Introduction to the Top 30 SF Giants Rankings and Scouting Philosophies

As an evaluator, meshing traditional scouting with advanced analytics is always the best way to evaluate. But between the two, traditional scouting takes priority over advanced analytics because of the study: amateur and minor league prospects. While the lack of free, publicly accessible advanced data in all the Minors (only one league has Statcast data) hurts, it is better to evaluate SF Giants prospects traditionally because of the high variance of a prospect's development curve.

Introduction to the Top 30 SF Giants Rankings and Scouting Philosophies

There will be times when a person who primarily focuses on analytics writes up a prospect and states that "if this prospect can tap his raw power, he will become a star" but they can't specifically answer how. To answer it, looking at the player's swing is a must. Are the swing mechanics and bat path conducive to power? Will a change of bat path affect their overall hitting ability? Is it more of a swing issue or an approach issue? For that, you have to do scouting.

Thinking of prospects solely from a fantasy perspective might lead to missing out on the nuances that can only be answered by deep scouting. It is like knowing the answers to the five WH questions (where, when, what, who, why) but missing out on the crucial "how". This is not a knock against persons who cover prospects in fantasy baseball, and some people are well-respected, like Chris Clegg of Fantrax. If you watch them play, put yourself in the batter's perspective or the pitcher in every at-bat, and confirm your assessment by looking at the numbers or vice versa. That is a better process of evaluation.

Unfortunately, doing in-person scouting is impossible because of the location issue (I live in the Philippines). However, critical and holistic film study is a strong alternative using videos from MiLB.tv, YouTube, or on social media. The process is: putting myself in the pitcher's perspective and the batter, thinking of what the pitcher is going to throw next, what is the batter's game plan on the box, and what are the tendencies or patterns that both the pitcher and the hitter has in real-time. Checking how good-looking the batter’s swing is, how good is the pitcher's movement on the pitches, and how good the players are on defense are also critical.

It slightly takes the fun out when watching games, but the benefit of doing film study is the ability to watch one clip over and over, something that can't be done in person. Some things that could be only perceived as exclusive when watching games in-person are also being shown in broadcasts as well, such as the emotions and body language of the players. As an immersive evaluator, feeling the emotion of the players and their mentality by watching their body language are also important.

The Grading Scale

Before reading the top 30 prospects of the Giants’ organization entering the 2022 season, it is important first to know how grading was done. Those familiar with reading prospect reports should be familiar with the 20-80 grading scale. The 20-80 grading scale used here is a changed grading scale used during my Prospects Worldwide days. That grading scale is refined to be as close to what the industry/professional scouting community is currently using.

It means no pluses on the tool grades (for example, 45+). The modifications done to the old grading scale include removal of the 35-grade, the addition of catcher pop times, and adjustment of baselines for a couple of statistics and measurable.

Aside from a prospect’s tool grades, the 20-80 scale above is also used for grading Present Value (PV) and Future Value (FV) to represent the overall grade of the prospect. To explain, PV is the value that a prospect could provide if that prospect is promoted to the big leagues right now. In simplest terms, it answers the question of "how well will this prospect play in the big leagues right now?". FV is the value that the prospect would most likely provide if everything goes as planned.

It should be understood that every prospect's overall ceiling is an 80, but there are a lot of factors that could lower or even keep that 80-overall grade down. One example that could lower a player's FV is a below-average hit tool. The definition of future value is phrased as "as planned" because sometimes a prospect could overachieve or underachieve because of the varying development curves of prospects and baseball players.

Some prospects looked great as a prospect but struggled hard in the big leagues (e.g., Brandon Wood). Some prospects were solid rather than impressive but exploded after reaching the big leagues (e.g., Bryan Reynolds). Some prospects were legitimate late-bloomers (e.g., R.A. Dickey). These situations happened before and will happen again in the future.

The grading scale used to evaluate the tool grades and the PV and FV of the 150 San Francisco Giants’ prospects can be found here.

Frame And Projectability

Before starting doing a player’s evaluation, it is always important to first look at the player's height, weight, frame, athleticism, and projectability. Listed height and weight on sites such as MiLB.com can often be misleading, especially for Dominican prospects, where it is common to see a player who weighs heavier than what is listed.

Any frame is acceptable as long as they move well for their size and shape. However, super tall players, especially pitchers, are worrying. Pitchers that are usually above 6'7" typically struggle with body control on the mound unless they are great athletes and it shows up in their mechanics. A pitcher like Sean Hjelle is a great example. He is 6'11.5" but he is an excellent athlete with the body control of a player that is more than half a foot shorter than him. Also, his mechanics is not a slow, deliberate motion but a smooth, dynamic, and rhythmic motion that results in an above-average command.

Projectability is the next aspect to look for after checking for height and weight. Projectability is predicting how a player's body frame will grow with age. It can be a bit difficult to predict, as genetics play a part in it. However, how to predict projectability if a prospect's family background is not entirely known?

Think of a player's frame as a trapezoid flipped upside down. You can google for trapezoid but simply cut a triangle horizontally then take the lower half. That is a trapezoid. Now flip that horizontally. There are only two things to look for: the broadness of the shoulders and the size of the hips. In an inverted trapezoid, are the two bases or the two straight lines at the top and bottom.

A broad shoulder is often a great start. However, in my opinion, the hips are more important in terms of projection than the shoulders because the hips will determine how much weight, hopefully, muscle, a player can tuck in the thighs and waist. A big hip usually means a big thigh bone. If a player has broad shoulders but has a small hip, the chances are the player will not gain a lot of weight. The prospect will gain weight, but only around the chest area. If a prospect is still a thin athlete but has a big hip, the player will gain weight as the player gets older because there is plenty of real estate to keep that weight gain.

Ideally, what to look out for is someone with just a moderately sized hip. That way, the prospect can gain weight but not gain too much and the prospect will have plenty of fat in his body if he overeats. A prospect with a smaller hip can still gain plenty of fat if the prospect overeats, but the chances are the prospect will not carry that weight well throughout his/her body.

The best way to see the athleticism of a baseball player is to see them on the field playing defense. If a prospect can make it look easy on defense, that is a sign of a great athlete. If you want the pure athletic metrics, though, it is best to look at their test times when they were still high schoolers attending showcases.

Scouting And Grading Pitchers

There are only two core tools to grade for pitchers using the 20-80 grading scale: their pitch arsenal and their command. However, a lot of nuances affect the final grades for that core tools.

Usually, a pitcher only has two to four main pitches in their arsenal (typically a combination of fastball, curveball, slider, and changeup). But if the pitcher uses another pitch like a split-fingered fastball, screwball, knuckleball, etc., it is necessary to grade that out as well. Abbreviations are only used (FB for a fastball, CB for a curveball, SL for a slider, CH for a changeup, SPL for a splitter, SCR for a screwball, CMD for command, etc.) to save space as it is understood right away.

Personally, only four-seamer and two-seamers/sinkers are considered as fastballs and cutters and split-fingers, even though technically fastballs, are separated to better highlight their purpose. Changeups and splitters might be interchangeable, but it is important to discern the proper grip by checking it at the pitcher’s release point.

Unless the pitcher is a knuckleballer, everything starts with the fastball. In the Minor Leagues, it is easy to grade out a fastball as velocity is its foundation. A pitcher’s fastball velocity is usually attached in every scouting report from major sites. For a scout who is evaluating a pitcher in person, a radar gun is a must, especially if the stadium does not have a radar gun or the scoreboard does not display a velocity reading. For a person watching on video or in a Minor League broadcast, the play-by-play commentator will usually blurt out the velocities as they call the game.

The harder a pitcher throws, the better the pitch grade. However, several factors can affect a fastball grade. Vertical movement, horizontal movement, feel, usage also affect a fastball grade. Let's say a pitcher has a 91 MPH fastball, but it has late tailing action, has excellent rise, and you can spot it on the edges of the strike zone, it will play up from initially an average to an above-average offering. Another example is if a pitcher has a 100 MPH fastball but it is as straight as an arrow and struggles to throw it in the strike zone, it knocks down the grade from an 80-grade fastball to a 70-grade fastball. Velocity is the foundation but movement and feel take it to another level.

For the rest of the secondaries, velocity, movement, and feel for spin are also important. Not just movement, but a late, bat-missing movement. The shape of the pitch is important because a ball moves in space or fluid and how the ball moves through space is important.

This might be a weird technique, but intentionally blurring the eyes is a solid way to recognize a breaking ball’s shape. Intentionally blurring the eyes helps create a tail for the pitches to check on the shape of the pitch. If the ball suddenly moves sharply in the middle of its flight (for example, a slider suddenly moves downward in the middle of its flight), that is a good pitch. Although what is a good pitch has a lot of other nuances like the new pitching terminologies that arose in the era of Statcast that are too complicated to explain in words.

Before explaining command deeply, it is important to first differentiate between control and command. Control is the ability to throw the pitch inside the strike zone, whereas command is the ability to throw the pitch to the intended location. There is also a new concept called pitch execution that is kind of in-between control and command. Pitch execution is failing to throw the pitch to its intended location, but the final location of the pitch is in a location where hard contact is difficult to achieve.

To describe the difference between the three, let's say a pitcher will throw a fastball up and in, on the edge of the strike zone, to a right-handed batter. Control is throwing the pitch upper third inside the strike zone. The command is throwing the pitch up and in, on the edge of the strike zone. Good pitch execution is throwing the pitch up and in, off the plate, or a fastball high and outside around zone chin-high. Bad pitch execution is leaving the pitch in the middle of the strike zone even if the hitter swung and missed on the pitch. Like other things associated with pitching, pitch execution also has a lot of nuances attached to it, particularly regarding sequencing, so it is very hard to explain pitch execution with zero context.

For command, athleticism, body control, and pitching mechanics of a pitcher are key factors to look for. Being a great athlete on the mound is essential because it helps refine the pitching mechanics quicker, and that helps the pitcher develop proprioception, or the ability to sense movement, action, and location in space, quicker. Being a great athlete allows a pitcher to pitch without constantly thinking about the little nuances of his mechanics on the mound.

In terms of pitching mechanics, there are people on social media that will say “do not replicate other people's pitcher's arm slot and the best arm slot is the arm slot that feels the most natural”. That is both true and false. Because for a person who is just starting on baseball, that person will not understand how to throw so that person will replicate his idol's pitching motion. After all, any person wants to throw like his idol. Let the people enjoy replicating their idol’s motion, and only once taken seriously does refinement or tinkering come in.

Like what was written earlier, a mechanics with a rhythmic, dynamic tempo over a slow, deliberate motion where there will be plenty of areas that could go awry is the key to harnessing control. Tempo could vary from smooth like Hjelle to varying like Matt Mikulski. What they have in common is that they have the look of a mechanics that you typically see from big leaguers.

The best pitchers have controlled violence in their deliveries that extracts the most out of athleticism. Before, people were worried about dreaded inverted W in a pitcher’s arm action, myself included. But over the years, the worry about it has waned where pitcher usage was the bigger driving force to their breakdown over arm action. As long as the arm action is clean and the throwing elbow does not go way over shoulder level, it's all good.