SF Giants Minor Lines 8/1/17: Where is Jack Conlon?

Sounds like the Giants haven’t managed to nail down the Jack Conlon contract and now may have an unfortunately large amount of competition:

Rogers is well plugged in to amateur baseball, so I suspect he’s talking from a position of knowledge here. This year, man. It just doesn’t want to stop taking away our toys. Somebody get down to Scottsdale and hide Heliot away.

HIGHLIGHTS: Chris Shaw went 2 for 4 with 17th HR; Grant Watson threw 6.2 scoreless innings; Gregory Santos made Giants debut with 5 Ks in 4 innings.

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Sacramento beat New Orleans Babycakes (Marlins), 6-0
sweeping their four game series, 4-0

See how a little offense puts everybody in a good mood?

Like the Giants, Sacramento jumped out on top big with a four-run 1st inning, sending on the way to a sweep of the hapless Babycakes. The big inning was capped by Chris Shaw’s 11th HR with Sacramento. That gives Shaw 17 for the year. Since Sacramento and San Francisco being in sync is the theme here, I’ll note that both Shaw and Brandon Belt tied up with Aramis Garcia for organizational lead in HRs last night.

All the offense made it an easy night for starter Andrew Suarez, who is starting to get himself on a nice PCL roll. His last three starts have produced 2, 1, and now 0 earned runs. And he’s mixing his repertoire, changing speeds, and getting a good amount of swing and misses.

Nicely done Andrew! Now I do have to point out that Suarez has had a favorable schedule going for him this month, as four of his last five starts have come at Sacramento and the only road start was in similarly pitcher-comfy Tacoma. Most of the RiverCats time spent in the Rocky Mountain states is over at this point, but they do still have trips to Reno and El Paso left. It will be nice to see if Andrew can conquer those PCL challenges as well and really end his season on a conquering note down the stretch.

One really notable story line in this game was the incredible play of New Orleans CF Brandon Barnes, who made quite an assortment of fine plays. You can view several of them here. Probably the best of them came in that first inning, robbing Pablo Sandoval of at least a double when Sandoval drove a ball to the top of the fence in straightaway CF. But the Panda would get his revenge later driving a solo shot the opposite way to LF. Nice to see Pablo driving the ball a bit.

Of course, Jarrett Parker didn’t want to be shown up, so he joined in the CF defensive highlights as well.

Parker was playing his final game of his elongated rehab assignment last night. He’ll join San Francisco tonight. Parker hit .232/.353/.357 while with Sacramento with 3 HRs.

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Richmond lost at Portland Sea Dogs (Red Sox), 4-3

I mentioned the other day that I thought the time was fast approaching when the Giants would reach the decision to move Sam Coonrod to the bullpen. I didn’t think it was approaching so fast that it would be the next appearance he made, however.

And yet there he was, yesterday, coming out of a fully rested bullpen in the 7th inning of a 3-1 game. For at least this night, the transition didn’t go particularly well. After dispatching his first batter via strikeout, Coonrod lost his release point and issued back to back walks on 9 pitches. A couple of hits later the lead was gone. Red Sox #3 prospect (in BA’s midseason list) Michael Chavis singled home the winner with a two out single. One inning earlier, Chavis had also hit a solo HR earlier off starter Tyler Herb, so he was really doing the damage against the Squirrels last night.

Coonrod was going to be the scheduled starter for today, so this wasn’t a case of it being his bullpen day. And with a travel day on Monday the bullpen wasn’t tired. So I would assume we can view this as a transition point for Coonrod going forward. We’ll see. Coonrod is eligible for the Rule 5 draft this December so it’s possible the Giants want to have a look at him as a reliever before they have to make the call on protecting him. There will be more people needing protection that spots to fit them all come December I’d guess.

Tyler Herb, the pitcher ultimately picked up for Chris Heston, had a strong start going 6 full with 6 Ks and allowing just the Chavis solo HR. Seth Rosin had a perfect 9th with 2 Ks. In his nine games with the Squirrels he’s had six scoreless appearances.

Richmond’s offense was, once again, a little on the minimalist side, with just five hits and only one extra base hit. They scored single runs in each of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th innings. Their big opportunity came in the 4th when Portland starter (and former top prospect) Henry Owens issued three walks. The third of those, to Jeff Arnold, pushed a run across, but Richmond was unable to pick up a big hit that could have opened up a big lead and left the bases loaded.

The only actual RBI hit the Squirrels had came from reliable source CJ Hinojosa, who picked up two more hits. Somewhat like former Squirrel, Hinojosa’s .086 Iso makes you look a little askance at his chances of being a first division starter (especially when combined with a less than elite walk rate). But he sure can fight off tough pitches; he sure can make contact, and he’s got the middle infield actions to turn himself into a major league contributor of some shape.

And of course, we’ve all seen the news by now, but the Squirrels have one more bat joining them for the rest of the season. Congrats, Aramis! That was a long time coming.

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San Jose beat Visalia Rawhide (Diamondbacks), 2-0

The Giants went up against a tough righty last night, Arizona’s #3 prospect Joe Duplantier. And while Duplantier was definitely a hard assignment (striking out 8 over 6 IP), they managed to do just enough damage to come away with the win.

They only managed four hits on the night but they managed to put a couple of them together for a two-run rally in the 3rd. Steven Duggar started it off by drawing a walk. Then SS Ryan Howard kept his personal hit parade going, lining a single up the middle. Howard’s now hitting .324 for the season. Like Hinojosa, the Iso is light, especially for the Cal league, at .092. And the walk rate is pretty deficient at just 3.9% this year. But it’s worth remembering that both of those things were true of Austin Slater in the Cal League as well (3.8% walk rate, .104 Iso). Things won’t always be as they are today, and Howard’s another potential contributor to keep an eye on.

With two aboard, the Giants new cleanup hitter Jonah Arenado stepped up to the plate with a chance to deliver.

That was maybe not how that ball should have been played. Arenado is another guy who will be Rule 5 eligible this winter. With now two straight somewhat underwhelming Cal league seasons on his record he’s likely not a candidate to be protected.

Those two runs were enough thanks to the great work done by former UCLA star lefty Grant Watson. Along with two relievers, Watson kept the Rawhide off the board all night. Watson didn’t get his year started until June, and his A ball season was disrupted by health issues as well. But when he’s healthy and in rhythm he can make minor league hitters look bad with his finesse stylings.

Newly acquired Shaun Anderson is one of the guests on the latest edition of “Inside the SJ Giants” podcast, which is always on my definite listen list. There’s really nobody who knows the system as well as Joe Ritzo, who sees virtually everybody in it on a night in, night out basis at some point.

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Augusta lost at Rome Braves, 5-1

The Greenjackets managed just three hits in going down pretty quietly to defeat. Carlos Garcia, recently re-assigned down from Richmond, worked three walks out of the leadoff spot to account for most of the team’s offense. Garcia scored the only Greenjacket run in the top of the 1st on a double play grounder. They’d have only two other runners reach 2b the rest of the game.

Another recent demoteé from Richmond, Yordy Cabrera, made a surprise start. Cabrera did well for three innings but allowed three runs in the 4th, including a two-run HR. DJ Myers, who had been the scheduled starter, relieved Cabrera and threw three innings of his own. All of this is a response to Garrett Williams’ promotion. We’ll see who Augusta ends up sticking in the rotation in Williams’ spot ultimately.

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Salem-Keizer is on it’s All Star break

All four of the Volcanoes’ All Star reps ended up starting this game. Woods went a scoreless frame in the 1st with two Ks. He did need a little help from his teammate to get through it unscathed though. Watch Malique Ziegler chase down this long drive to CF:

Offensively, the Salem-Keizer reps didn’t do much, with only Manuel Geraldo collecting a hit. The NWL did pick up a comeback 5-4 win with Padres’ Luis Asuncion winning MVP.

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AZL Giants lost to AZL Padres, 1-0

Heliot Ramos’ hit streak and the AZL Giants’ prolific offense both crashed to the ground yesterday, as they were shut out for just the second time this year (both, interestingly, 1-0 losses).

In the final innings, they had two two-out XBH that gave them a chance to tie the game. Kyle McPherson’s two-out triple in the 7th gave Ramos a chance to be the hero, but Ramos struck out for the second time in his final at bat of the game. Aaron Bond hit a PH double with two outs in the 9th, but McPherson was called out on strikes to end the game.

Jacob Gonzalez singled and walked. He was one of just two Giants to reach base twice in the game (Nathanael Javier being the other).

Sidney Duprey keeps flopping back and forth between starting and relieving, but he’s tended to go 3-5 innings in either role so it doesnt make a great difference. In his final inning, Duprey allowed a leadoff triple which would ultimately decide the game.

The Giants got perfect relief work from two of their college draftees, Greg Jacknewitz (22nd round out of Xavier) and lefty John Gavin (8th rounder out of Cal St. Fullerton), who struck out 4 over 5 hitless innings.

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DSL Giants beat the DSL Padres, 10-4

Hey! A system debut! Possibly the last one of the season. Gregory Santos made his first appearance as a Giant a good one, allowing just 1 Run in 4 IP, while striking out 5. And given that he had 49 Ks and 41 BBs in his career coming into this start, pairing those 5 Ks with just 1 BB was a pretty nice sight. Santos is still quite young, not turning to 18 until the end of this month, so I would imagine the Giants will keep a close watch on his innings the rest of the way. Santos had gone 5 innings in each of his three previous starts with the Red Sox.

The Giants got a huge day from the middle of the order as their 3/4/5 hitters went a monstrous 9 for 14 with two doubles, a triple, a HR, and 9 RBIs. The leader of the pack was Franklin Labour who had both a double and his 4th HR of the year. Labour’s certainly improved his statistical production over his age 18 season. He’s raised his OPS by about .230 points while bringing his K/BB ratio to nearly 1:1 (18 BBs, 21 Ks so far).

Alexander Canario picked up another three hits including his 12th double of the year, boosting his average over .300 and his SLG up over .500. Canario is 15th in the DSL in OPS and of the 14 players ahead of him all but one are at least one year older than him (and most are significantly more than that).

The more surprising big game came from Samuel Jorge who had just his third multi-hit game of the year, including his first triple. Jorge undermined his offensive production somewhat by committing three fielding errors at 3b.

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Today’s Scheduled Starters:
Sacramento: OFF
Richmond: Dillon McNamara vs. Kevin McAvoy
San Jose: Garrett Williams vs. Bo Takahashi
Augusta: Melvin Adon vs. Bryse Wilson
Salem-Keizer: ALL STAR BREAK
AZL: Jake Greenwalt
DSL: Luis Moreno?

DIllon McNamara, recently acquired from the Trenton Thunder (in a waaaaaaaay under the radar trade season move) takes up Coonrod’s spot in the rotation for this day anyway. And Garrett Williams makes his Cal League debut with San Jose going for the sweep. Williams and Melvin Adon are both on MiLBTV, which is still one of the best deals around (you can get it for the rest of the season for just $12.99!).

FInally, here’s an interesting couple of weeks in the life of an org guy. Tyler Brown’s last three GAMES played have come with 1) AZL Giants (July 17), 2) Salem-Keizer Volcanoes (July 27), and 3) Sacramento RiverCats (July 30). And now he’s on the move again.

Brown started the year in Augusta, so he’s only got San Jose and Richmond left to complete the domestic circuit for 2017. Can he do it?