Giants 2015 Draft Notes

[Giants]

1-27 RHP Michael Matuella - I've never prepared less for a draft, because I was sure one of Bickford or Fox would make it 27 and who cares? Obviously that didn't happen, so we scramble. This is a weak draft class, and Matuella is probably the greatest risk/reward pick out there. Best case scenario is that he's Lucas Giolito and he'll be fine and he'll be the best pitching prospect in baseball by the end of 2017, worst case scenario he never even throws a minor league pitch. But he's got the potential to be an ace, and outside of the Dominican lottery tickets I don't see a ton of superstar potential at this point in the draft so I think it's worth the risk as opposed to one of the safer college arms, and we'll get an answer on Matuella faster than some of the higher upside high school arms. He's also likely to end up as a trade piece for a CF upgrade or something this year. We shall see.

2-27 (57th) SS Jalen Miller - This is perhaps a little reachy here, but I don't think he'd be around at 87 and dammit I wanted a Giants prospect. BP is super high on him, rating him 4th in the Giants system, though he doesn't appear on BA's top 10. The various outlets rated him between 35th-51st best prospects in this draft and he would have gone quite a bit higher if there weren't signability concerns. The Giants gave him $1.1M to forego college, and he's one of those huge toolshed types who might turn into nothing or a superstar or anything in between. The most popular comp for him is Brandon Phillips, which would be a pretty sweet outcome.

3-27 (87th) CF Daryle DJ Wilson - Trusting the Cubbies and their ability to find hitting prospects. The 5'8 speedster was the last hitter in the draft to get a million dollar bonus to buy him out of a Vanderbilt commitment. I've seen comps to Ben Revere and Adam Eaton, and I think he has a shot to be a solid starting CF by the time Dyson stops being an elite defender.

4-27 (117th) CF Skye Bolt - 80 grade name, had a monster freshman year at North Carolina, then got hurt midseason and never quite matched that performance. Has all the tools and no question that he can play CF, but questions about his hitting performance let him slip this far. Had a .706 OPS in the NY-Penn League and should start next year for a full season team. The rare college lottery ticket.

5-27 (147th) 3B Jose Vizcaino - Of course we had to wrap this up with a Giant, and not just a Giant but also the only guy drafted out of my alma mater, Santa Clara University, which hasn't had a major league position player since Randy Winn (Daniel Nava played there for a year but was a JC guy before independent ball etc. etc., and Tommy Medica had a cup of coffee but major leaguer would be a stretch). So Jose Vizcaino son must be a skinny glove first SS right? Wrong. He's 6'2 and an oddly specific 218 lbs of powerful third baseman, who put up a .288/.351/.457 in the NWL with respectable K/BB rates. I'll be honest, I have absolutely no idea what to make of Matt Duffy, so I don't know if JVJ is blocked, but I think he has a chance to be a big leaguer and quickly. Also, he was a Dodger draftee out of high school and he said this before the draft

"I bleed Dodger blue, but no matter what team would draft me, I’d like to play,"

As Grant wrote on McCovey Chronicles, what could possibly go wrong?