Fixing The Franchise: The San Francisco Giants – April 2019

A month of baseball is in the books, and things are going about as expected. The Giants are struggling through the month of April. If you want to catch up on the season so far, click the links below:

Spring Training 2019
Opening Day 2019

April Results

MLB

The Giants ended the month with a 9-21 record, already 11 games back of the first place Dodgers. As far as records go, the Giants are only a half game better than the Major League worst Baltimore Orioles.

AAA

The Rive Cats are looking good – they are in first place in their division. They are two games up on the Tacoma Rainiers. From a talent perspective the River Cats are only the 27th best AAA team, but that isn’t stopping them from putting up a solid record so far.

AA

The Flying Squirrels are sitting in first place after a month of baseball. They are two games up on the second place Eerie SeaWolves. The Flying Squirrels have a +40 run differential, they are a solid squad.

Hot and Cold

MLB

Hot

Name	Pos.	Stats
Darwinzon Hernandez	SP	1.00 ERA, 14K, 18 IP
Vince Velasquez	RP	2.63 ERA, 19K, 24 IP
Dominic Smith	LF	.309 AVG, 94 AB, 6 HR, 14 RBI

Darwinzon Hernandez was called up to replace an injured Dereck Rodriguez, and Hernandez is determined to keep his spot. Vince Velasquez has been throwing a ton of innings out of the pen and he has shown that he should be in the organization’s long term plans. Dominic Smith is currently leading the team with an OPS of .942.

Cold

Name	Pos.	Stats
Williams Jerez	RP	9.82 ERA, 9 BB, 14.2 IP

There is not much to say about that line – another month like that and Williams Jerez will not have a spot on this roster.

AAA

Hot

Name	Pos.	Stats
Jake Wong	SP	2.61 ERA, 23 K, 31 IP
Alexander Palma	RF	.437 AVG, 32 AB, 3 RBI

With the hot start to the year, I decided to give Alexander Palma a starting role in CF – replacing Magneuris Sierra (.208 AVG). Jake Wong has had a solid month on the hill, he is next in line to be called up The Show if the need should arise.

Cold

Name	Pos.	Stats
Sean Hjelle	SP	7.03 ERA, 13 BB, 24.1 IP

Sean Hjelle could not handle the spotlight of being one of the top prospects in the organization – he imploded this month. Hopefully he can turn things around – or he will find himself down in AA.

AA

Hot

Name	Pos.	Stats
Tyler Phillips	SP	0.56 ERA, 13K, 16 IP
Shea Langerliers	C	.314 AVG, 70 AB, 13 RBI

Tyler Phillips has been just about perfect through his first 16 innings of work. Shea Langerliers is making a case for finding room for both him and Joey Bart on the AAA squad.

Cold

Name	Pos.	Stats
Sam Wolff	CP	4.22 ERA, 10.2 IP

It is hard to have much confidence in a closer when they are putting up numbers like Sam Wolff is. I decided to give Ray Black (1.64 ERA) the closer role on AA.

Roster Moves/Injuries

• Dereck Rodriguez suffered a torn hamstring against the Padres on April 8th. He was projected to be out for 1-2 months. Darwinzon Hernandez was called up from AAA to fill his spot in the rotation.
• Alek Manoah fractured his arm on April 22nd, leaving him out through the next two months. Tyler Phillips took his spot in the AA rotation.
• Mike Yastrzemski broke his ankle on April 28th. This will sideline him for a couple months. Chris Shaw will take his spot in the lineup against righties. Mike Gerber was called up from AAA to fill the 25 man roster.

Prospects

After a month of baseball, the prospect list looks pretty much the same. There has been some movement, but not much. For now, here is where things stand:

We had another Giant make their way into the MLB Top 50 Prospects list. Things have also changed a bit amongst our organizational prospects. Here is where I would rank the prospects within our system after a month of baseball:

Org. Rank	MLB Rank	Player	Age	Pos.	Pot.	Ovr.	Level
#1	#26	Royce Lewis	19	SS	A	65	AAA
#2	#40	Joey Bart	22	C	A	66	AAA
#3	#45	Alexander Palma	22	RF	A	64	AAA
#4	#50	Ke’Bryan Hayes	22	3B	A	68	AAA
#5	NR	Heliot Ramos	19	CF	A	62	AAA
#6	NR	Hunter Bishop	20	CF	A	60	AA
#7	NR	Logan Davidson	21	SS	B	64	AAA
#8	NR	Shea Langeliers	21	C	B	65	AA
#9	NR	Trevor Stephan	22	SP	B	60	AA
#10	NR	Jake Wong	22	SP	B	66	AAA

Coming Up

I will sim another month and check back in on all levels of the organization. Scouting will be important, as we have the first year player draft coming up in early June.

– Buzz