First-Rounder Gary Brown Expected to Sign

Thanks for the welcome, computer-man!

I'm going to hold off on worrying about the lack of walks for a bit. I have blind faith that he'll adjust and start walking when he faces more pitching that doesn't just throw fastballs to the strike zone.

"So taking walks is a skill he has." Really? If we take a look at his BB%, we see... 2008: 236 PA, 18 BB, 7.6% 2009: 301 PA, 14 BB, 4.7% 2010: 237 PA, 9 BB, 3.8% The Cape Cod: 2008: 134 PA, 17 BB, 12.7% 2009: 142 PA, 10 BB, 7.0% That's 1,050 total PA and 68 total walks- 6.5% of his total collegiate plate appearances (not excluding IBB). Really, the reason why his OBP has been acceptable is due to his penchant for getting hit by pitches and contact rate. And as he faces better competition, that is likely to go down. Brown has never shown the skill for walking aside from his 134 PA in 2008- and that would appear to be an anomaly, considering how he's never approached anything near that since. By Major League standards, Brown is below average when it comes to drawing walks. Now, take into consideration the fact that he's posting below average Major League walk rates against COLLEGIATE pitchers, and it's even more astounding just how little selectivity he's shown. If Brown can learn to walk at an acceptable rate, I think he'll be an invaluable asset given his tools. If not, then hopefully he'll have an Ichiro-like contact rate to compensate for that. But I don't think anyone can say that Brown has shown a legitimate skill to take a walk.

Brown is essentially a tools player with some polish. As the article on Triples Alley pointed out he'll have to hit .285-.290 with his current walk rate to be an average major leaguer with regards to OBP. Maybe I'm missing something, but since when was it a good idea to use your top pick on a player that projects to be average. Granted he can play great defense so that may be enough, but that's assuming he continues to hit somewhere in the same stratosphere he did in college. All that being said, from a non-sabermetrics perspective, I really don't like his swing. He has a number of hitches in his swing that will be exploited at the next level. Also, his lower half is a total mess, which is kind of big deal since that is really what you hit with. Unlike a lot of players who have trouble with breaking balls at the next level he is going to have a hard time with the fastball, especially fastballs up and fastballs in. He has very quick hands, but they seem to have developed some bad habits in him and are quite often out of position. The more I dig, the less I like this pick and was really hoping that he wouldn't sign and the Giants would pick up a compensatory pick in next year's much deeper draft.

I think we agree that he needs to be able to take walks in the pros. And that's my point, when he was not that good a hitter, not a .400+ hitter, in his freshman year, he did dial it back and took his walks, in order that his OBP was acceptable. So taking walks is a skill he has. He exhibited in his freshman year, and he only got more aggressive when he became a better hitter in his sophomore and junior years. I have no problem with that because the hits were worth much more than the walks he could have worked for. An example of worthless plate discipline was Pedro Feliz getting more patient later in his years with the Giants but then his home run rate fell by a large percentage, and left a hitter who didn't hit well, still didn't walk enough, and didn't hit for enough power (for a 3B). At least before he was hitting for homerun power before and driving in some runs.

I thought the point that OCG was making was different. It is that Brown can perfectly well walk a little more rather than swing at everything, the proof being that he did just that early in his Fullerton career and in the Cape Cod league. He stopped walking when he started hitting so well that walking was less productive. This hypothesis suggests that he is making rational choices, not that he is lacking in plate discipline or hacking away like a player desperately trying to get noticed so he can get out of poverty.

Taking his 2010 stats, I took the linear weights of 5 AB and compared it with 5 walks and at the rate he was hitting, 5 AB was worth more than the 5 walks. So I have no problem with his decision to swing when he did. Yes, but that's the point. He's not going to be hitting .400+ as a pro player. He might want to walk a little more, or at least dial back his swing-at-everything approach.

http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100816&... http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/?p=2848 Signed for $1.45M

Giants sign Brown for $1.45M: http://www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/?p=2848 Here is the Giants official announcement: http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100816&... If you look at his freshman year, both at Fullerton and in Cape Cod league, he was savvy enough to draw walks in order to get on base because he wasn't good enough to get on base via hits at that point of his development. As he got better at hitting, he took less walks, particularly this past season. Taking his 2010 stats, I took the linear weights of 5 AB and compared it with 5 walks and at the rate he was hitting, 5 AB was worth more than the 5 walks. So I have no problem with his decision to swing when he did.

Woo! and Welcome.

I don't have anything constructive to say right now, but I finally registered for Bay City Ball! So, yay!!