound, but when he stays on one side of the plate, he's good.  He was good today.
King - Ditto.

Bad impressions:
Sack - Got pounded.  A lot.  Fastball didn't seem to be working or moving.

Day 2:
I got to pay attention a lot more, however I missed some time doing interviews.

My stint in Arizona is almost done, but here's some more reports on the guys I saw.

Dan Griffin - IMPRESSIVE.  Got a lot of swing throughs, and 2 swinging K's in the first inning of two he threw.  His curve looks 11/5 with good movement.  Fastball can cut in to right handers, but he does miss fairly frequently on that side.  Fastball has very good movement, don't know if he controls it.  In the second inning, the team's defense let him down (see below), and an unearned run came in, but Griffin got a swinging K to get out of it.

Carlos De La Rosa - Wild, but has potential.  Good movement on pitches, low 3/4's delivery.

Marcus Sanders: Fast as ever.  On a hit and run, the ball was hit into right center but didn't get through.  Sanders slid headfirst into second....AND THEN RAN TO THIRD!  And he beat the throw by plenty.  Got a little lazy on D at second, jumping up but barely extending his arm for a lazy line drive, and the ball ticked off his glove.  However, when he took a pop up behind second, he got there quickly and loudly called everyone off on what could've been a collision, so that was good to see.

Matt Weston - He's playing first this year, and looking pretty solid defensively.

James Simmons - Fast, but ugh defensively.  On a deep fly down into right center, he got a great jump and got under it with time to spare when other fielders would have problems getting there...and then KLUNK right off the heel of his glove.  This one wasn't a sun issue, he just missed it.  He showed a good inside out swing, pushing an inside pitch to the wall in right center.

Bobby Felmy - Surprising amount of power and speed for a guy his size; general comparisons to Benard are suitable.  Had a poor read and showed poor range in right field, but he was fighting the sun.

Robert Grace - Hittable.

Christopher Todd - Playing third, took his eyes off of a throw from right at the last second, letting it get by.  Good backup by Griffin to keep the run from scoring.

Sergio Romo - Low 3/4s motion.  His sllider is slow and moves a lot.  His control was not good.

John Odom - Showed a very strong 10:30/4:30 curve I've not seen out of him before.  Looked surprisingly good.

Gerry(?) Oakes - Minor League Free Agent, VERY slow motion, even with runners on base.  Runners will (and did) take advantage.

Juan Trinidad - Sidearmer, with very good movement on his slider.  He overmatched the Angels hitters, striking out all three batters he faced, a couple swinging and once looking.

David Newton - Smaller than you'd expect (like Sadler), but explodes towards the plate.  No speed gun where I could see, but his fastball looked hard.

A few other notes:

I saw Villalona, but he didn't play the game I saw.  Big kid, still has baby fat on him and I can see conditioning being an issue with him, although he's just getting started on it.

Waldis Joaquin is in camp and in uniform, but won't be pitching until June.

Thomas Neal will miss through June or July after having offseason shoulder surgery stemming from jamming his arm sliding back to first last year.

Griffin is obviously healthy.  Hiatt says he seems to have picked up some velocity since his injury.  Sanders is also healthy, as is EME (as noted in my previous diary).

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