The San Francisco Giants are always looking for unseen gold in the baseball mine and in the Rule 5 draft, the Giants selected one player in the major league half and three in the minor league side of the draft.
San Francisco lost one player in the AAA draft for their only lost player.
San Francisco used their first choice (14th overall) on a pitcher from the Mets system in righthander Dedniel Nunez.
Nunez is a typical Rule 5 pick as he is a little older (24), throws hard (the mid to high 90s), and hasn't proven himself at a high level, but has one specific stat to recommend him.
Nunez has never pitched above High A and split 2019 between Low A Columbia and High A St.Lucie, finishing 5-4 with a 4.39 ERA between the two levels in 16 appearances, 15 of those being starts. Those numbers are pretty pedestrian, until you look at 94 strikeouts in 80 innings, walking 23, and hitters hit only .239 against him.
Add in the Giants' lack of righthanded relievers (at this time) and you have the template for the perfect Rule 5 pick- Throws hard and can be hidden in the bullpen.
San Francisco selected three players in the AAA draft and all are interesting players for different reasons.
25-year-old outfielder Vince Fernandez was selected from the Colorado Rockies with the first of their three picks.
Fernandez has shown power since the Rockies picked him in round ten of the 2016 draft from UC-Riverside with sixty homers in his four years as a pro.
Fernandez hit .257 with 15 homers in 230 at-bats for AA Hartford in 2019, so he has some pop from the left side of the plate, but he did strike out 86 times (once in a little under every three at-bats) with Hartford and I'm not sure that he'll make enough contact to hit the bigs.
The Giants have hit on similar types before, but as always with the Rule 5 draft, it will take luck.
Fernandez will, at minimum, provide power to either AAA Sacramento or AA Richmond.
In the second round, the Giants selected
Ronnie Williams, a pitcher from the St.Louis Cardinals organization that was once thought of as a top prospect after the Cardinals selected him in the second round of the 2014 draft out of high school.
Williams turns 25 in January and reached AA for the first time in 2019 when he split the season between High A Palm Beach and AA Springfield.
Williams career has been hampered by injuries and was moved to the bullpen by the Cardinals before 2018,
Williams is noted to throw in the nineties, but his strikeout numbers ( 58 in 58 innings in 2019) are good, but not great considering the scouting reports.
Williams seems worth the check because the scouts seem to love him even if the results haven't lived up to the reports.
Williams will likely start with AA Richmond.
And the third-round selection is familiar as the Giants took
Mitchell Tolman, a second baseman from the New York Mets.
Tolman signed with the Mets in the off-season after being released by the Pittsburgh Pirates in June.
Tolman hit .254 with four homers in 401 at-bats for AA Altoona in 2019 before a twelve game cameo at AAA Indianapolis to finish the season.
The second baseman was drafted by the Pirates in the seventh round from Oregon in 2015 and will turn 27 in June.
Tolman will likely play at either AAA Sacramento or AA Richmond as an organizational soldier, depending on which team is in need of a second baseman/utility infielder more.
Tolman also stands out not because I've seen him play often as a member of the now-defunct West Virginia Power and the Altoona Curve.
Tolman stands out because of the infamous "Toastman" Rod Blackstone and his chants during one of our trips to Charleston.
For whatever reason, Rod's chants for Tolman "He's our Soul Man, Mitchell Tolman" was the one chant that stuck with me and I had to recite it to Mitchell when I met him two years later in Altoona at the Meet the Curve dinner.
Mitchell started laughing and several of the Curve players that had played in West Virginia started doing it as well...
The Giants lost one player in the draft, infielder
Jalen Miller, who was selected by Atlanta in the second round.
Miller was the Giants 3rd round pick out of Smyrna Georgia as a high schooler in 2015 but has struggled to make contact as a pro.
Miller turns 24 next week and after taking two years to get past High A, Miller hit .216 with 14 homers and 27 steals for AA Richmond in 2019 but continued a string of striking out more than 100 times in each of the four full seasons that he was in the Giants system.
I'll be back later with the PPM and the boxing challenge headed by Anthony Joshua defending three of the four heavyweight titles against Kubrat Pulev on Saturday.
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