Giants Prospect Primer: Bonus cuts
By tylermaun2
By Tyler Maun/MiLB.com
Yes, the Giants know what year it is. Every other season since the beginning of the decade has ended with San Francisco players celebrating a world title. The seasons in between, like 2015, have ended without postseason play in the Bay Area. With another underwhelming season behind them, the Giants are ready to restock and make another run in the National League West. Earlier this month, I had an extended conversation with San Francisco director of player development Shane Turner in his Scottsdale office, and he had much more to say beyond just what was included in our Giants Prospect Primer.
On the success of his system feeding three World Series title teams:
“For me, this is a simple process as far as I put my head down and I go to work. It is that simple. I am blue collar, working class. This is who I am and what we do. I’ve got a great staff of hardworking people. I think that’s the first thing. We have a bunch of guys here who aren’t looking for a pat on the back. We don’t need a thank you. You see those guys play in the big leagues, and you see them have the success that they’re having, that’s our thank you.
“I go back to 2010 when we won. 2011 came and we had a lot of injuries, and we didn’t have a lot of answers in the Minor Leagues. I didn’t sleep for a year, I don’t think. It was just a really helpless feeling from my perspective. You’re feeling like you’re letting people down. It really made me realize that there’s a sense of urgency every single day, which is why you don’t hold people back. If they look like they’ve got a level figured out, push them because you don’t know when that call’s going to come when they’re going to need somebody [at the big league level]. We have really tried to instill that in our players to prepare today like the call’s coming tomorrow because I don’t even know what’s coming, so how are you going to know what’s coming?
“We put a lot of pressure on our players to perform in practice, to perform in games. We really push them. Now we’re there to coach them and support them when it doesn’t work out the way they want it to, but I think that’s part of it too. You’re not getting four hits every day. You’re not going to make every single play. Things are going to happen. We do everything we can so when a Kelby Tomlinson gets called up last year, he feels like he’s ready mentally and physically. It is satisfying, but I don’t sit back and enjoy it too much. I’ve got to prepare the next guy.”
On former Giants prospect Cody Hall (now with the D-backs), who gave up baseball as a high school junior before picking it up in junior college and making his big league debut last season with San Francisco:
“Cody brought an intensity to work every single day that is probably pretty unmatched. You could tell every day that he was not going to give anything away today to get to the big leagues, or if he failed to get to the big leagues, that he left it all on the table. Every single day, everything he did to the point sometimes where you had to tell him to calm down a little bit, but I would much rather have a kid who works too hard and is too intense that you go, ‘OK, remember in Major League Baseball, it’s every single day. You can’t punch a water cooler every time you don’t strike the side out.’ Great kid. Off-the-chart work ethic. He just willed himself to the big leagues. He really did.”
On the playoff-style experience of top prospect Christian Arroyo, who won gold with USA Baseball at the 2012 IBAF 18U World Championships and an Arizona Fall League crown with Scottsdale in 2015:
“It’s important. You’re always trying to evaluate players in pressure situations whether it be just that game or the playoffs. I’m always looking at, you talk about a guy going 2-for-4, well, he gets two hits when you win, 15–1. You’ve got other kids who go 2-for-4, and they tied the game and won the game. You’re always trying to evaluate that. His experience and all that has allowed him to understand how to control his breathing, how to calm himself down, how to slow things down instead of getting caught up in the moment and getting all excited. The adrenaline’s rushing and you’re really not controlling the situation. You’re letting the situation control you.”
On the benefits of having a host of good shortstop prospects such as Arroyo and Lucius Fox:
“It does give you depth because shortstops can play all over the infield. They can move left and right. I feel the same way in the outfield with center fielders. Center fielders can play left and right field. Sometimes maybe they outgrow center field, but they won’t become just true left fielders and right fielders because they’ll always be a little more athletic than that. It gives you options. When you look around our infield in the big leagues, those guys’ ability to play in the middle, especially at shortstop, which is more difficult, it made the transition easy. You could keep them there until you saw what your big league club needed. And maybe somebody doesn’t develop and you still have a couple options to turn and look at.”
On continuing to show faith in former top prospect Kyle Crick:
“We try to let our players know that we support them. We also tell them that before this is done, whether it gets you where you want to or not, we’re going to look under every stone. We’re not going to quit until we’ve done everything we could absolutely figure out, find out, discover. We’re not afraid to maybe do something a little different. It should make them feel comfortable, but again, sometimes when you’re that player in that situation, you get disappointed in yourself. That can be the hardest thing to get over. Parents are calling and asking what’s going on. Friends are calling. It can be a difficult thing to say, ‘You know what, I’m just going to focus on this’ when that phone keeps ringing.”
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In the days after Goose Gossage’s comments regarding advanced statistics in baseball, Turner also addressed the mixture of old school and new school tactics in player development.
