Baseball Prospectus Profiles Giants CF Prospect Gary Brown

Gary Brown is one of the Giants top prospects, and is the potential center fielder of the future. After destroying pitching in High A San Jose, he ran into a bit of a wall in AA Richmond. 

This morning Baseball Prospectus has him as their prospect profile (for free!). It's a nice little glimpse into what has been going on with him if you haven't been following his goings on very closely.

Here is the introduction:

Fifteen months ago Gary Brown was viewed by many as an elite prospect, destined to lose Gold Gloves to inferior defenders and lead the Giants to the Promised Land. People were amazed that 23 players were selected before Brown in the 2010 draft. When teams would inquire on Brown, the Giants would show reluctance to part with him to shore up their club in the short term. Many expected him to make it to the majors quickly and become the team’s center fielder of both the present and future. 

#Mets had asked #SFGiants for RHP Wheeler or OF Brown. Not getting Wheeler. We'll see on Brown.#tradedeadline #MLB

— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) July 27, 2011

 Now, it looks like Brown is going to forever be remembered as the guy the Giants kept instead of Zack Wheeler, even though it’s unclear how exactly the Mets’ and Giants’negotiations went in the Carlos Beltran trade. After two years of professional baseball, Brown has become yet another “if he can hit…” prospect. What was once viewed as a special talent is now a mysterious talent. There are various opinions out there on the Cal State Fullerton product. If you believe in the hit tool, you think he’s going to be a great player. If you don’t, you think he’s a fourth outfielder. If you’re not certain, you’re in the majority.

I recommend reading the whole thing.

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Checking in on the Giants Prospects

With the first month of the minor league season in the books I think that now is a good time to take a look at how things are going down on the farm.

First up the Giants position prospects (all stats are through the April 28th):

Rank	Name	PA	H	2B	3B	HR	BB	SO	BA	OBP	SLG
1	Gary Brown	99	18	2	1	0	8	13	0.222	0.330	0.272
2	Joe Panik	92	19	6	0	0	11	7	0.235	0.326	0.309
3	Andrew Susac	70	14	3	0	1	7	24	0.230	0.329	0.328
4	Franscico Peguero	86	17	2	3	1	5	12	0.215	0.256	0.354
6	Tommy Joesph	71	15	4	0	1	3	12	0.227	0.268	0.333
8	Hector Sanchez	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
10	Jarrett Parker	79	13	3	2	4	12	33	0.203	0.342	0.500
11	Ehire Adrianza	88	17	0	1	0	13	14	0.233	0.345	0.260
14	Adam Duvall	96	20	4	1	3	4	25	0.227	0.281	0.398
18	Shawn Payne	56	17	4	1	1	8	10	0.370	0.482	0.565
19	Chuckie Jones	71	6	3	0	1	3	37	0.090	0.141	0.179

That's a pretty ugly list. It looks like there are quite a bit of early struggles (good thing they aren't playing for the big league team because they would be finding a spot on the bench to keep warm) but there is time for all of these guys to recover.

The big stand outs offensively are Jarrett Parker (who is repeating the level in San Jose right now) and Shawn Payne in Augusta. Payne is a bit old for his level but he has some very interesting tools, with his great athleticism. The thing that makes me really like him is his walk rate 14.3% against a very respectable strike out rate 17.9%, it will be interesting to see how the Giants treat him as the season moves along.

The Giants top 2 prospects, Gary Brown and Joe Panik are off to a slow starts, but the nice thing to see is that even with batting averages in the low 200's they have both found ways to get on base at around league average rates. Neither is hitting for much power but I think that will come as they get used to the level and make adjustments.

One guy who is off to a real hot start that isn't on the list that might be someone to look out for is Roger Kieschnick. Kieschnick was regarded as a prospect a few years back but injuries and struggles in AA took a bit of his sheen off. Well now he is raking in Fresno (all PCL need to be taken with a grain of salt) and the power that he is always shown is there in a big way with an early season slugging percentage north of .600. He still doesn't walk too much and can put up big strike out numbers as well, but if he is healthy he could provide some pop as a left fielder.

Now the pitching prospects (all stats are through the April 28th):

Rank	Name	IP	ERA	FIP	GB%	K%	BB%	HR/9	BB/9	K/9
5	Eric Surkamp	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-
7	Kyle Crick	12	3.09	5.17	61%	20%	22%	0	9.26	8.49
9	Heath Hembree	8	2.25	4.33	48%	16%	6%	1.13	2.25	5.63
12	Adalberto Mejia	8	13	6.44	37%	4%	15%	1.08	7.56	2.16
13	Clayton Blackburn	18	2.95	2.49	56%	24%	6%	0	2.45	9.82
15	Michael Kickham	18	2.55	4.11	44%	20%	15%	0.51	5.6	7.64
16	Seth Rosin	7	1.23	2.25	6%	41%	6%	1.23	2.45	15.95
17	Joshua Osich	7	0	1.55	33%	27%	4%	0	1.35	9.45
20	Jacob Dunnington	12	6.57	2.55	48%	18%	9%	0	3.65	7.3

The pitchers have gotten off to a much better start than the batters. Maybe it is a case that early in the season the pitching just being ahead of the hitting and with the warmer summer weather things will balance out a bit. Anyway something to keep an eye on.

The big thing that is nice to see is that a good portion of the pitchers have k rates above 20%, with Seth Rosin leading the way with an obscene 41% rate in his 7 inning pitched. The guy that is really impressing me right now is Clayton Blackburn who excelling in Augusta, he signed out of high school so he is still young but he seems to have good command (so/bb of 4) and a nice sinking fastball that has gotten a good amount of ground balls (56%), I am excited to see how he progresses.

The one early concern is Adalberto Mejia who made the jump from the DSL straight to low A Augusta. That was a pretty aggressive promotion for a guy who had yet to pitch in the US and is the 10th youngest guy in the league. So far he has struggled pretty bad, but he has improved over his last few games he has 2.3 innings pitched with 3 strikeouts and just one walk. Hopefully that is a sign is making some adjustments.

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Crazy Crabbers Top 20 Prospects: Gary Brown

Gary Brown is the Giants consensus number one prospect and likely the only one that will be included among the top 100 in all of baseball now that Zack Wheeler is no longer in the system.

Luckily for the Giants he is very good.

Baseball America's Giants 2012 Top 10 Prospects

The Baseball America digital edition landed in my inbox this afternoon and I was quite happy that this issue was the NL West Prospect preview.

The Giants top 10 list is a bit different than the one that I was putting together but the Baseball America scouts did have some nice things to say about the Giants prospects.

Here is the top 10 list and a bit of the future blurb for each:

Giants Link Round-Up

All of the Giants links fit to print.

PaapFly: "Jeff Suppan is no Joe Posnanski" I wonder how he feels about this pickup. Actually I don't because this line sums things up nicely.

Imagine for a second you were collecting baseball writers. You already have Joe Posnanski, Bill James, Rob Neyer, Joe Sheehan and Jayson Stark. But you want a little just-in-case insurance, you know, just in case. Maybe, along the way, one of them gets writers block, or maybe one breaks both hands and can’t type. You already have Murray Chass lined up in the stable, and a couple others like him. Then, in an effort to beef up your complete and utter lack of depth, you hire on the Bleacher Report. This is essentially what the Giants have done.

Sully Baseball: A great video giving MLB some tips on how to appeal to a younger generation. What makes it better is he says that we need more Giants.

Baseball Monk: The monks talk about how loaded the National League is in pitching right now. I couldn't agree more, after years of offense the pendulum has swung towards pitching and it special with the number of great arms out there.

Splashing Pumpkins: A quantitative look at Giants skipper Bruce Bochy. He did everything right in the playoffs it seemed but I agree with the conclusion here that his overall effect on the team was probably a wash with great decisions cancelled out by the boneheaded ones.

22Gigantes: If you need more reasons to hate the Dodgers here is another one: Tommy Lasorda disses the Giants.

When the Giants Come to Town: The top 50 prospects (plus a bunch of Honorable mentions). First few detailed scouting reports are out too: #1 Brandon Belt, #2 Zach Wheeler, #3 Thomas Neal and #4 Gary Brown.

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