The Giants were unable to break out their orange and black colored brooms and sweep the struggling Arizona Diamondbacks in yesterday’s 2-1 loss. Sanchez made one of his “longer” starts of the year by going 5.2 innings against Arizona. But, Sanchez’s #1 problem in ’09 came back to bite him — that problem being control or the lack off.

Sanchez’s Location (balls vs. strikes) courtesy of Brooks Baseball.

Click to enlarge

You can see from the location plot that Sanchez missed up in the zone a good bit. He’s still striking hitters out — he recorded 5 strikeouts in this particular game — but he still needs to get a grip on his control. With his BB/9 currently at 6.71, he’s like the anti-Roy Halladay. His 4.63 FIP is respectable but the control desperately needs to improve.

—

The First Year Player Draft has been completed. Let’s check out a few guys that the Giants drafted but we haven’t talked about yet.

• RHP Jason Stoffel, Arizona – The Giants picked Stoffel in the 4th round with the 117th overall pick. In BA’s pre-draft rankings, they had Stoffel ranked as the 62nd best talent entering the draft. Before the college baseball season started, Stoffel was tabbed to be a 1st round pick but an inconsistent season cost him draft position. In previous seasons Stoffel was throwing in the mid-90′s but his fastball lost some velocity in ’09 and he was as low as 90-91mph at times. His slider also lost some bite in ’09 as well. I’m not a fan of drafting relievers, but if Stoffel can regain some pitch quality (velocity on the heater, break on the slider) he might move fast through the minor leagues. In ’08 at Arizona he struck out 79 batters in 48 innings — a K/9 of 14.8. That’s the kind of arm the Giants would like to get. In ’09 he struck out 55 hitters in 54 innings, a sharp drop in his K/9. With Stoffel the Giants have a bit of a project. If they can iron out his kinks, he could find himself in the back-end of the big league bullpen.
• 1B Brandon Belt, Texas – MLB.com has him listed as an OF, but Belt has played first base for Texas. If you watch the video linked above, you can see that his swing mechanics aren’t conducive to hitting for power. He drops his hands and swings out of a semi-crouch. He’s made good contact while in college. He hit .340 this past season with 16 2B’s and 8 HR’s. BA notes that his hitting approach is based on going the opposite way. He was drafted as a pitcher in ’06 but the Giants announced him as a 1B. You can add him to the pile of 1B’s drafted by the Giants this year.
• RHP Jeremy Toole, Brigham Young – Picked up in the 10th round, Toole throws hard — touching mid-90′s — but his control is problematic, walking 53 hitters in 83 innings this year. His delivery has been described as violent which might be leading to some of his control problems. He’s also missed some time in college with arm soreness. He’s your usual ‘live arm’ but he might be able to make it in a starting role because he also throws a slider and a changeup. Good 10th round gamble.