MLB.com picks the Giants' minor league all stars
And doesn't do a very good job. It looks like they just checked every roster and picked the player that had the highest batting average, or best ERA, at each position.
Click on the link if you want to read their (often hilariously bad) reasoning, but here's the list:
C: Johnny Monell (!)
1B: Belt
2B: Ryan Cavan (!)
SS: Ryan Rohlinger (!)
3B: Jesus Guzman (!!!!)
OF: Francisco Peguero
CF: Tyler Graham
OF: Juan Perez (!)
DH: Jose Flores
RHP: Jorge Bucardo
LHP: Eric Surkamp
RP: Ryan Verdugo
over 1 year ago
Fla-Giant
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They got 5 out of the 12 wrong, IMO.
C: Johnny Monell Buster Posey
2B: Ryan Cavan Charlie Culberson
SS: Ryan Rohlinger Ehire Adrianza or Brandon Crawford
3B: Jesus Guzman Conor Gillaspie
OF: Juan Perez Chuckie Jones or Thomas Neal
Posey did more in his 2 months in the minors (at AAA) than Monell did in his entire season (at A+).
Culberson had similar offensive stats and played better defense at 1 level higher than Cavan – while being 2 years younger.
Rohlinger played 70 games at most at SS, with average D at best, while Adrianza played the whole season and was considered the top defensive SS in his league.
Guzman is a DH/LF, not a 3B. I doubt that he started more than 30 games at 3B this year. Gillaspie played all season at 3B, put up above-average offensive stats in the tough EL, and then led the AFL in HRs.
Perez had a nice 1st half in the Cal League. but faded badly in the 2nd half, while Jones had an eye-opening first pro season in the AZ Rookie League (spending half the season at the age of 17). Neal also had a nicely above-average season in the EL and got better as the seaon progressed.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
Is the exercise to pick the top prospects at each position or the player who straight up had the best season? If the latter, I think you can make a strong case for Rohlinger and Perez (and Monell if you DQ Posey for no longer being a prospect). Completely agree with you about Culberson and Gillaspie, although the write up on Cavan was interesting.
Hector Sanchez: Underrated. Fighting body bias since the 2009 off season. I still love you, son, even if you're fat.
Yeah, from following the series by MLB.com they were obviously going for all stars in terms of their production for the 2010 season, not the best prospects at each position.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
In fact, their intro at the top specifically states they were honoring the players who had the best seasons, “regardless of prospect status”. I don’t think they quite made that goal, but I guess…
Given that approach, and the fact that obviously Buster and Bumgarner they DQ’d for their early or mid-season promotions, I’d say they didn’t too badly. I like the Monell selection personally. Cavan over Culberson is rather strange (although they did note Culberson as HM), and the Guzman selection just bizarre, although I will say that I don’t know of any 3B in the system worth honoring. Domidingerz I suppose, although his flaws are well covered. I’d have to disagree with Fla and say Gillaspie had a pretty awful season at AA.
In the OF, I would taken Neal, Perez, and Peguero, but I can see the desire to reward Graham for a very good statistical season, and while Neal ended the year with a decent set of stats, I can say that Perez’ overall skill set is appealing, as are all three of the players chosen. He had an incredible defensive year, considering he’d spent most of the previous year butchering up the infield. Jones is an interesting prospect, but from a sheer performance angle, he should get heavily discounted for playing both in SS ball and in a complex league where stats are fairly close to meaningless.
Decent selection on the pitchers, although i would have gone with Casilla as RP.
Obviously the intent was to go against the grain of prospect lists and shine a light on some of the non-prospects who go out and grind away in the minors even if their only reward is going to be that they can keep playing ball for a (meager) living. And that seems like an honorable enough intent to me that I don’t feel it in me (during the holiday season) to slam them, even if some of the picks are head scratchers.
MY DAD WAS WRONG!
Cavan
Agreed that I think it’s a good thing to recognize those guys who toil away in the minors, who knows maybe one of them is the next Andres Torres.
That being said, I think Cavan got the nod over Culberson for his 17 DINGERZ and from the pure standpoint of just last season, I can see a reasonable case being made for that; although Cavan is—as mentioned above—2 years older and playing a level lower than Culberson. However, the Guzman pick is a joke, he’s not even a 3B, and his offensive stats would need to be Bondsian for him to overcome his clank in the field.
Even just looking at a season, I think RyRohl is the other WTF on the list. He’s not even a SS and his defense there is meh enough that Crawford, even with the injury, had a better season overall than RyRohl.
I don’t necessarily hate the approach, but I do think they either didn’t look at defense at all, or discounted it to such an extent as to make it irrelevant.
"And as Edgar rounds the bases the ghosts run with him, the great ones like Mays and McCovey and Cepeda, and the almost forgotten ones like Bolin and LeMaster and Manwaring…" - J. Rant
by Giant Torture on Dec 7, 2010 7:07 AM PST up reply actions
Gillaspie
Just some perspective on Conor.
League average line in the Eastern League this year: .259/.332/.397
Conor’s line: .285/.332/.417
That’s an above average bat at 3B. He was 22/23 years old during the season, which isn’t especially young, but again younger than average (24.3). In addition, he played in a graveyard of an offensive park. To wit:
Home: .250/.299/.375
Away: .320/.364/.457
On top of that, he had a very solid AFL, by all accounts.
Not saying he was amazing, or should be a top-10 prospect, but he definitely is showing improvement, even if it’s not immediately apparent. I think he could really take off in Fresno next year.
Interesting side note:
Neal home: .292/.363/.387
Neal road: .291/.352/.489
Hector Sanchez: Underrated. Fighting body bias since the 2009 off season. I still love you, son, even if you're fat.
I don’t necessarily disagree with what you said (well, I do because I don’t believe Gillaspie’s got an above average corner bat), but I think referring to league averages when looking at a minor leaguer’s performance is a real murky area, because huge swaths of minor league players are frankly irrelevant to analyzing a minor league prospects future. The age of performance of the many many minor league vets, org fillers and one time major leaguers hoping to get another chance doesn’t really tell us anything that important about the prospect status of players on the way up.
Of course, there’s a sense in which I’m arguing against my point here, because if you look at the league’s top 20 OPS performances you’ll notice that they’re dominated by players in their late 20s which suggests that the same people are bringing the league’s average age up are also bringing the average slash lines up (which would make Gillaspie look even better). That’s true to a certain extent, but I mostly just try to ignore the league averages, focus on the components (it’s worrisome that Gillaspie’s walk rate just fell apart this year) and the scouting reports (nobody believes in his glove or arm), and leven it with just a general common sense of how pitching or hitting friendly the league environment is.
MY DAD WAS WRONG!
And I don’t disagree with anything you said — I just wanted to give some perspective to people who look at Conor’s numbers and say he had an aweful year. The main point was that his home park killed him and he was in a severe pitcher’s league. He regressed with regards to plate discipline, but he made some strides in the development of his power (especially in the AFL) — at least enough to keep hope alive for him as a prospect IMO. His defense improved this year as well. Unfortunately it went from terrible to pretty bad.
Hector Sanchez: Underrated. Fighting body bias since the 2009 off season. I still love you, son, even if you're fat.
I've said this before
But watching Gillaspie play this year, he was a big beneficiary of bad defense. What I mean by that is the guy just doesn’t seem to hit the ball that hard and gets a lot of hits that are of the ground ball with eyes, 23 hopper, Texas-Leaguer, dieing quail variety. This is really more based on my observation and anecdotal evidence than any numbers he put up, but while a .314 BABIP may not seem all that lucky, Gillaspie has a SS’s bat, but happens to play 3B, IMO and observation.
"And as Edgar rounds the bases the ghosts run with him, the great ones like Mays and McCovey and Cepeda, and the almost forgotten ones like Bolin and LeMaster and Manwaring…" - J. Rant
by Giant Torture on Dec 7, 2010 8:52 AM PST up reply actions
One thing that I guess is worth pointing out about Cavan v. Culberson is that 17 HRs in Augusta in the Sally means a whole heck of a lot more power than 17 HRs in SJ int he Cal League. I still would have gone with Charlie but that does mean that Dominguez should probably be the 3B choice.
MY DAD WAS WRONG!
I agree that Dominguez should get the nod at 3B a .782 OPS with 21 dingerz is pretty impressive for the Sally league, especially when you consider their shorter season and the obvious fact that Guzman is not in fact a 3B. I also, would have gone with Culberson at 2B, but was just pointing out that given the parameters, it wasn’t an insane pick like Guzman, or IMO, RyRohl.
"And as Edgar rounds the bases the ghosts run with him, the great ones like Mays and McCovey and Cepeda, and the almost forgotten ones like Bolin and LeMaster and Manwaring…" - J. Rant
by Giant Torture on Dec 7, 2010 8:48 AM PST up reply actions
You take that exclamation point back from next to Juan Perez’s name.
Juan "Doesn't Cheat The Game" Perez, future CF for the World Champion San Francisco Giants.
LOL
I like him a lot, but there’s no way you can say he had the 3rd best season of any outfielder in the system. I wouldn’t even put him in my top 5.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
I think you can make the case that he is, or at least isn’t quite the (!) that the others were. . Who would you say had the better years? Peguero and Tyler Graham. I agree Neal did as well, especially considering the level (and he is the better prospect). Chuckie Jones may be true, but it certainly isn’t obviously so (afterall, rookie league is still rookie league), and Perez was similarly productive over a much longer period of time in a significantly higher league. As for who is the better prospect between those two, Jones’s age would make him so, but this was less a prospect list than ‘who had a good year’.
I would probably say
C-Posey
1B-Belt
2B-Culberson
SS-Probably Crawford
3B-…pass
OF-Peguero
OF-Perez
OF-Jones
DH-Flores, I guess
RHSP-Bucardo
LHSP-Surkamp
RP-Casilla
"You think someone that big would be more well endowed" Aubrey Huff's mother on Pat Burrell
I thought he was going to punch me and I was totally accepting of it. I was planning a reason to thank him if he did." Brian Wilson on Buster Posey
Follow me: Twitter.com/gobroks
by Gobroks on Dec 6, 2010 5:54 PM PST via mobile reply actions
I could see that. Especially Casilla over Verdugo considering his excellence over the entire season and the fact the he was the closer for Augusta for the whole season.
I still can’t get behind Perez over Jones though. Looking at their stats:
Perez: .298/.337/.472/.809 with ISO=.174, BB-rate=5.3%, K-rate=19.8%
Jones: .279/.360/.461/.820 with ISO=.182, BB-rate=10.5%%, K-rate=32.1%
The difference being that Perez was playing at the age of 23 in the hitter’s haven of the Cal League, while Jones was playing at the age of 17 and 18 (in his first pro season and the first time using only wooden bats) in the AZ Rookie League that was dominated by over-aged pitchers. They both played CF with similar above-average defense.
"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner
I have Perez over Graham
"You think someone that big would be more well endowed" Aubrey Huff's mother on Pat Burrell
I thought he was going to punch me and I was totally accepting of it. I was planning a reason to thank him if he did." Brian Wilson on Buster Posey
Follow me: Twitter.com/gobroks
The difference being that Perez was playing at the age of 23 in the hitter’s haven of the Cal League, while Jones was playing at the age of 17 and 18
But again Fla, that’s a prospect distinction; that’s exactly the kind of thing you look at to help determine’s who’s the better bet to be a major league player down the road. MiLB specifically noted this:
This offseason, MiLB.com will be honoring the players — regardless of age or prospect status — who had the best seasons in their organization
because they didn’t want the list to be looked at as a prospect list. They wanted to view minor league play as its own entity without the context of future major league worth, and I think you at least have to give them that as a worthy aim before criticizing the selections. The three IF selections are pretty bad (though in the case of the left side, really nobody had what you could call a good season), but otherwise the list seems solid enough.
MY DAD WAS WRONG!
Not necessarily
I think that while making the distinction of age and level is a prospect thing, I don’t think you can fully discount the league a player played in. After all, putting up big numbers in Richmond, is, IMO, a lot tougher than putting up big numbers in Fresno or SJ.
With that in mind, I think you could actually make a case for Thomas Neal having had a better year than Perez and whether or not Chuckie Jones had a better year is dependent on how much value you place on having played a full season vs. what they did in the time they were given.
"And as Edgar rounds the bases the ghosts run with him, the great ones like Mays and McCovey and Cepeda, and the almost forgotten ones like Bolin and LeMaster and Manwaring…" - J. Rant
by Giant Torture on Dec 7, 2010 7:11 AM PST up reply actions
Belt’s head looks tiny in that helmet
Belted!
by AndYourBirdCanSing on Dec 6, 2010 9:20 PM PST reply actions
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