This was quite a surprise to me as I was sure that the MLB execs would keep these figures closely-guarded state secrets. MLB did feel like they had to release the total bonus amounts that each team was assigned for all of their picks in the first 10 rounds a few months back, but I having the slot amount for each draft pick publicly known takes away almost all the leverage that the major league teams had in negotiating with their draftees after the June draft. I guess MLB must believe that if everybody has the numbers then it will encourage transparent negotiations between teams and draftees and help get the draftees signed and in camp sooner.

Here's the link to the list with all of the numbers:

http://www.baseballamerica.com/today/draft/news/2012/2613398.html

For the Giants the key numbers are as follows:

Total bonus cap for first 10 rounds: $4,076,400

The Giants have the following picks and slot limits in the first 10 rounds:
1st rd. (#20) = $1.85M
2nd rd. (#84) = $592.3K
3rd rd. (#115) = $412.3K
4th rd. (#148) = $299.9K
5th rd. (#178) = $224.5K
6th rd. (#208) = $168.3K
7th rd. (#238) = $144K
8th rd. (#268) = $134.5K
9th rd. (#298) = $125.6K
10th rd. (#328) = $125K

After the 10th round, the limit is $100K for every pick - this also includes any draft-eligible NDFA that a team signs after the draft is over.

From the stretch!!! Now we can see why the Giants grabbed him as high as the 4th round in last year's draft - ahead of Chris Marlowe and Josh Osich.

Bandilla is throwing 85-90% fastballs, so far, with all of them clocked between 95 and 100 mph on the radar gun in the press box. His first 4 pitches of the night were fastballs timed at: 98 mph, 95 mph, 97, mph, and 98 mph, respectively.

He threw the 100 mph FB to strike out the first batter of the 2nd inning swinging.

Through 2 innings, Bandilla has thrown 37 pitches (strikes=20, balls=17) with 4 Ks (3 swinging), 1 BB (on a full count), 1 hit (a 2-out double off the wall in LF), and 0 runs.

Bandilla got his first pro start for Augusta tonight against the Red Sox Sally League affiliate. Bandilla took the spot in the rotation normally set for Adalberto Mejia. Since Mejia threw an inning in relief in last night's game, and because the GreenJackets had an off day 2 days ago, I thought that Augusta would just skip Mejia's spot and give Kyle Crick the start tonight on his normal 5 day rest. I'm assuming that this signals that Bandilla will be taking Mejia's spot in the rotation for the foreseeable future, because Mejia has looked bad in his first 3 starts and Bandilla was told when the ST camp was breaking up that he would be used as a starter eventually this season.

The AAA (PCL) Fresno Grizzlies open their season on a 8 game road trip to Tucson and Las Vegas (4 games in each city). Thursday's opening day game is scheduled for 7:05 PDT. Sadly, there are no free internet broadcasts for Fresno games, but you can get close to real time box scores and batter-by-batter recaps by following them on MiLB.com

Rehabbing SF Giants starting pitcher Ryan Vogelsong will be starting tonight's first game for the Grizzlies.

The opening-day starting position players should look something like this (my educated guess):

C - Eli Whiteside
1B - Todd Linden
2B - Charlie Culberson
3B - Conor Gillaspie
SS - Joaquin Arias
LF - Justin Christian
CF - Tyler Graham
RF - Francisco Peguero
DH - Roger Kieschnick

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The AA (Eastern League) Richmond Flying Squirrels begin their 3rd season of operations with cautious optimism. The offense should be much more balanced and potent this season when compared to 2011, and the pitching should show better depth. The team opens the season today with a 6 game roadtrip against New Britain and then Bowie. After flying into Richmond on Monday, and getting in only 1 day of practice at their home stadium on Tuesday, the team was treated to a brutal 8.5 hour bus trip to New Hampshire on Wednesday. Nothing like a long bus trip to promote team bonding.

Game time tonight for Richmond is 6:05 pm EDT that's 3:05 California time.

You can listen to a radio broadcast of all the Richmond games this season for free via the internet on the following link:

http://www.iheart.com/#/live/2461/?autoplay=true

The published lineup for tonight's game is:

Gary Brown - CF
Ehire Adrianza - SS
Tommy Joseph - DH
Wes Hodges - 1B
Chris Dominguez - LF
Juan Perez - RF
Ryan Cavan - 2B
Johnny Monell - C
Danny Mayora - 3B
Justin Fitzgerald - P

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

The SJ Giants will be looking to continue their 4 year streak of winning the Northern Division Cal League title. They begin their season with a 7 game road trip (to Modesto and then High Desert). You can listen to a radio broadcast of all the SJ games for free via the internet on the following link:

http://media4.aicmail.net:8080/MiLB/GameAudio/LiveStreamFlash/cal_san_jose_giants

The Modesto game times and probable pitching matchups are given below:

• Thursday, April 5, 7:05 PM
• Friday, April 6, 7:05 PM
• Saturday, April 7, 7:05 PM
• Sunday, April 8, 1:05 PM

Probable Starting Pitching Matchups
• Thursday - Shawn Sanford (0-0, ---) vs. Tyler Matzek (0-0, ---)
• Friday - Taylor Rogers (0-0, ---) vs. Joshua Slaats (0-0, ---)
• Saturday - Ryan Bradley (0-0, ---) vs. Josh Mueller (0-0, ---)
• Sunday - Justin Schumer (0-0, ---) vs. Christian Bergman (0-0, ---)

San Jose Giants projected starting position players (2011 stats in parenthesis)...
C - Andrew Susac (making professional debut this year)
1B - Ricky Oropesa (making professional debut this year)
2B - Carter Jurica (San Jose: .250, 4 HR, 23 RBI, 5 SB)
3B - Adam Duvall (Augusta: .285, 22 HR, 87 RBI, 4 SB)
SS - Joe Panik (Salem-Keizer: .341, 6 HR, 54 RBI, 13 SB)
LF - Jarrett Parker (San Jose: .253, 13 HR, 61 RBI, 20 SB)
CF - Chris Lofton (Augusta: .237, 1 HR, 31 RBI, 22 SB)
RF - Ryan Lollis (Augusta: .314, 2 HR, 37 RBI, 10 SB)
DH - Alex Burg (San Jose: .298, 14 HR, 45 RBI, 2 SB)

* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *

The Augusta GreenJackets will start the season on the road against the team that knocked them out of the first round of the playoffs back in September - the Savannah Sand Gnats (NY Mets affiliate).

Clayton Blackburn (16th rd pick in 2011 out of an Oklahoma high school) who performed so well for the Giants Scottsdale rookie league team last summer gets the nod as the opening day starter for Augusta.

Game time is scheduled for 7:05 pm (EDT) - that's 4:05 California time.

You can listen to all the Augusta games via their radio broadcast that is streamed live on the internet. Go to this link then click on the All Games link to the right of the Augusta GreenJackets row:
http://www.milb.com/multimedia/audio.jsp?sid=t478

Augusta GreenJackets projected starting position players (my educated guess):
C - Eric Sim
1B - Ben Thomas
2B - Carlos Willoughby
3B - Garrett Buechele
SS - Kelby Tomlinson
LF - Chuckie Jones
CF - Shawn Payne
RF - Brett Krill
DH - Jose Cuevas / Joe Staley

I just read a very intereisting tweet from Billy Byler, the beat reporter for the Augusta GreenJackets, where he listed the starting rotation for Augusta this year.

@billybyler: #GreenJackets starting pitchers (not in order): Clayton Blackburn, Chris Marlowe, Adalberto Mejia, Kyle Crick, Joseph Biagini, Edwin Escobar.

Pretty cool stuff, and it goes a long way in explaining why Marlowe wasn't posted to the San Jose club in A+ ball to start the season. Bryce Bandilla, the LHP that the Giants drafted right before Marlowe in last year's draft, has tweeted in the past 48 hours that he expects to bve used as both a reliever and a starter this season, so using high draft picks on 2 college reilievers starts to look better for now. Not to put too much pressure on Marlowe, but he has a 2 year tradition to uphold. The last two fifth round picks of the Giants (Brandon Belt in 2009 and Heath Hembree in 2010) both have blazed a trail up the minor league franchises and both will likely have made their debuts in a SF uni after only one full season of pro ball (if Hembree makes it to SF this season).

I just saw on twitter that Clayton Blackburn and Derek Law have been assigned to the Augusta GreenJackets of the Sally League for the start of the regular season. That should be one hell of a hotshot pitching staff (and young, too) if other assignments turn out as we expect them to.

I'll update this thead as soon as I get more info on other minor league assignments and everybody else should feel free to help out with any news that you all come across.

Here's what Blackburn tweeted:

@C_Blackburn16 One more day of camp. Then off to Low A, Augusta Georgia

And Law's tweet was in response to our own sfgiantsgirl's tweet:

@sfgiantsgirl: @DerekLaw24 hey Derek! Do you know which team you're gonna be with?” Augusta

The Giants originally signed Mercedes out of the Dominican Prospect LeagueJanuary for $400K. When they tried to get the contract approved by MLB, they informed the Gaints in March of 2011 that Mercedes would be placed on suspension and the contract would be temporarily voided while they investigated Mercedes for having used a fake name and age during the 2009 - 2010 time-frame.

For some reason the investigation took a lot more time than past cases of misrepresentation by Caribbean prospects. The thing that was most strange about the whole affair is that Mercedes had already come clean about his true name and true age when he was signed up for, and started playing in the DPL, near the end of 2010. He had been using the name Jeffery Tapia (who was about 2 years younger than Mercedes) at one time, but when he was pitching in the DPL in 2010 and 2011 he was using his real name and real age. When the Giants signed him in January 2011 they already knew his real name and real age, and the info that he had been previously playing under an assumed name was available to the public in both the USA and the D.R. - although it wasn't widely publicized and the details were still hazy.

The puzzling thing to me about the whole affair is that the Giants knew his correct age and his correct name when they signed him for $400K, so there can't be any claim that Mercedes mislead or defrauded the Giants. They stood by Mercedes through much of the 2011 baseball season, but then informed Mercedes that they no longer wanted him in their system sometime around the end of November or beginning of December. Mercedes's rep posted several times this past December that Simon was willing to honor the original $400K contract or even sign for significantly less if the Giants wanted to renegotiate, but the Giants had informed him that there was no money left in the budget for Mercedes. The Giants told him that they had spent the $400K on other guys in the meantime.

At the time all this info was becoming public, I commented that it seemed a dumb decision by Sabes & Co. given the fact that MLB had already ruled that Mercedes would be eligible to sign a new contract in March (and thus be available to play the entire 2012 season) and Mercedes seemed desperate to reach a deal with the Giants even at a reduced price, and given the fact that Mercedes's age and stuff still made him a top prospect. Now that the Red Sox have shown that they think Mercedes is worth $800K seems to me to show that Sabes has made another bad offseason decision based solely on money (in this case as little as $300-400K).

BTW, shouldn't they be called the Fresno Fighting Farmers or Fresno Raisin Makers? I've been to Fresno on several occasions in the last century. It never struck me as a place that grizzly bears would have ever used as their natural habitat. That burning question aside, we've reached the final full-season franchise and, as usual, this one should be the easiest to predict. Although, I do have to say that I think this year should be the first time in quite awhile that there should be more than just a couple of top prospects to watch in Fresno. Between Surkamp, Hembree, Correa, Hector, Frankie Pegs, Culbie, and BBelt (gnashes teeth), there should be several exciting guys to follow every night until guys start getting promoted to the majors.

Time for you to swing for the fences. Bonus points given to posters that don't have any overlap from their previous 3 rosters in the previous threads. To refresh your memory, here's the Adoption Draft doc that shows almost all of the Giants' minor leaguers that are currently eligible to be assigned to teams:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AgFRsbGiR5AjdGVBNkZhU2VaZlhGbnhsTWNvcFJBSGc&output=html

For a template, I suggest we go with 5 starting pitchers, 8 relievers, 9 starting postion players (including part-time DH) and 6 bench players.
SP1: , SP2: ,
SP3: , SP4: ,
SP5: ,
RP1: , RP2: ,
RP3: , RP4: ,
RP5: , RP6: ,
RP7: , RP8: ,
C: , DH: ,
1B: , 2B: ,
SS:, 3B: ,
OF1: , OF2: , OF3: ,
BNCH1: , BNCH2: ,
BNCH3: , BNCH4: ,
BNCH5: , BNCH6:

Otherwise known as "the place where promising Giant hitting prospects go to die." The Eastern League is a very tough environment for hitters in general. There are a lot of advanced young pitchers and wily veteran pitchers in the league that know how to mess with a hitter's timing and get inside his head. On top of that, the Richmond stadium is one of the toughest hitter's park in the all of the minor league's - especially in terms of power hitting - with dead zones from gap-to-gap. So Gary Brown and Tommy Joseph, 2 of the 3 highest ranked prospects in the org, have their work cut out for them as they attempt to translate their great offensive numbers from the Cal League into AA ball. The other major storyline to keep an eye on this season in Richmond is how the top starters and relievers from the San Jose team translate their success from A+ to AA ball.

Time for you to get your hacks in. Bonus points given to posters that don't have any overlap from their Augsta and SJ rosters in the previous threads. To refresh your memory, here's the Adoption Draft doc that shows almost all of the Giants' minor leaguers that are currently eligible to be assigned to teams:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AgFRsbGiR5AjdGVBNkZhU2VaZlhGbnhsTWNvcFJBSGc&output=html

For a template, I suggest we go with 6 starting pitchers, 6 relievers, 9 starting postion players (including DH) and 6 bench players.
SP1: , SP2: ,
SP3: , SP4: ,
SP5: , SP6: ,
RP1: , RP2: ,
RP3: , RP4: ,
RP5: , RP6: ,
C: , DH: ,
1B: , 2B: ,
SS:, 3B: ,
OF1: , OF2: , OF3: ,
BNCH1: , BNCH2: ,
BNCH3: , BNCH4: ,
BNCH5: , BNCH6:

For Bay Area baseball fans that are jonesing for live games and good baseball, just head over to Stanford's Sunken Diamond this Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Houston-based Rice University, the #4 ranked team in the country, is in town for a 3 game series against the #2 Stanford team. Rice has a very good pitching staff (starters and bullpen) so this should be a stern test for Stanford's high-flying offense. Stanford also features 2 starting pitchers (Mark Appel and Brett Mooneyham) that will likely be first round picks in the upcoming June draft - with many prognosticators predicting that Appel could be the #1 overall pick. Appel should pitch game 1 on Friday while Mooneyham (who I think is a guy the Giants are likely targeting with their #20 overall first round pick) should start the Saturday afternnon game. Here's the schedule:

Friday, 3/9: 5:30 pm

Saturday, 3/10: 1:00 pm

Sunday, 3/11: Noon

The jewel in the Giants' minor league crown! We all know that the Giants bend over backwards to put the best lineup possible in San Jose year after year. They especially like to stack the pitching staff, with great results. Almost every year San Jose trots out the deepest starting rotation and the best bullpen in the league, so every year they're in the running for the league championship. That may change this year, as most of the pitchers in line for promotion from Augusta had somewhat uninspiring 2011 seasons, and they seemingly didn't draft more than a few pitchers last June that have the possiblity of making it onto the SJ roster out of spring training. IMO, this could be the first time in many years that SJ has the worst pitching staff out of any of the 4 full-season franchises.

Time to add your 2 cents worth. Bonus points given to posters that don't have any overlap from their Augsta roster predictions in the previous thread. To refresh your memory, here's the Adoption Draft doc that shows almost all of the Giants' minor leaguers that are currently eligible to be assigned to teams:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AgFRsbGiR5AjdGVBNkZhU2VaZlhGbnhsTWNvcFJBSGc&output=html

For a template, I suggest we go with 6 starting pitchers, 8 relievers, 9 starting postion players (including DH) and 6 bench players.
SP1: , SP2: ,
SP3: , SP4: ,
SP5: , SP6: ,
RP1: , RP2: ,
RP3: , RP4: ,
RP5: , RP6: ,
RP7: , RP8: ,
C: , DH: ,
1B: , 2B: ,
SS:, 3B: ,
OF1: , OF2: , OF3: ,
BNCH1: , BNCH2: ,
BNCH3: , BNCH4: ,
BNCH5: , BNCH6:

It's that time again. Now that the euphoria of seeing and hearing actual baseball games again has started to wear off, it's time for the fearless among us to put our sterling reputations up for ridicule and try to match wits with Bobby Evans and Fred Stanley. It's an exercise in futility to try to guess the 3 short-season teams, as we have no idea who the Giants are going to draft, and which free agents they will sign, between now and the middle of June, so I'm going to start at the lowest rung on the full-season ladder - the Augusta GreenJackets of the Sally League.

To refresh your memories, here's the Adoption Draft doc that shows almost all of the Giants' minor leaguers that are currently eligible to be assigned to teams:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/pub?key=0AgFRsbGiR5AjdGVBNkZhU2VaZlhGbnhsTWNvcFJBSGc&output=html

For a template, I suggest we go with 6 starting pitchers, 8 relievers, 9 starting postion players (including DH) and 8 bench players:
SP1: , SP2: ,
SP3: , SP4: ,
SP5: , SP6: ,
RP1: , RP2: ,
RP3: , RP4: ,
RP5: , RP6: ,
RP7: , RP8: ,
C: , DH: ,
1B: , 2B: ,
SS:, 3B: ,
OF1: , OF2: , OF3: ,
BNCH1: , BNCH2: ,
BNCH3: , BNCH4: ,
BNCH5: , BNCH6: ,
BNCH7: , BNCH8:

Marcus Stroman is a college pitcher that I identified a few weeks back as a good and likely target for the Giants with their first round pick (#20 overall) in the June draft.

Tell me if this sounds familar? Undersized but very athletic college pitcher with electric stuff and outstanding stats is well-liked by almost all evaluators, but falls down the draft board in the first round due to questions about the durability of his max-effort delivery and the ability of his body to shoulder the load as a full-time starter in the pros. Does Tim Lincecum and the 2006 draft come to mind? To be completely accurate, Stroman isn't as highly-rated as Timmy was going into his junior season - BaseballAmerica ranked Stroman the #22 overall draft prospect in their pre-season rankings that they published last month. Also, Stroman doesn't have the unique, controversial, and athletically-challenging delivery that Timmy did (and still does).

A great-sounding scenario, right? Well, if Stroman keeps on putting up starts like he did last night then he's likely to ruin everything and be off the board before the Giants get a chance to draft him. Stroman put on a spectacular show in his 3rd start of the season. He ended up striking out 17 batters in only 7 innings against George Washington Univ. (not the stiffest competition). Stroman's fastball sat in the 92-94 mph range for the game, he frequently touched 95, and he had a plus wipeout slider working in the 82-86 mph range. The most impressive thing about his start was that he seemed to get stronger as the game went on. Eleven of his final 12 outs came via the K (he struck out the side in the 4th, 5th and 6th innings) and his FB was still hitting 94 mph in his final inning of work. Overall, Stroman threw 106 pitches (76 for strikes). Besides the 2 base hits he allowed in the game, the only other balls in play against him were 2 flyouts to the outfield corners, 1 popout in foul ground by the third base line that Stroman caught himself, and a groundout to second base.

Victor Roache is a junior right fielder for Georgia Southern University. He's widely-regarded as the best college power hitter available in the upcoming June draft, after leadng all college players with 30 HRs in 2011 and following it up by hitting 6 HRs and being one of the top htters in the 2011 Cape Cod Summer League.

Roache is the player that I most wanted the Giants to draft with their first round pick (#20 overall) in this year's draft, but I didn't think that he would still be available when the Giants pick since most evaluators have projected Roache to go off the board somewhere between #5 and #15 overall. That may have all changed now, becuase Roache broke a bone in his left (non-throwing) hand while attempting to make a diving catch during Saturday afternoon's game. Preliminary reports have Roache being sidelined for at least 6 weeks, but more likely it will be closer to 10 weeks - and he could even be out of action for the entire final 14 weeks of the college regular season.

It's too soon to say how this will end up affecting where Roache gets drafted in June, but for a recent example we only have to look at what happened to Andrew Susac last year. Susac started off the 2011 college season on a hot streak at the plate and with much-improved defense behind the plate. Early projections had him going off the draft board somewhere between the #15 to #30 overall pick. Susac broke his hand about 5 weeks into the season, had to sit out 7 weeks to rehab it, came back in time to play the final 3 weeks of the regular season, and ended up falling all the way to the 2nd round (#86 overall spot) in the draft. Obviously, I never want to wish an injury on any player, but Roache's loss could very well mean a big gain for the Giants come the first week of June.

Here's a link to a story describing what happened to Roache in yesterday's game:
http://www.perfectgame.org/Articles/View.aspx?article=6641

Under the new CBA rules, each pick in the first 10 rounds are assigned a hard slot number by the MLB draft office. For the 2012 draft the #1 pick's slot has been assigned a $7.2M weighting, and each slot after that has a successively smaller amount assigned - down to $125K for the last pick in the 10th round (#300 overall). For each team, the slot assigned to their individual picks is not important, rather it's the sum total of the slots assigned to each of their picks in the top 10 rounds. In other words, a team will not be penalized if they pay a specific draft pick in the first 10 rounds an overslot signing bonus, but it will be penalized if the sum total of all the signing bonuses they pay their top 10 round picks is more than the sum total of all the slot numbers that the MLB draft office assigned to those picks.

The Giants have no comp picks this year, but they do have all of their own picks in each of the first 10 rounds. The sum total that the MLB draft office has assigned to the Giants picks is $4,076,400. Only the Braves, Rays, D'backs, Tigers and Angles have a smaller pool than the Giants. The Tigers (1st round) and Angels (1st and 2nd round) both lost at least their 1st round due to signing a Type A free agent.


BA.com has an article up with the aggregate numbers for all 30 teams, as well as a more in-depth explanation of the rules:

http://ht.ly/9aVJn

Now that the Caribbean World Series has ended (with the Escogido Lions of the Domincan Winter League winning the title) and Giants' pitchers and catchers will be officially opening spring training in less less than 10 days, I thought it would be a good time to highlight the 2 best winter league performances by Giant prospects this offseason.

Both Hector Sanchez and Gregor Blanco had tremendous offensive seasons for the La Guaira Tiburones in the Venezuela Winter League over a 14 week period from October through January. They led their team to regular season division crown and all the way to the championship series (which they ended up losing 4 games to 2). Hector started out on fire and was leading the league in almost every offensive category throughout most of the season before fading slightly in the last 2+ weeks of the regular season and in the playoffs. Gregor Blanco, on the other hand, started out the first 3 weeks of the season hitting fairly well, but then he went on an offensive explosion for the rest of the regular season and all of the playoffs after the Giants signed him to a minor league contract on November 16th, and gave him an invite to the major league spring training camp. Blanco upped his game by so much that he ended up being named the MVP of the entire league at the end of the season.

To give you an idea what the level of competition is in the VWL, most evaluators would say that the level of play is comparable to an AA level American minor league, with the level fluctuating each year depending on which players are participating. They have a fair share of major league veterans, but the teams typically consist of mid- to upper-level minor league prospects. Like all of the winter leagues, the offense almost always dominates in the VWL due to the tendency for the best starting pitchers and starting pitcher prospects to skip winter league play. That being established, let's look at the specifics on how Hector and Gregor did.

Hector Sanchez(in 51 regular season games):
.339/.402/.548/.950 in 177 ABs, ISOp=.209, H=60, 2B=10, 3B=0, HR=9, BB=18 (9%), K=37 (18.6%)

Hector Sanchez(in 19 playoff games):
.279/.353/.459/.812 in 61 ABs, ISOp=.180, H=17, 2B=3, 3B=1, HR=2, BB=7 (10.3%), K=17 (25%)

You can see that Hector was able to hit for excellent power and average while putting up an above-average walk rate, which is something that he hasn't been able to do in his previous minor league seasons. The one worrisome thing to take note of was that his K-rate was a bit too high.

Gregor Blanco (in 57 regular season games):
.337/.478/.520/.998 in 196 ABs, ISOp=.183, H=66, 2B=14, 3B=5, HR=4, BB=47 (18.9%), K=46 (18.5%), SB=18 of 25 (72%)
Gregor Blancoafter signing with the Giants on Nov. 16th (in 32 games):
.376/.514/.578/1.092 in 109 ABs, ISOp=.202, H=41, 2B=8, 3B=4, HR=2, BB=27 (19.1%), K=23 (16.3%), SB=11 of 16 (69%)
Gregor Blanco (in 23 postseason games):
.322/.446/.567/1.013 in 90 ABs, ISOp=.245, H=29, 2B=2, 3B=1, HR=6, BB=20 (17.9%), K=21 (18.8%), SB=4 of 6 (68%)

As you can see, Blanco can be a prototypical leadoff hitter. He takes a ton of pitches and walks at elite rates, and he is also a speedy runner with excellent bat control. He is almost the exact opposite of what we've seen out of Andres Torres in the leadoff role over the past 2.5 seasons. Gregor chokes well up on his bat and usually takes short and controlled swings at pitches. Looking at his above stats, you can see that Gregor took his game to an elite level once he signed with the Giants in November. Not only did he significantly increase his BA and power output, but he actually managed to reach base in over half of his plate appearances. Blanco has always been a walk machine, but he took it to amazing levels this offseason. Then, he muscled up and hit 6 HRs in only 23 games during his run through the postseason. The main concerns with Blanco is that his k-rate was a bit too high and his basestealing success rate wasn't good.

To put their stats in perspective with what other hitters in the league did, let's look at the regular season numbers.

Hector ended up 2nd in BA; 3rd in OPS; 5th in HR; 7th in OBP.
Gregor ended up 1st in OBP, OPS, BB and SB; 4th in BA and SLG.

Both Hector and Gregor were rewarded after the season during the Venezuelan Winter League awards show. Gregor was named the MVP of the league, and Hector was named the Rookie of the Year as well as the Catcher of the Year (they only player to win 2 awards).

Michael Santos: RHP, Dom. Rep. (6'4", ??) (DOB=??)
Santos has never shown up on any of my previoius prospect radar screens and I can't find any mention of him anywhere on the net beyond the description of him from the Dom. Prospect League website (see link below) where they give a recap of the recently-completed 6 team tournament that Santos's team won. Santos was named the outstanding pitcher of the tournament and threw 4 shutout innings, allowing 1 hit and striking out 4. BTW, the Giants also signed the outstanding pitcher of last year's tournament (Simon Mercedes for $400K), but Mercedes ended up being held out from making his pro debut in 2011 due to some old shenanigans concerning his use of a fake identity - so let's hope that Santos doesn't end up repeating the same pattern.

I don't know Santos's age or birthdate, so right now we can only say for sure that he turned 16 years old on or before August 31, 2011. If I had to guess, I would say that Santos recently turned 18 years old, give or take 6 months. I also don't have his physical measurements, but the DPL website does have a photo of him posted. From the photo, you can see that Santos is very tall and extremely skinny (not unlike Kendry Flores). I'm going to guess that he's at least 6'4", because in the photo he's standing next to Yairo Munoz (who I know for a fact is 6 feet tall) and appears to me to be at least 4 inches taller than Yairo.

Here's the link to the DPL story on the tournament and the Santos signing:
http://dplbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=304:louisville-slugger-tournament-series-recap&catid=1:latest-news

Who knew that the winter leagues lasted this long or would take so many posts? Time for another re-up to keep this thread in plain sight. Several Giants that had been playing in leagues that are still active have shut it down and gone home for the rest of the year or gone back to Scottsdale to train at the Giants year-round camp. Those players include Brandon Belt, Francisco Peguero, Justin Christian, Tyler Graham, David Quinowski (and there's some question on whether or not he is still property of the Giants), and Edwin Escobar. In addition, Max Ramirez (who we had been following) just signed a minor league deal for the 2012 season with the Royals That leaves Venezuela as the main league to follow and La Guaria as the team hot spot. The Sharks are clinging to first place in the league thanks mostly to the play of 3 Giant prospects: Hector Sanchez, Gregor Blanco and Ehire Adrianza (to a lesser extent).

UPDATE: The Giants signed middle-infielder Joaquin Arias to a minor league contract on Dec. 17th. He's been a pro since 2001 (signed as a IFA by the Yankees) and started his minor league career way back in 2002, but he signed at such a young age that he's still only 27 years old and won't turn 28 until next September. He's played in 113 games in the majors since the 2006 season, but he seems to have been stuck in the minors because he hasn't been a good enough defensive SS or a good enough hitter to win a permanent spot on a major league roster as a UT infielder.

Just click on each name to see their daily updated milb.com stat page.

Venezuelan Winter League:

Ehire Adrianza

Gregor Blanco

Hector Sanchez

Jose Flores

Jean Machi

Dominican Winter League:

Juan Carlos Perez

Joaquin Arias

Osiris Matos

Australian Baseball League:

Alex Burg

Cameron Lamb

Puerto Rican Baseball League:

Johnny Monell

Accordign to Sabes, it looks like the 25 man roster is all set except for the decision on who to tender arb between Keppinger and Fontenot, and who will be the backup catcher between Stewart and Hector Sanchez (I'm assuming that they'll DFA Whiteside between now and Monday's deadline). I thought that this would be a good point to try to analyze and predict what the Giants 25-man payroll will be to begin the 2012 season.

Putting the bottom line first, by my calculations the Giants should start out with a payroll of $123.75M - assuming that they don't sign any multi-year extensions with Matt Cain or any of their currently unsigned arb-eligible and non-arb-eligible players. Here's how I break it down.

1. A guaranteed $79.75M is owed to 8 players (including Aaron Rowand who is no longer on the roster):

Zito = $19M, Cain = $15M, Rowand = $12M, Huff = $10M, Wilson = $8.5M, Franchez = $6M, Affledt = $5M, Lopez = $4.25M

2. I'm estimating $40.5M in 1-year contracts going to the 10 arb-eligible players (Whiteside and Keppinger will be DFA'd):

Timmy = $18.5M

Melky = $4.5M

Pagan = $4.5M

Panda = $3.5M

Vogelsong = $3M

Santiago Casilla = $2M

Romo = $1.5M

Fontenot = $1.5M

Schierholtz = $1M

Burriss = $0.5M

3. That leaves $3.5M ($500K each) to the remaining 7 guys whose contracts are still under team control:

MadBum, Buster, MadBum, Belt, Crawdaddy, Pill, Stewart, and Runzler

Here we gio again. Time for another re-up to keep this thread in plain sight. The AZ Fall League has been over for almost 2 weeks, but the other 4 leagues are in their stretch drives. Several Giants that had been playing in leagues that are still active have shut it down and gone home for the rest of the year or gone back to Scottsdale to train at the Giants year-round camp. Those players include Brandon Belt, Francisco Peguero, David Quinowski (and there's some question on whether or not he is still property of the Giants), and Edwin Escobar. On the other hand, veteran SF Giant Andres Torres has recently started playing in the Puerto Rican League, and Panda, our favorite animal ballplayer, is still scheduled to play a handful of games for the Magallanes Navegantes down in Venezuela later this month has just tweeted that he won't be playing winter ball this year after all. Just a reminder on which Giants we're still following this winter. Just click on each name to see their daily updated milb.com stat page.

Venezuelan Winter League:

Ehire Adrianza:

Max Ramirez:

Gregor Blanco

Hector Sanchez:

Jose Flores:

Jean Machi:

Dominican Winter League:

Juan Carlos Perez:

Osiris Matos:

Mexican Winter League:

Tyler Graham:

Justin Christian:

Australian Baseball League:

Alex Burg:

Cameron Lamb:

Puerto Rican Baseball League:

Johnny Monell

Andres Torres

I didn't see this posted anywhere else on the MCC, but I thought it would have a big impact on Sabes & Co.'s current offseason plans.  Tucked away in the details of the new CBA was this little nugget:

Meanwhile, clubs won't have to surrender a draft pick to sign one of the following six players: Heath Bell, Michael Cuddyer, Kelly Johnson, Ryan Madson, Josh Willingham and Francisco Rodriguez. Teams that lose these players after offering arbitration will obtain first round picks in the slot before the signing team plus a supplementary draft pick for a total of two selections.

 

I never was a proponent of the Giants pursuing either Josh Willingham or Michael Cuddyer this offseason, because signing either of them would have cost the Giants their first round pick (#20 overall) in next year's draft.  Now that is no longer the case.  The A's and Twins will receive a 1st round and 1-S comp pick if they lose those guys in free agency, but the signing team will not forfeit a pick.  Since both Willingham and Cuddyer are several years younger than Carlos Beltran and since they both will likely sign for less than Beltran, I now want Sabes to join the bidding for both of them in the case that Beltran asks for too much money and/or too many years. 

Here is how I would rank my preferences for the 3 players: 

1. Beltran - still the main guy that I want, but only if Sabes can sign him for 3 years (with a team option for a 4th year) or less and for no more than $42M over the 3 years.

2. Willingham - if Beltran strings us along or holds out for too many years then Willingham would be the best option.  He would be a good fit in LF - and should provide the power OF bat that the Giants didn't have in 2011 when PTB and Ross underperformed.  I wouldn't want Sabes to exceed 3 guaranteed years or offer him more than $39M over those 3 years.

3. Cuddyer - he would be a decent fallback option if the other 2 guys can't be had.  I wouldn't give him more than 2 guaranteed years or offer him more than $22M for those 2 years.

via i763.photobucket.com

 
 

The Giants have brought about 25 of their signees from last June's draft to SF and AT&T Park for their annual orientation and training camp.  On Monday the prospects got to have a Q & A with Barry Bonds and Shawon Dunston.  Yesterday, living legend Willie Mays held court in the locker room.  He handed out autographed baseballs and bats to go along with stories and tips.  I'm sure it must have been a real highlight for all the young guys - their twitter and facebook accounts were alive with comments and pictures.  IMO, it's a great move by Sabes & Co. to get these kids inculcated in the history and reach of the Giants franchise as they begin their treks through the farm system.  Above are a few of the pictures that the prospects posted from the meeting

In the group pic you have Ricky Oropesa in the gray hoodie directly to the left of Willie, and Clayton Blackburn in the gray hoodie who is sticking his head out just behind and to the right of Willie.  The bottom pic is Chris Marlowe, RHP out of Oklahoma U., alone with Willie.

 

Pretty much all of the new draftees and NDFAs are in attendance, although Joe Panik is playing for Scottsdale down in the AFL and several of the college guys (including Shawn Payne) are back taking college classes and working on completing their college degrees. Here's the list of the prospects that I know are attending the orientation: 

Kyle Crick, Andrew Susac, Ricky Oropesa, Bryce Bandilla, Chris Marlowe, Clayton Blackburn, Christian Diaz, Cody Hall, and Mike Mergenthaler.