SF Giants: Prospects stock up and stock down through first month

The first month of the 2021 minor league season has come to a close, and boy it was an eventful one with plenty of exciting performances and otherwise. As expected, the quality of pitching has drastically improved after the long layoff, resulting in far more SF Giants pitching prospects that are off to a hot start while more hitters appear to be a step behind. Here are some of the prospects that have boosted their stock as a result of their strong start and vice versa.

SF Giants Prospects Early MiLB Season Stock Down Part 1

Casey Schmitt

Before the start of the season, I was really excited to see what Casey Schmitt could do as a full-time position player. After a month of play, however, I am disappointed with the lack of impact that he has offensively for the San Jose Giants. Even though Schmitt has played at college, Schmitt is hitting just .137/.210/.274 at Low-A.

Among qualified hitters in the Giants farm system (at least 3.1 plate appearances per game), Schmitt’s batting average, on-base percentage, OPS, and wRC+ are the worst while his slugging is second worst. In my opinion, there is one driving force behind his putrid offensive production. According to his scouting report in Baseball America, Schmitt “worked with Giants coaches to incentivize flyballs in the instructional league”. That has indeed reflected in his batted ball data, where his flyball rate is the highest among qualified Giants hitters while his line drive rate is the lowest at 7.3%.

The extremely low line drive rate is a sign that his bat path could have become too uphill and as a result, he’s not squaring up the ball consistently as he used to back in college. Batted-ball data tends to normalize quickly and rarely changes as the season goes on, so we might not expect a drastic shift in Schmitt’s numbers as the season progresses. However, swing adjustments could obviously change that. Sometimes players take some time before locking into a new path. Others are forced to return to old habits. We’ll see how that plays out for Schmitt.

SF Giants Prospects Early MiLB Season Stock Up Part 1

Matt Frisbee

Matt Frisbee has easily been the most dominant pitcher in the Giants upper minors. He leads the entire system in innings, WHIP, and walk rate while ranking in the top five in numerous other categories. All of that dominance resulted in a Triple-A call-up for Frisbee.

His fastball control is on point for most of his outings, he tunnels his plus breaking ball off his high 3/4 release point very well, and his brand new splitter flashed solid at times. He even was a part of a no-hitter.

My colleague Marc Delucchi did an excellent profile on Frisbee’s development and contributions to the no-hitter last month. Marc aggressively ranked Frisbee in his preseason Top 30 list, I did not. After his other-worldly May performance, he’s now solidly inside my updated Top 30.

Caleb Kilian

There has been no one in the Giants organization, and potentially all of baseball, who’s come out of nowhere more than Caleb Kilian this minor league season. Kilian’s numbers are off the charts, with a 1.89 ERA and a 35:1 strikeout to walk ratio. What’s more impressive is he even has a lower FIP, at only 0.89.

I already gave plenty of my thoughts on Kilian in my prospects rundown, but I’ll say it again. Kilian is a true top 30 prospect in the farm system with a plus fastball that reaches 97 MPH, average secondaries (curveball, cutter, changeup) that play up because of his feel, fastball command, and ability to sequence off his fastball.

Ryan Murphy

Murphy just keeps on racking up innings for the San Jose squad, ranking third behind Frisbee and Kilian in terms of innings pitched in the system. His 45.3% flyball rate is high but he keeps his line drive rate low at 11.3%. Overall, Murphy has a good chance of being called up to High-A ball by midseason. For more about Murphy’s hot start, pitching approach, off-season work, and more, check out my interview with him a week ago.

SF Giants Prospects Early MiLB Season Stock Up Part 2

Chris Wright

Chris Wright’s numbers are extremely eye-popping. Among all Giants pitchers in the farm system (not just qualified pitchers), Wright’s 61.5% strikeout rate leads the group by quite a bit and his FIP is the lowest as well. What made it more impressive is that he is doing all of this while having a BABIP that is one of the ten highest in the organization (with interesting names like Kyle Harrison and Seth Corry in the mix).

The secret to Wright’s high strikeout rate is his ability to pitch north to south with his mid-90s fastball that has at least 19″ of vertical break and his curveball that closely mimics the spin direction of his fastball and generates 17″ of vertical break. That’s three feet of separation between his two best pitches and it comes out of the same over-the-top tunnel consistently. Outside of Corry and Harrison, in my opinion, Wright is the best left-handed pitching prospect in the organization and I would definitely consider adding him in my mid-season Top 30.

Diego Rincones

Diego Rincones is more known for being a consistent hitter throughout a minor league season so his very hot start to the season has been a surprising but welcome sight to see. In fact, it earned him a spot on the Venezuelan national team for the Olympic qualifiers. By the way, he’s already hit a walk-off homer at qualifiers.

Among qualified hitters, Rincones is inside the top three in traditional triple slash numbers and his ISO and wRC+ are the highest. His great success has been largely fueled by his 37.2% line drive rate, again the highest among qualified Giants hitters.  Compared to his 2019 season, his groundball rate is still similar. However, he converted his flyballs to line drives, posting the lowest flyball rate of his career. It certainly boosts his case as a potential Top 30 prospect at the end of the season if he can continue his hot start into the dog days of summer.

Will Wilson

The other hitter who is off to a hot start alongside Rincones is his Emeralds teammate, Will Wilson. Wilson is comfortably inside the top 10 in most offensive categories among qualified hitters, and the eye test matches what the stats tell.

While there is not a significant change in terms of his spray chart, there is a shift towards putting the ball in the air when looking at his batted ball data. His flyball rate went up considerably with his groundball rate seeing a sizeable reduction, something he talked to Marc about last year. The change in his batted ball approach resulted in a drastic spike in his ISO, culminated by already matching his home run mark from Rookie Ball in 2019 with the Angels.

Wilson is also seeing more pitches per plate appearance this season, resulting in a 67% increase in his walk rate while keeping his strikeout rate and BABIP at a healthy rate. Wilson is squaring the ball up consistently, and he’s going to be promoted to Double-A very soon if he keeps this up in June.

SF Giants Early MiLB Season Other Prospects of Note

Kyle Harrison‘s walk rate is the fourth-highest among all Giants pitchers in the system, which is really odd as he is known more for his pitchability and control coming out of college. The sample size is still small but if it persists throughout the season, I would bump his command grade down. From what I saw so far, his mechanics, fastball-slider combo, arm-slot, and present control issues really reminded me of a right-handed version of former Giants top prospect Kyle Crick.

One of the hottest hitters in the farm system is Bryce Johnson, with him ranking fifth in wRC+ in the month of May. His line drive rate is the third-highest among qualified Giants hitters. His .460 BABIP seems unsustainable but when looking at the ratio between his batting average and BABIP, his ratio this year of 1.35:1 is actually in line with his normal ratio of 1.32:1 so there’s an indication that this potential breakout is for real.

Looking at the difference between ERA and FIP, Nick Morreale‘s ERA-FIP difference is 1.79, which would be sixth among all Giants pitchers. However, what’s more encouraging about his performance is that it is fueled with a high SwStr%. I’ve watched his best start of the season and he’s improved a lot with his fastball control.

The owner of the lowest SwStr% in the first month of the season belongs to Ismael Munguia. The contact-heavy Nicaraguan has upped his power a bit, shifting towards a line-to-line approach from a more pull-center approach when comparing his spray charts in the last two years. He’s also added a bit of lift to his swing, with a lower line drive rate but a higher flyball rate as proof.

Stay tuned to Around the Foghorn for the latest news and updates on the SF Giants farm system from Wrenzie Regodon and Marc Delucchi.