Are the Giants suddenly an open book?

For years the industry image of the Giants’ drafting braintrust has centered around their inscrutability. “The Giants go their own way,” you’d hear, or “they have their own board,” “they play it close to the vest.” All the cliches that reek of old school, cigar-chomping, smoking back room dealing types.

Mock drafts would sheepishly give a mumbled “dunno...maybe a High School Pitcher?” and shrug when it came to the Giants’ slot. And when their selection was publicly unveiled? The results typically ran the gamut from a befuddled “Huh?” or a “What the heck?” to an agitated “Well that pick sucked!”

But now as the Giants face their biggest and most important pick in at least a decade, and quite possibly decades, suddenly our tropes are all being overthrown. Suddenly the Giants....are predictable?

Mock after mock is connecting the Giants to the very same player with the regularity of fate: Georgia Tech Catcher Joey Bart. Baseball America says

they’ve been all over Joey Bart since the beginning of the season.

Jim Callis has it as “a choice between Bart ... and Florida RHP Brady Singer.”

And now with Fangraphs’ latest mock draft, we have the death knell for the “close to the vest” trope — they’ve laid their cards on the table, it seems, with nearly three full weeks to go:

What has happened to the close-mouthed Giants’ braintrust we know and love? Is this the same organization that once saw Dick Tidrow begging Brian Sabean not to go watch Tim Lincecum pitch because he didn’t want other teams to know Timmy was the jewel of their eye?

As if that’s not enough, the Fangraphs’ team even notes (in the above mock) a strong preference for the Giants’ 2nd round pick — UKentucky’s beanpole RHP Sean Hjelle.

None of this is to knock Bart, who is a consensus top 5 or 6 pick at this point in this draft. In fact, Kiley McDaniel of Fangraphs, seemed a bit bemused by anti-Bart sentiment after the mock came out:

But it does seem to be making the buildup to June 4 a little anti-climatic. But hey, just as you’re getting ready to snooze your way through the final weeks...holy cow it’s draaaama at the top!

What does it all mean?