Minor League roundup, May 27: Walker Martin takes off

Yesterday’s action on the farm.

Apologies for the sporadic Minor League Baseball updates lately, but I’ve been traveling a bit and it’s thrown off my schedule. But the San Francisco Giants had two of their affiliates in action on Monday, so we might as well talk about them!

Link to the 2024 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)

All listed positions in the roundup are the positions played in that particular game.

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News

A few pieces of news from the last few days. Most notably, there were a huge number of awards won by Giants Minor Leaguers last week, signaling just how fantastic the week was. The organization had the Player of the Week (a position player award) in 3 of their 4 leagues, with AAA Sacramento utility player Tyler Fitzgerald (No. 15 CPL), AA Richmond center fielder Grant McCray (No. 12 CPL), and Low-A San Jose outfielder Alexander Suarez winning the Pacific Coast League, Eastern League, and California League Player of the Week awards, respectively. And on top of that, half of their affiliates also nabbed Pitcher of the Week awards, with AA Richmond LHP John Michael Bertrand and Low-A San Jose RHP Ubert Mejias winning their league’s respective honors.

There was also some injury news on the farm. AAA Sacramento outfielder Wade Meckler (No. 11 CPL) moved his rehab assignment from the ACL to Low-A San Jose, while fellow River Cats outfielder Yusniel Díaz had less fortunate news, and was transferred from the 7-Day IL to the 60-Day IL.

The Giants signed RHP Josh Wolf to a Minor League contract, and while Wolf hasn’t been very good in his career thus far, there’s a lot of potential in his arm: he was a 2nd-round pick in 2019 and is still just 23 years old. He has an intriguing fastball/slider combo (which we know the Giants love), and generates a lot of groundballs, but his ERA has lived firmly in the 5s and 6s in all of his stops thus far in his career. The Giants are assigning him to the ACL for now, where he replaces fellow Minor League free agent RHP Kyle Cody, who was moved up to High-A Eugene.

And finally, RHP Wil Jensen was promoted from AA Richmond to AAA Sacramento. Congrats, Wil!

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Low-A San Jose (26-19)

San Jose Giants lost to the Fresno Grizzlies (Rockies) 3-1
Box score

The rare Monday game for an A-Ball affiliate, as the Baby Giants and Grizzlies started their series a day early before taking an off-day today.

A pretty solid pitching game, with San Jose using a pair of piggybacking starters and not needing to dip into any honest-to-goodness relievers. It was a pair of fairly unheralded pitchers who are having good seasons that got the job done, with strong outings from both LHP Dylan Carmouche and RHP Shane Rademacher. Carmouche, a tall southpaw who was the team’s 15th-round pick a year ago, kicked things off and allowed just 1 run in 5 strong innings, giving up 7 baserunners and striking out 4 batters. He pounded the strike zone, throwing 52 of 77 pitches for strikes, and even though he didn’t get many grounders, a double was the only extra-base hit against him.

It was great to see Carmouche have such a strong start, because he’d been struggling a bit after a dynamic start to the year. Following a dud of a season debut, Carmouche had made 4 April starts with the following line: 15 innings, 6 hits, 5 walks, 2 runs, 0 earned runs, and 17 strikeouts. But in his 1st 4 May appearances, the 22-year old’s line looked much worse: 17.2 innings, 18 hits, 12 walks, 11 runs, 9 earned runs, and 15 strikeouts. So great to see him get back on track with an outing that lowered his ERA to 3.18 and his FIP to 4.38.

Rademacher’s results were a touch worse than Carmouche’s, but you could argue that he pitched a stronger game. He gave up 5 hits and 2 runs (including a home run to one Glenallen Hill Jr.) in 4 innings of work, but he didn’t walk any batters, and he threw an astounding 40 of 51 pitches in the strike zone (runs be damned, not only is that an amazing strike ratio, but needing only 51 pitches to get through 4 innings is amazing). It’s a sign of the season the 2023 undrafted free agent is having that this was one of the worst games for the 23 year old. In his last 6 outings, the righty has thrown 19 innings and allowed just 17 hits, 5 walks, 5 runs, and 3 earned runs, with 18 strikeouts. He’s sitting on a delightful 3.10 ERA and 3.65 FIP so far this year.

The offense was a different story. Practically a non-story. The Baby Giants mustered just 4 baserunners: 2 hits, 1 walk, and 1 hit batter. No player reached base twice, but designated hitter Cesar Quintas had a nice game, hitting 1-3 and providing all the offense with a solo home run.

After having an eye-popping .372 batting average and .506 on-base percentage in the ACL a year ago, Quintas got off to a very slow start in San Jose. But he’s slowly starting to look more and more like the dynamic batter we saw a year ago. It’s a small sample size, but in his last 4 games, the righty is hitting 7-14 with 2 home runs, 2 doubles, 3 walks, and just 2 strikeouts. He’s been a slow starter for his career: he had a tough debut season in the ACL in 2022 before last year’s magic, so maybe he just needed a while in A-Ball to figure things out. He has just a .649 OPS and an 82 wRC+, but those numbers are rapidly moving up.

Left fielder Wade Meckler (No. 11 CPL) made his Low-A season debut as his rehab assignment moved up a level following 7 games in the ACL. Meckler hit 0-3 with a walk and 2 strikeouts, and is clearly still trying to work the rust off: that is, remarkably, just the 2nd hitless game he’s ever had with San Jose.

ACL Giants (10-6)

ACL Giants beat the ACL Angels 10-4 (7 innings)
Box score

Well, well, well. It appears that shortstop Walker Martin (No. 7 CPL, 20 years, 2023 2nd-round) has arrived. We’ve all been waiting for Martin after the Giants held him out of play last year following the draft, held him out of A-Ball to start this year, and then had him sidelined due to an injury. The 1st few games went the way you’d expect for a debuting player: through 4 games, the lefty hit 2-12 with no extra-base hits, no walks, and 9 strikeouts. It had been a long time since he’d played a competitive game, and when he did, it was against high schoolers! So some rust is to be expected.

But there was no rust on Monday. Martin put all his potential on display in his 5th professional game, hitting 2-3 with 2 home runs, a walk, and a strikeout. That’s a mighty fine introduction from where I’m sitting!

I would assume that the Giants would love to get Martin in A-Ball if he can get up to speed, so it will be fun to see how his bat plays in the coming days and weeks. Mostly it’s just good to have such an electric player on the field. Now can we please get Rayner Arias back in action, too?

The other big hit came from a rehabbing player, as third baseman Christian Koss hit 1-3 with a 3-run home run and a walk in his 5th rehab game. Koss, a player the Giants acquired at the start of the season in a trade with the Red Sox, only played 3 games with AA Richmond before getting injured. He played quite well in those games, though, so it will be fun seeing him back in action on the East Coast soon.

A trio of other hitters had nice games as they continue nice seasons: center fielder Jose Ortiz (19 years, 2023 13th-round) hit 1-3 with a walk, which lowered his sky-high OPS to 1.141 and his wRC+ to 214; left fielder Eliam Sandoval (20 years, 2021 international signing) hit 1-2 with 2 walks and an outfield assist, and is sporting a 1.020 OPS and 163 wRC+ in his 2nd pass through the Complex League; and catcher Juan Perez (19 years, 2022 international signing) hit 2-3, bringing his OPS to .747 and his wRC+ to 109.

The pitching was less impressive, but RHP Ian Villers had another great showing as he continues his rehab assignment. Villers pitched 2 shutout innings while allowing just 2 hits and striking out a batter. It’s so great to see Villers back on the mound: the 2021 8th-round pick pitched just 8.2 innings in his debut season after getting drafted, and then a mere 3 innings in 2022 before an injury that led to him missing the rest of that season and all of 2023. He’s already nearly matched his career innings total just in this early-season rehab stint, where he has a 4.09 ERA, a 4.13 FIP, and 13 strikeouts to 4 walks in 11 innings. Some rust is to be expected after so much time on the sidelines, and that’s exactly what Villers had. But now he’s rinsing it all off. In his last 3 games, Villers has pitched 6.1 innings and allowed just 4 hits, 1 walk, and 0 runs, with 8 strikeouts. He’s probably close to heading up to his Low-A assignment.

LHP Jose Rengel (18 years, 2023 international signing) got the start, and while it wasn’t great for his ERA or WHIP, he did show a lot to be excited about. Rengel gave up 7 hits, 2 walks, and 3 runs in just 4 innings of work, but also struck out 6 batters. He’s gotten knocked around quite a bit in his 5 outings this year, but given that he’s an 18-year old in his 1st stateside season, I wouldn’t be too concerned about the 10.43 ERA or 5.81 FIP just yet. There’s a ton of talent in that arm.

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Home run tracker

Low-A Cesar Quintas (3)
ACL Walker Martin, 2 (2)
ACL Christian Koss (2 total, 1 in ACL)

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Tuesday schedule

Sacramento: vs. Tacoma, 6:45 p.m. PT
Richmond: vs. Erie, 3:35 p.m. PT
Eugene: @ Hillsboro, 6:35 p.m. PT
San Jose: Off day

Reminder that Minor League games can be watched on MLB TV.

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Injured List

Here are all the Giants Minor Leaguers currently on the IL, or any other cannot-play list.

Sacramento

RHP Blayne Enlow — Full-Season IL
OF Yusniel Díaz — 60-Day IL
INF Dariel Lopez — 60-Day IL
LHP Thomas Szapucki — 60-Day IL
RHP Cole Waites (No. 34 CPL) — 60-Day IL
LHP Chris Wright — 60-Day IL
RHP R.J. Dabovich (No. 40 CPL) — 7-Day IL
OF Wade Meckler (No. 11 CPL) — 7-Day IL (on a rehab assignment)
OF Chase Pinder — 7-Day IL
RHP Landen Roupp (No. 18 CPL) — 7-Day IL
RHP Cody Stashak — 7-Day IL

Richmond

RHP Blake Rivera — Full-Season IL
LHP Nick Zwack — Full-Season IL
RHP Michael Stryffeler — 60-Day IL
RHP William Kempner — 7-Day IL
INF Christian Koss — 7-Day IL (on a rehab assignment)
RHP Trevor McDonald (No. 20 CPL) — 7-Day IL (on a rehab assignment)
RHP Mat Olsen — 7-Day IL

Eugene

RHP Brett Standlee — Full-Season IL
SS Aeverson Arteaga (No. 14 CPL) — 60-Day IL
RHP Will Bednar — 7-Day IL (on a rehab assignment)
OF Jared Dupere — 7-Day IL

San Jose

RHP Gerelmi Maldonado (No. 26 CPL) — Full-Season IL
RHP Marques Johnson — 60-Day IL
RHP Spencer Miles — 60-Day IL
RHP Liam Simon — 60-Day IL
SS Maui Ahuna (No. 27 CPL) — 7-Day IL
RHP Sam Bower — 7-Day IL
RHP Wilkelma Castillo — 7-Day IL (on a rehab assignment)
OF Bo Davidson — 7-Day IL
RHP Mauricio Estrella — 7-Day IL (on a rehab assignment)
SS Cole Foster (No. 30 CPL) — 7-Day IL
RHP Kanoa Pagan — 7-Day IL
RHP Ian Villers — 7-Day IL (on a rehab assignment)

ACL

OF Jerar Encarnación — Not Yet Reported
RHP Luis Bermudez — Full-Season IL
RHP Chen-Hsun Lee — Full-Season IL
RHP Melvin Pineda — Full-Season IL
OF Samuel Reyes — Full-Season IL
RHP Nicolas Herold — 60-Day IL