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Though the super-quick "haverecords" posted the link to Andrew Baggarly's most recent blog entry several hours ago, deep down in the bowels of the oft-forgotten FanShots section, I feel it deserving of a full FanPost. Interesting stuff that is definitely worthy of more traffic.

Baggarly-- who, as you all know, doubles as a Baseball America correspondent-- offers a lot of information concerning several of the club's top prospects. His source: farm director Fred Stanley. The plan to fast-track Nick Noonan is, I believe, the most surprising piece of information.

A sampling of quotes...

According to Baggarly,

SANDOVAL: He’s ready for the big leagues now. Crushing balls from both sides of the plate, though he’s obviously getting more at-bats from the left side. Energizing that whole Double-A club since his midseason promotion from San Jose. No longer taking ground balls at third base; that experiment is over. Very competent at first base, though, and has some skills behind the plate. A very strong arm, too. (There’s an anecdote about his ambidextrous throwing ability that you’ll see in tomorrow’s Giants notebook.)

ISHIKAWA: Really turned it up a notch this season. Playing with more confidence and appears driven. The organization didn’t need to challenge him; he did it himself. He was indecisive last year and let pitches get too deep on him while trying to figure out if they were strikes. Thus, he whiffed or fouled off hittable pitches. This year, he’s driving them out of the park. Most of his shots are going to right-center, though he hit a ball out to left-center at Round Rock last week

NICK NOONAN: Sorry, I know this will crush some of you San Jose Giants season ticket holders, but Stanley said it’s conceivable that Noonan could head straight to Double-A next season and be within one full year of the big leagues. He already has the best strike zone discipline of any hitter in the system. They expected him to maybe hit .250 in his first pro season, considering that it’s sweltering in Augusta and they play in a pitcher’s park where the wind blows in. Noonan is doing much better than that, hitting .283. He also has 26 stolen bases in 29 attempts. It’s easy to steal bases in the minors, much harder to steal a bunch while posting a success rate of 89.6 percent.

Quote to note: “It’s a tough grind to play in Low A. So you can imagine what it’s like for a kid who’s never played pro baseball grinding it for 144 games.”

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