BA Northwest League Top 20

4-Joe Panik-SS
9-Jesus Galindo-OF

8 months ago Gobroks 24 comments 0 recs |

Comments

It’s disturbing that in the “5 years ago” list Manny Burriss was also #4 in the NWL.

Glassey’s clearly not as big a fan of Panik as Badler is, but he still had many complimentary things to say about him in both the chat and the scouting report. He did say he thought the pick was a bit of a reach as a lot of people saw Panik as a 2nd or even 3rd-5th round talent. But he said that he doesn’t necessarily think Panik will have to move off SS, despite a fringey arm, he has quick hands and good feet and always gets in solid position to make plays. He said he’s “smooth” about a dozen times. And quoted an NL scout who said there’s no doubt Panik becomes a big leaguer. All very optimistic.

Nice sleeper notices for Payne and Kendry Flores as well. But news on the Chuckie front was pretty bad. Glassey said he would think Jones belonged in the 31-40 range, which is pretty awful in such a thin league, and also noted that Jones Kriffic contact issues had as much to do with an inability to catch up to fastballs as a problem with pitch recognition on breaking pitches. That was actually the second time this summer I’ve seen a scouting report on Chuckie that doubted his ability to hit good velocity.

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by Roger on Sep 23, 2011 2:51 PM PDT reply actions 1 recs

Thanks for the summary, Roger.

Super appreciated.

by Nivra on Sep 23, 2011 4:30 PM PDT up reply actions

That’s quite the statement on Chuckie. Yikes!

Ask me about my blog.

by xanthan on Sep 23, 2011 5:26 PM PDT up reply actions

I kinda chuckled when I saw who was #20 on that 5 years ago list

And yeah the issue with Chuckie was really discouraging. I wonder if his nagging injuries played a role in his disappointing year-and I also wonder if he repeats the NWL (he is fairly young) or the Giants just send him to Augusta

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by Gobroks on Sep 23, 2011 5:38 PM PDT up reply actions

Cowart

I thought he was a young chad bradford

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by OmahaGiants on Sep 24, 2011 9:54 PM PDT up reply actions

Good stuff

What did they say about Payne? He really intrigues me.

I’m still a believer in Chuckie’s ability to adapt. He’s still very young and inexperienced. His tools are comparable to Donovan Tate’s, but he’s almost a full 2 years younger than Tate (Chuckie turned 19 at the end of July, Tate will be 21 in 3 days).

"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner

Keep an eye on my son, Jake "The Jacksonville Rifle" Dunning. From SS to the mound - exclusively toeing the rubber since March 2010.

by Fla-Giant on Sep 24, 2011 8:43 AM PDT up reply actions

They said Payne was a sleeper, had a great debut and is really skinny

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by Gobroks on Sep 24, 2011 11:48 AM PDT via mobile up reply actions

It’s funny, I was trying to remember what was said about Payne and the only thing I could remember was the super skinny comment.

MY DAD WAS WRONG!
MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!

by Roger on Sep 24, 2011 2:35 PM PDT up reply actions

He also said that he liked Jones too

referring to his loud tools, but yeah, the rest of his comments about him were pretty discouraging.

Still, he is very young and time is on his side. Hopefully a fully healthy year next season will give everyone better insight.

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by Keenlow on Sep 24, 2011 12:57 PM PDT up reply actions

Time is on his side, but my guess would be that the list of players who have overcome 30-35% k rates in the low minors is pretty short.

MY DAD WAS WRONG!
MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!

by Roger on Sep 24, 2011 2:42 PM PDT up reply actions

Doesn’t the fact that Panik was the MVP of that league kind of debunk the theory that he should have been a third to fifth round pick? Maybe the Giants knew what they were doing, and it wasn’t such a “reach.”

Buster Posey: still better than Eli and Stewart, even with a broken ankle.

by rxmeister on Sep 24, 2011 6:58 AM PDT reply actions

Not necessarily

Matt Downs, a 25th round draft pick, once was MVP of the Northwest League. That would definitely say he should’ve been drafted as low as 25, but I’m not sure anyone would say that Downs should’ve been a third to fifth rounder, even.

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by BruteSentiment on Sep 24, 2011 7:42 AM PDT up reply actions

Also Drew Biery etc etc etc. The MVP of the AZL was Jose Cuevas and I think you could imagine him being waived before next year. The two things don’t necessarily equate.

MY DAD WAS WRONG!
MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!

by Roger on Sep 24, 2011 9:34 AM PDT up reply actions

Part of the "reach" comment has...

…to do as much with league wide impression as well as talent. If nobody was going to draft him until the third round, then he would have been available in the second. This sort of reasoning of course involves a lot of conjecture and means the Giants would have risked someone else taking him.

"Don't trust anyone under the age of 30" - Brian Sabean

by Smotheredinhugs on Sep 24, 2011 6:52 PM PDT up reply actions

That’s the Mel Kiper “pick for value at the slot” theory. On the other hand, the Padres this year went the absolute other way and grabbed the guy they really wanted (Spangenburg) with their first pick when most observers figured they could easily get him with their second. And that strategy ended up looking pretty good for them.

MY DAD WAS WRONG!
MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!

by Roger on Sep 24, 2011 8:29 PM PDT up reply actions

Good point Roger

I think that another thing that critics (including my own initial reaction) discounted was the signability factor and the deepness of the 2011 draft. I think that a big reason why both the Giants and the Pads “reached” for Panik and Spangenburg (even though they will never admit it) is that they knew they could sign them for around slot and get them playing within a few weeks after the draft was over. I think that they figured they could use the money they saved to take higher-upside and pricier (compared to slot) players in later rounds. In other words, I have no doubt that they passed over players they had ranked ahead of Panik and Spangenburg when both teams picked in the first round.

It seemed to work out pretty good for both teams – so far.

"There ain’t much to being a ballplayer, if you’re a ballplayer." - Honus Wagner

Keep an eye on my son, Jake "The Jacksonville Rifle" Dunning. From SS to the mound - exclusively toeing the rubber since March 2010.

by Fla-Giant on Sep 25, 2011 1:34 PM PDT up reply actions

I don’t know about that, the Pads were all over Spangenburg for quite awhile. They clearly thought he was the best bat in the draft (or at least after Rendon) and I think they were just afraid of exactly what Brute said above. As for the Giants it sounded like their first choice was one of the trio of high school arms that went off the board immediately in front of them, and with Swihart gone too, I can believe that Panik was at the top of their board, as they’re notoriously idiosyncratic about their board.

As an aside if they really were saving money for later picks I sure wish the second one would have been a flyer on Josh Bell.

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MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!

by Roger on Sep 26, 2011 7:19 AM PDT up reply actions

I can believe that Panik was at the top of their board, as they’re notoriously idiosyncratic about their board.

So can I. To this day, Sabean will swear he had Alderson rated higher than Porcello on his draft board in 2007.

The Giants have a long history of going away from consensus in the draft and it’s been working out OK for them. Cain was pretty universally regarded as a 1S or 2nd round pick, but they grabbed him at #25. More recently, many of the things that were said about Panik at the time he was drafted were also said about Brown the year before, although to a lesser degree.

"When the Giants call up a 21-year-old Venezuelan catcher who started the year in San Jose, was hitting well with poor plate discipline, but wasn't on Baseball America's preseason list of the organization's 30 best prospects, only good things can happen."
Congratulations, Hector!

by tedfordfan on Sep 28, 2011 5:44 AM PDT up reply actions

I’ve heard that said about Cain, but I know I saw him going to the Giants on two different mock drafts the week before, so clearly they were on him. I think in this draft there were a couple of major cases of teams grabbing the guy they wanted, consensus be damned much much before we got to pick: SD with Spangenburg and the Mets with Nimmo. Neither of those two was going to go anywhere close to the spot they were picked if any of the other 29 teams were doing the drafting, but they wanted the guys they wanted.

As far as I can recall, the most extreme case of the Giants going their own road, was the Nate Schierholtz pick. That was, IIRC, the first draft that BA live blogged, and when the Giants made that pick there was a sudden cacophany of people writing “who is that guy the Giants just picked?” Not as sarcasm, either, a lot of people who were serious enough draft junkies to be following a live blog had legitimately never heard of Nate.

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MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!

by Roger on Sep 28, 2011 8:41 AM PDT up reply actions

Never count on 'most observers'

All it takes is one out of 30 to make that a bad strategy.

by BruteSentiment on Sep 25, 2011 1:42 PM PDT up reply actions

Even so, why would you pass up players you have ranked higher to get him?

You shouldn’t be tying yourself that heavily to any particular player anyway, it’s not like the NFL or NBA where draftees play right away and organizational need is a major concern.

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by Bhaakon on Sep 25, 2011 5:57 PM PDT up reply actions

Well,

…doesn’t that have as much to do with how you have them ranked? If you have three prospects ranked close together – a young power arm with some needed mechanical adjustments, a top tier athlete with 5 plus tools but has limited baseball experience and a player with 2 “surefire” Major league tools, one of them being the bat – I think the Giants went with the later in this case. The former two players could have higher ceilings, but “value” is a lot harder to project in baseball because ceilings and floors are so heavily weighted in baseball pre-draft rankings.

When you have a draft with three A rated prospects and 70-100 B rated prospects, you’re going to get some head scratching pundits, but in 5 years there’ll be x flameouts, n major leaguers and z stars – avoid x at all costs.

"Don't trust anyone under the age of 30" - Brian Sabean

by Smotheredinhugs on Sep 26, 2011 5:07 AM PDT up reply actions

I think from a cost/ benefit standpoint it’s more important to find stars in the draft than solid major leaguers, so a few flameouts is certainly acceptable, as long as you hit on some stars. As for instance, Lincecum makes 2006 an A+ draft despite the fact that Burriss and Downs (and hey Pill!) are the best of the rest of that draft.

MY DAD WAS WRONG!
MY BOY NEEDS TO THROW HARDER!

by Roger on Sep 26, 2011 7:23 AM PDT up reply actions