2019 has been such a delight hereabouts, that it’s really hard to say goodbye.

I mean….say goodbye to this?

Here’s the video — not sure if it captures the dramatic bounce off the tree or not pic.twitter.com/lToJj6OvGH — Roger Munter (@rog61) August 13, 2019

Say goodbye to this?

This ball was DESTROYED.



A 417-foot blast for @HeliotRamos pic.twitter.com/MZwhyptgF8 — Richmond Flying Squirrels (@GoSquirrels) September 2, 2019

To this?

17-year-old Marco Luciano, the #SFGiants’ No. 3 prospect, with a no-doubter out to left. pic.twitter.com/z8LYkm6QRw — William Boor (@wboor) June 22, 2019

Say goodbye to a year in which five of the eight affiliates made their league playoffs and the team at the top won the PCL AND AAA National Championships despite being constantly strip-mined for valuable parts by the big league club? Say goodbye to a year that ended with four players in Baseball America’s top 100 for the first time since 2010 (You want yer Good Omens? I GOT yer Good Omens)!

Oh no, it must not be so! We cannot leave it behind! So the Minor Lines gang has come up with, at least a temporary solution -- how ‘bout we just don’t! Not yet!

To that end, Kevin and I are gonna reminisce a bit on the year gone by and you’re all invited to join along! We have thoughts on the season just past, but we’d love to know your thoughts as well down in the posts.

So let’s get to it! Our first Season Minor Lines Wrap Up Category is:

Who Surprised you the Most?

Roger: This may be stating the obvious, but as Mike Yastrzemski puts his mark in the record book by becoming the first Giants rookie with 20 HRs since Dave Kingman (who was barely a rookie) -- does anybody remember that Yaz actually hit 12 more HRs with Sacramento before being called up? The minor league afterthought transaction Slugged an incredible .676 over 40 games with the RiverCats, got his chance to ride the Wheel of Fortune and stuck the landing! I’ve seen Mike Yastrzemski play a decent amount before this year -- I LIKE Mike Yastrzemski and was happy the Giants picked him up to bolster their minor league depth. But I never in my wildest dreams imagined he was going to do THIS!

Kevin: My answer to this starts with Luis Matos, and ends with Farhan Zaidi and Kyle Haines. Maybe it’s unfair to say that Matos surprised me, since it’s easy to simply have no expectations for young international free agent signings, but his simple dominance of the DSL was completely unexpected for a high, but not top, IFA signing. But then Zaidi and Haines did something I cannot remember. Much of the summer, Roger and I fielded questions about promoting Matos to the AZL, and we both pretty much agreed that promoting a player from the Dominican Republic to the U.S. would be unlikely, for as many cultural reasons as baseball, and for only a couple of weeks, it didn’t seem very worth it. But then the braintrust did just that, not just with Matos but also Victor Bericoto. I can not remember any DSL prospects getting midseason promotions like that, and I was floored. We really do have new philosophies at the top. And some very promising young players at the bottom of the system.

Who Changed Your Mind?

Kevin: Alexander Canario did that to me. I’ve always been the kind of guy who scoffs at the reports of how great a very young player looks in practice, and how many tools they seem to have if they only develop them. Every year there’s someone like this. Canario was that before the 2018 season started, and then he had a lackluster AZL season. I mean, it wasn’t bad, but it was kind of ‘eh’. I figured he’d be another type of player who can wow at a low level but might top out in High-A. To a degree, I even had that in the back of my mind as he got off to a ridiculous start in 2019, and then his struggles after getting promoted to Salem-Keizer. But over 49 games in S-K, you could see the results of the work he was putting in, and never giving up. Now, now I think he can be a lot more than I gave him credit for.

Roger: I’ll go ahead and open myself to ridicule by admitting that I had a good deal of anxiety and skepticism at the beginning of the year over the wisdom of advancing Heliot Ramos to San Jose. He had been in over his head the previous year versus the far inferior pitching of the Sally league, where he had survived mostly by adopting an off-field approach that didn’t tap into much of his raw power, and had far too often found himself in 0-2 holes from which he could not extricate. Wasn’t just pushing him on up the ladder without giving him a chance to catch his breath repeating the lower level just going to perpetuate the issues, I worried? Why No! Apparently it wasn’t! Despite once again being far younger than the league he found himself in (and younger still following a late season promotion to AA) Ramos was an entirely new player -- grinding out long at bats and seeking out and finding balls he could damage -- and ended up being the revelation of the year.

Who weren’t you thinking about that much in March that you can’t stop thinking about now?

Roger: While mid-season acquisitions like Mauricio Dubon and Jaylin Davis are obvious answers here, I’ll stick to the spirit of the question and point at someone who was here all along. If you spent the year reading Minor Lines, you’re familiar with my daily paeans to Luis Matos’ season. Don’t get me wrong -- I was certainly happy the Giants had added Matos to their 2018 J2 haul, I was glad to have him in the org. But my J2 Anticipation Meter was firmly set to “Marco Luciano hubba hubba (oh and yeah, Jairo too)!” I was really not expecting Matos’ explosion, both statistically and (“plus plus bat speed”) scouting report-wise. Matos posted 1.000 OPS with the DSL Giants, stole 21 bases in 24 attempts, ended the year with more 3-hit games (9) than 0 hits games (8), and earned himself the ultra-rare DSL-AZL promotion. And now I’ll spend the winter dreaming of a Luciano-Canario-Matos lineup in Augusta in 2020 which could well be the herald of the future.

Kevin: There weren’t a lot of sustained surprise performances by players the Giants already had at the start of the season, but I’ll piggyback on Roger’s response and mention the other 2018 J2 signing, Jairo Pomares. The now 19-year old Cuban was overshadowed a bit by Luciano, but Pomares hit .368 with a .401 OBP, and 10 doubles, four triples and three home runs in 37 AZL games before he was promoted to Salem Keizer. Pomares joins a large group of outfield prospects with a future in the system, and will make fighting for playing time in Augusta very interesting next season.

Who are you most worried about?

Kevin: Franklin Labour. I think it’s fair to say that the performance in Salem-Keizer came out of somewhere west of nowhere, particularly the power output. It’s not unheard of to see a 21-year old to turn doubles power into home runs. But S-K is a bit of a home run hotspot, and he struggled in Augusta. I worry that Labour will try to recreate the power he had in a friendlier ballpark, and it will just lead to more strikeouts and weaker contact down by the river, when he would do better to work on his all-around batting skills.

Roger: Jalen Miller. Miller has always been pushed hard and would still be a perfectly age appropriate player next year in AA (if he returns to Richmond) despite having twice repeated levels. He’s athletic, fast, and uses both of those virtues to his benefit in the field and on the bases. But the “fast start/long fade” pattern has dogged him in every season of his career, and one main culprit has re-emerged over and over again -- trouble with the curve. Miller’s a big league asset IF he can find a way to be a competitive batter against breaking stuff but that’s getting to be a bigger and bigger “if” the longer he struggles with it. Especially in an MLB environment where fastball usage has been going down steadily, this is potential kryptonite. And all we can do is hope that he finds an anti-dote (much of the same argument can be applied to PJ Hilson as well, but I suppose I haven’t spent quite the same amount of time emotionally investing in PJ as of yet)

Who Shouldn’t You be Overreacting to right now?

Roger: Since I’m going first here, I’ll take the low hanging fruit and say Hunter Bishop. Granted I’m sure he’s disappointed with his pro debut and no doubt there are some folks at the complex at Indian School Park who would have liked to seen more, but Bishop earned his 10th overall selection by torching high level competition and arguably brings the best power/speed combination of tools in the organization. It’s a Tools Tools Tools Tools World and Bishop’s got ‘em to spare. Give him a pass and watch where he goes next year.

(Editor’s Note: My first thought was Joey Bart, but I judged that the final month had calmed down the midseason freak outs over Bart’s performance while recovering from a broken hand)

Kevin: At the start of the year, one of the talks of Spring Training was Ryan Howard and how he was likely to be the next homegrown utility infielder in the vein of Kelby Tomlinson and Matt Duffy. And then, he combined for a .593 OPS between Double-A and Triple-A this season. It was not a great showing, but all is not over for the 25-year old. His ceiling remains as a utility player, and he will have a second chance at Sacramento to make his case for that sort of role, regardless of this season’s hiccup.

Who Shouldn’t You be Forgetting about right now?

Kevin: This is a really hard question this year. Partially, I want to say Joey Bart. I mean, up until the end of the season, his season ended up being a less-than-ideal season for a prospect of his expectations, even taking the injury into consideration. But the real answer is a follow-up to Roger’s answer to the previous question: Hunter Bishop. Forgetting about him would be an overreaction. The last two seasons, we’ve been spoiled by first-half-season performances by top draft picks, between Bart and Ramos, and in a different way, Luciano. Bishop’s debut was...forgettable. But while he isn’t of a Bart-level pedigree, this is a player with a star profile, and he is likely to come back next season and show it, regardless of if he’s in Augusta or San Jose.

Roger: Boy this is a hard one! In a community whose entire raison d’etre is obsessing over guys who as often as not never make it past A ball, forgetting someone doesn’t seem to be much of an issue. But I think I’ve identified a good candidate when I saw don’t you forget about Sandro Fabian! In a year that made the Giants suddenly seem OF prospect rich (especially if Luciano ends up heading that direction), it was very easy to forget about Fabian who had such a miserable year in 2018 and who for the longest time never appeared anywhere in 2019 following surgery to correct a thyroid issue. But when the 21 year old finally returned to duty he showed improvement across a wide assortment of offensive categories: his OPS improved from a woeful .585 in 2018 to .768 in 2019, he cut his K rate by more than 6% while raising his walk rate to a fully acceptable 7.5% (it had been as low as 2% in A ball in 2017). The power numbers stayed the same which might ultimately affect how he profiles (though the magic of the major league ball might help there) but he was back to being the same “good feel to hit/solid all around player” that he appeared to be when he was a top 10 prospect in the (admittedly much weaker) system not that long ago.

Who made you happiest this year?

Roger: When you spend millions of dollars on the amateur market, you’re expected to get yourself a future stud. We all know the Giants history in this international arena, and too often it’s led to disappointment, befuddlement, and tragedy. One of the biggest storylines of 2019 for the Giants was: did they pick up a stud in Marco Luciano -- a guy who could be in the conversation for best prospect in the game someday, an anchor, an impact player, the kind of kid you can dream on potential MVP years. Then Marco Luciano started playing. And the answer didn’t come with contextualizations or rationalizations or age v level explanations. It was very simply...yes. This dude’s a stud! “Yes” is a happy happy word.

Kevin: You know, it’s almost unfair to say after just 25 minor league games in the Giants’ system, but Mauricio Dubon. Aside from seeing a young player do good, and a northern California-grown and childhood Giants fan do well as a Giant, this is also feeling happy for Farhan Zaidi. Zaidi got thrown into the worst position of a first year President of Baseball Operations with a rebuild coming: Go for it with a winning (at the deadline) team, or sell the top players to rebuild. He did a middling, not really selling but not buying thing that led to trading away some of the less rewarding players. Being middling is rarely looked on favorably. But Dubon’s performance, both in Sacramento and San Francisco, immediately justified it. It looks like the Giants have a starting position player for the future. Even if Jaylin Davis and Tristan Beck and Kai-Wei Teng never develop into stars, Dubon justified what Zaidi did and gives him credit for the rebuild that is still coming.

Who made you saddest?

Kevin: I really had high hopes for Jacob Gonzalez coming into this season. The second pick of Bobby Evans’ High School Draft of 2017 (between Heliot Ramos and Seth Corry), Gonzalez debuted with a good year in the AZL as a high schooler, missing home runs but showing nice plate discipline, but he then struggled to a .627 OPS in his first full season, marred with strikeouts and fielding difficulties. I really expected that Gonzalez would have a breakout this season, and he had every advantage: He was repeating the level, he had physical tools inherited from his father, and his father could give him coaching and support most players could never get at home, and I hoped he would get to try another position that he could succeed at. But he underwhelmed to start the season, and then faceplanted in May, and never really recovered, and he still spent most of the year at third base, with 21 errors in 66 games (he did get some chances at first and left late in the season). With two seasons like this in the books, I worry that the pressure to live up to his family name may be getting to him, which would be a real shame.

Roger: Without the slightest hesitation, the saddest moment for me this year was the final cutting of ties with Mac Williamson. I don’t need to go into the whole star-crossed history of Mac’s promise and perpetual struggles with health and circumstances, Grant summed it all up beautifully when Mac got his final promotion to the Giants. But after all of the years, all of the setbacks, all of the majestic HRs, I wanted with every fiber of my being to will his success into reality. But alas, it wasn’t to be. Yet another reminder that what these players are trying to accomplish is ridiculously difficult, seemingly impossible, and the ones who succeed are the knife’s edge of a vast and amorphous spear, aimed from childhood, fashioned daily through youth, thrown as a young adult, yet almost never hitting its mark.

What team are you most excited about following next year?

Roger: It’s hard to argue against a Richmond team that might open the year with Joey Bart and Heliot Ramos in 3-4 spots (and me in the stands). But there’s a decent chance that Marco Luciano, Hunter Bishop, Alex Canario, Jairo Pomares, and Luis Matos are all a part of the Augusta Greenjackets at some point next year (though not at the same time, obviously). Luciano will make Augusta appointment TV all by himself and his supporting cast should be enticing. Could we see an “All CF” Canario-Bishop-Matos OF? Probably not, but that’s a DefCon1 level of excitement for this system if it comes to fruition!

Kevin: If Roger’s not taking Richmond, then I will. Ramos and Bart will be starting what will likely be their final tests before making the big leagues, and honestly, the first wave of change from the farm for the Zaidi Giants. That’s what this is all about, the steps to the bigs. I’m also curious about a healthy Heath Quinn and see if Bryce Johnson can continue to do well after his Richmond callup this year, and if Sandro Fabian can continue his prospect comeback, but mostly, it’s Ramos and Bart for me.

And finally, some Minor Lines 2019 accolades:

Player of the Year:

Roger: Heliot Ramos

Kevin: Heliot Ramos

Defensive Player of the Year:

Roger: Joey Bart

Kevin: Johneshwy Fargas

Baserunner of the Year:

Roger: Johneshwy Fargas

Kevin: Johneshwy Fargas

Most Exciting Player:

Roger: Marco Luciano

Kevin: Heliot Ramos

#1 prospect

Roger: Joey Bart

Kevin: Heliot Ramos

All Star Team

Roger:

C: Joey Bart

1b: Frankie Tostado

2b: Jalen Miller

SS: Marco Luciano

3b: Luis Toribio

OF: Alex Canario

OF: Heliot Ramos

OF: Luis Matos

Kevin:

C: Joey Bart

1b: Logan Wyatt

2b: Jalen Miller

SS: Marco Luciano

3b: David Villar

OF: Heliot Ramos

OF: Luis Matos

OF: Jairo Pomares

In tomorrow’s post, we’ll tackle the somewhat less laudatory topic of the year in Giants’ prospect pitchers! It’s sure to be fun so come on back and keep the good time season rolling!