Down in the Minors: 4/30/11

A look at what's going on in the San Francisco Giants' farm system...

Ten Questions with Thomas Neal of the San Francisco Giants

First, a little background information. Thomas Neal is widely considered to be one of the Giants' best prospects. In 136 games at AA Richmond last year, he posted a .291/.359/.440 slash line. He also hit 12 home runs, even though his ballpark is not exactly homer-friendly. Recently, Neal has become active on Twitter, under the username @TdaddyNeal (you should follow him if you aren't already doing so).

He was generous enough to participate in Ten Questions, and I hope you enjoy it. (Also, I recommend you watch Thomas Neal's interview with Mychael Urban before reading this.)


1. Do you have any specific goals set out for 2011?

I think my main goal this season is to put together consistent at bats when hitting with runners in scoring position, and Have Fun.

2. Who has been the greatest influence on your playing career?

My mom for sure. She has always been there for me and supported me my whole life. She did whatever she could possibly do to help me chase my dream. She drove me around to every city in california for baseball games. She went to every game, She did it all. If it wasn't for her, I wouldn't be where I'm at now.

3. How difficult was the transition from the California League to the Eastern League?

I think the biggest Transition for me was mentally. The guys were a lot smarter and they didn't make the same mistakes that often. You really have to have a consistent game plan and understand what your trying to do at the plate. Early on I didn't do a good job of that.

4. What are your thoughts on Brandon Belt and all of the hype surrounding him?

I think Belt is a great player. He can hit, plays good defensive, runs the bases well, He is a Good Baseball Player. The hype is well deserved, he dominated every level that he got a chance to play at.

5. So far, who's the toughest pitcher you've faced in your career?

Stuff wise I would have to go with Craig Italiano he played for the A's but he's with SD now.

6. In your interview with Mychael Urban, you said that your biggest focus is your mental game -- that you're physically ready to play in the majors, but you want to adjust your mental game. This is a more general question, but can you comment on the importance of mentality in baseball?

I think thats the difference between a Big Leaguer and Minor leaguer. Physically the ability for everyone is there. Its tough to stay mentally focus every day for 162 games but Big Leaguers are able to get lock in mentally every single day. While minor leaguers are trying to learn how to do that every single day and it can be tough.

7. Just out of curiosity, do you pay any attention to prospect rankings and write-ups, or do you just try to ignore those and focus on playing?

Its something I don't really pay attention to because I have no control over what people think or say. My main focus is to get better each day and be ready to step in with the Big League team when every my name is called upon.

8. Going into Spring Training, is it any different for you because you're now with the defending world champions?

Not really, because Im not going to spring training to try and win a job. I just want to learn as much as I can, and just show that I can compete at the Big League level.

9. You've played with many of the young Giants prospects and players -- like Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner. As a whole, how talented is this group of up-and-coming players in the Giants organization?

Very talented. I honestly can't put my finger on it but I really believe there is something special with this group. There are all different type of personality and everyone gets along. But when we are between the lines its tough to explain, but the best way I could put it is everyone on the field is on the same page and we expect to win.

10. Do you plan on maintaining an active Twitter account throughout the baseball season?

Well, I'm thinking about carrying my phone in my pocket instead of my batting gloves. So I could tweet during pitching changes instead of running all the way to CF to talk to Ford Lol. probably a bad idea tho. But I will be tweeting during the season maybe not as much but I will be active.



I'd like to once again thank Thomas Neal for taking the time to participate in this. He's an awesome guy, and I wish him the best of luck this season -- and hope to see him in the majors some time soon!

Keith Law's Top 100 Prospects of 2011

Today, Keith Law released his prospect rankings. An insider account is required to view them, but Brandon Belt made the list at 17, and Zach Wheeler came in at 36 (h/t 8th Inning Weirdness). Law also released his Giants top ten, and here's the list:

1. Brandon Belt, 1B
2. Zach Wheeler, SP
3. Gary Brown, OF
4. Francisco Peguero, CF
5. Charlie Culberson, 2B
6. Thomas Neal, OF
7. Ehire Adrianza, SS
8. Eric Surkamp, LHP
9. Heath Hembree, RHP
10. Tommy Joseph, C

LINK: Baseball America - SF Giants Top Ten Prospects

1. Brandon Belt, 1b
2. Zack Wheeler, rhp
3. Gary Brown, of
4. Francisco Peguero, of
5. Ehire Adrianza, ss
6. Brandon Crawford, ss
7. Thomas Neal, of
8. Charlie Culberson, 2b
9. Eric Surkamp, lhp
10. Tommy Joseph, c/1b

Notes: Jonathan Sanchez, Thomas Neal, Voros McCracken

• Jonathan Sanchez was in a fashion-shoot for West Coast Leather [picture, video].
• Triples Alley looks at the Oliver projections for the Giants minor-leaguers. The Thomas Neal projection (115 RC+) is very nice to see. 
• Bleacher Report just hired King Kaufman, a fantastic online baseball writer, to be their manager of writer development. I don't know if this means that B/R will improve their content, but it's certainly a step forward. 
• Jeff Passan wrote a very nice (and pretty depressing) story on Voros McCracken, the mind behind DIPS. (h/t McCovey Chronicles)
• David Pinto of Baseball Musings proposes an interesting idea: awarding bonuses to players from a $680MM pool based on their seasonal WAR.
• Tomorrow, Baseball America will release their SF Giants Top Ten Prospects list. All other 29 lists are up already.
• New Saber Library on Fangraphs!
• Lastly, a friend of the blog, Steve Keane, is hosting his radio show (This Call to the Bullpen) at 7 PT tonight, and his guest will be former Mets LHP Jerry Koosman. Be sure to check it out!

Notes: Thomas Neal, WAR Grids, Minor League Splits

• New Fangraphs tool! WAR Grids. I think I'll test it out with a relevant post some time soon...
• On a similar note, if you love these kinds of things, you probably already know about WAR Graphs. If you have a Twitter account, you should definitely follow @WARGraphs, where they tweet links to interesting WAR Graphs.
• If you enjoyed Mychael Urban's interview with Brandon Belt, he just did another one with Thomas Neal. Check it out. 
• R.I.P. Minor League Splits
• I just want to congratulate Dave Gershman, another passionate baseball blogger who broke the story of the Mets' signing of Taylor Tankersley. 
• Lastly, Mychael Urban will be participating in the Ten Questions Q&A on this site. If you have anything you'd like me to ask him as one of the questions, just comment with your question idea, and I might ask it. 

Mychael Urban's Interview with Thomas Neal

Notes: Willie McCovey, Pablo Sandoval, Thomas Neal

• First of all, happy 73rd birthday to Willie McCovey, a true Giants great!
• According to Henry Schulman, Pablo Sandoval's conditioning is going well:

"Aurilia lives in Phoenix and told me today he saw Pablo at a shopping mall just before Christmas. Sandoval told him he had lost 17 pounds."

• Speaking of preseason "best shape of their lives" stories, I think this article is relevant. You might recall Aaron Rowand showing up to Spring Training in the best shape of his life, but his 2010 numbers certainly did not reflect an improvement. 
• Thomas Neal, a prospect that I looked at recently, is going to appear on the Hot Stove show on CSN tomorrow night with Mychael Urban.
• I'm excited to say that Urban has agreed to participate in the Ten Questions Q&A series, so you can look forward to that. 
• Ross of Ross and the Heckler Speak has slowly been tackling hall of fame cases for his new-and-improved hall of fame. He recently looked at the cases for Barry Larkin and Fred McGriff.
• Lastly, in case you haven't yet heard: Jason Bartlett agreed to a two-year deal with the Padres, Edgar Renteria's deal with the Reds (one-year $2.1MM plus $900K in incentives) was officially announced today, and the Reds announced a one-year $900K deal with Fred Lewis today. 

Peek at the Prospects: Thomas Neal

Thomas Neal
Position: OF
Opening Day Age: 23
John Sickels' Grade: B-
Fangraphs Estimated Peak WAR: 4.5
ZiPS Projection: .259/.325/.397
Twitter Account: @TdaddyNeal

After an incredible season in 2009 that saw Neal hit .337/.431/.579 in 129 games at high-A, he put up disappointing numbers in 2010 -- a .291/.359/.440 slash line in AA. Don't be discouraged by Neal's AA numbers, though. As When the Giants Come to Town points out, "After Thomas Neal's monster breakout season with San Jose in 2009, it was a good bet that no matter what he did on AA in 2010, it would have been a disappointment."

John Sickels had similar thoughts: "I know his season in the Eastern League may look a bit disappointing, but I think he could put up some huge numbers in the PCL in '11, and I still think he has a chance to be a non-star regular player."

In regards to Neal's "disappointing" season, it seems as though his numbers were a bit suppressed by park factors. His home ISO of .095 was significantly worse than his road ISO of .198, and he hit ten of his 12 home runs on the road.

Although Neal stole 11 bases at AA Richmond, he's not said to be very fast, with a speed rating of just 34. Rather, he's a smart baserunner, much like Brandon Belt. In terms of defense, he's played the vast majority of his games at left field, and probably profiles best there. As Marc Hulet says, "Defensively, Neal doesn’t have great range and his arm strength is just OK. He’s pretty much limited to left field."

Another reason to be excited about Neal: he seems to be a very sociable guy. Check out his Twitter account, where he's quite active.

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Other posts in the PatP series:

• Brandon Belt
• Francisco Peguero
• Ehire Adrianza
• Zach Wheeler

Peek at the Prospects: Brandon Belt

The internet is rife with analysis on the Giants' top prospects -- most notably Fangraphs and Minor League Ball. On January 26, Baseball America will release their San Francisco Giants Top Ten Prospects Scouting Reports. Leading up to that, I thought I'd take a peek at various Giants prospects, referencing the analysis from Fangraphs, Minor League Ball, and the Giants 2011 ZiPS projections. For now, I plan on looking at the following players (in no particular order):

• Brandon Belt
• Francisco Peguero
• Ehire Adrianza
• Zach Wheeler
• Thomas Neal
• Eric Surkamp
• Brandon Crawford
• Gary Brown
• Jarrett Parker
• Charlie Culberson

It's very possible that I'll expand the list, however, and look at others like Hector Sanchez, Jorge Bucardo, Chuckie Jones, etc.

Without further ado, I'll begin with the guy at the top of every Giants prospect list....Brandon Belt. 

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Brandon Belt

Position: 1B

Opening Day Age: 22

John Sickels' Grade: A-

Fangraphs Estimated Peak WAR: 5.5

ZiPS Projection: .266/.357/.440

Belt is the cream of the crop when it comes to the Giants' farm system. He rapidly rose through the Giants' minor league system last year, raking to the tune of .352/.455/.620 slash line in A, AA, and AAA combined. Thanks to mechanical adjustments in his plate approach, the 2009 fifth-rounder was able to display a combination of excellent plate discipline, contact skills, and power. He even stole 22 bases last season; make no mistake, though -- as Marc Hulet of Fangraphs notes, "he succeeded on the base paths due to smart base running as opposed to blazing speed." Belt is the real deal, and should be ready to make an impact in the majors right away in 2011.

I think the following comments speak for themselves...

"Oh yeah, ZiPS loves Brandon Belt and at least in the short term has him as the best 1B prospect in baseball." - Dan Szymborski

"Totally legitimate in my opinion, and second-only to Eric Hosmer among first base prospects." - John Sickels

I've even admittedly gotten caught up in the hype, as I've already launched a Facebook fan page entitled "Brandon Belt: 2011 Rookie of the Year"

For more on Belt, check out his interview with Mychael Urban.

Future Focus

September call-ups will be in a few weeks, so I thought it would be interesting to see the projections for possible September call-ups. I used a Minor League Equivalency Calculator to figure out what their stats might be in the majors, based on their performance thus far. This is of course all theoretical, but it might still be interesting to see:

These are the projections (note - they clearly will not get this many AB in the majors this year). Belt is currently with the AA Richmond Flying Squirrels, but the other four are in Fresno AAA:

Jesus Guzman: 358 AB, 41 R, 96 H, 14 2B, 12 HR, 41 RBI, 25 BB, 51 K, .269/.316/.412

Brett Pill: 430 AB, 42 R, 102 H, 24 2B, 12 HR, 57 RBI, 19 BB, 60 K, .239/.272/.380

Tyler Graham: 274 AB, 41 R, 84 H, 17 2B, 2 HR, 29 RBI, 18 BB, 45 K, .307/.339/.397, 30 SB, 9 CS

Emmanuel Burriss: 185 AB, 14 R, 48 H, 7 2B, 0 HR, 11 RBI, 7 BB, 19 K, .258/.284/.302, 5 SB, 6 CS

Brandon Belt: 144 AB, 15 R, 39 H, 6 2B, 5 HR, 24 RBI, 11 BB, 31 K, .274/.328/.483

Other notable names that I didn't do calculations for:

Conor Gillaspie, Richmond Flying Squirrels, .292/.342/.419

Thomas Neal, Richmond Flying Squirrels, .293/.361/.437

I have no idea whether any of these players will be called up. The Giants do appear to have a promising future, though, in terms of hitting.