Community Prospect List #29 Runoff Madness

I don’t think the short, incomplete comment by Baggs from an online chat comes anywhere close to telling us the whole story. It just doesn’t make logical sense when you look at the timeline. Let’s look back at how we signed Roibal.

1. He defected to Mexico at the end of 2009, several weeks before his better-known countrymen Aroldis Chapman and Adeinis Hechavarria. He quickly signed with a well-known agent (the same one that Hechavarria signed with).

2. By the beginning of 2010, Roibal and Hechavarria were made available for public and private exhibitionsover a period of several weeks for major league scouts and execs in Mexico and the Dominican Republic. We know that, at a minimum, Giant reps were on hand on several occasions to watch Roibal work out in the DR.

3. The Giants signed Roibal to a contract with a signing bonus of between $450K and $1M in the middle of April of 2010 and assigned him to the extended spring training camp in Scottsdale. Roibal remained in extended ST until the beginning of July, when he joined the Scottsdale team in the AZ Rookie Leaue. He made his pro debut on July 17th (about 4 weeks into the season) and then continued to pitch 1 inning stints out of the pen for the rest of the season. Even though he was pitching out of the pen, the Giants were obviously grooming him to be a starter by having him pitch only every 5th or 6th day. He ended up getting into 9 games, pitching 8.2 innings, and had above-average stats.

So, the Giants had plenty of opportunity to see Roibal in action pitching off a mound in the bullpen and against live hitters on multiple occasions during the winter of 2010. The fact that he got at least $450K in a signing bonus tells me that all of the top execs. scouts, and talent evaluators got involved in the decision. I also have to assume that Dick Tidrow had to have seen his workouts at least on video and signed off on the decision. In other words, the signing didn’t take place in a vacuum, and the Giants had plenty of opportunities to see Roibal’s “stuff” before he was signed. They had to be more than a little impressed with his “stuff” to have thrown that much money at him. Barring an injury or having his mechanics messed up in extended ST camp by the Giant coaches, I don’t think that it’s very likelly that Roibal all of a sudden lost his “stuff” in the short span of 2 months. It’s not like he was a 16 or 17 year old high school pitcher who developed issues during the 6 month layoff between the end of the summer league season and the beginning of the next high school season.

The fact that the Giants held him out so long before getting him into action in the AZL tells me that he probably had mechanical issues that the Giants were working on, but an injury could also explain the delay and the fact that they had him on such a short pitch limit. When you look at the candidates that the Giants have to choose from as starters in Salem and Augusta this season (and at some of the bums hat they used as starters in Salem and Scottsdale in 2010), Roibal’s stuff would have to be very mediocre for the Giants not to at least give him the opportunity to prove himself as a starter somewhere in 2011. Unless he is fighting an injury or completely horrible mechanics, I just don’t believe that the Giants are going to eat that signing bonus so quickly.

The idea was that some team will see the ERA and think Tanner is better than he is by K/BB, and we can pick up a replacement for an injured or ineffective starting player. Possibly a rotation arm if someone gets hurt.

There was a period before JuCo where he was working for his Dad (plumber?) and playing in one of those New York city leagues that are full of old pros like at you see at the end of Sugar.