While the San Francisco Giants struggle, their top prospects are making a statement

Randy Winn might be the luckiest high-ranking executive in the San Francisco Giants’ front office.

When you are the future-focused vice president of player development, you don’t have to think so hard about the present. And after dropping two of three over the weekend to the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, the Giants rival the New York Mets as the biggest disappointment in the National League. They are 23-36 and club president Buster Posey has pushed every conceivable button in an effort to shake up a team that hasn’t done anything consistently well over the first two months of the season.

The Giants already promoted top hitting prospect Bryce Eldridge. They reassigned third-base coach Hector Borg. In a move that could be described as bold or desperate, they reached down to Double-A Richmond on Sunday while calling up outfielder Jonah Cox, who was hitting .400 with 27 stolen bases for the Flying Squirrels.

Cox, whom the Giants acquired from the Athletics for right-hander Ross Stripling, made his major-league debut as a pinch runner in the Giants’ 19-6 victory Sunday and collected a hit in his first plate appearance, hitting against Rockies catcher Brett Sullivan. He’s expected to be in the lineup Monday at Milwaukee as the Giants seek to replace Harrison Bader, who is on the injured list for the second time this season (with plantar fasciitis this time).

It’s too much to ask Cox, a 23-year-old rookie, to bring all the mojo from Richmond, where the Flying Squirrels were 34-16 entering Sunday and had won 19 of 24 in their new ballpark. At some point, though, the Giants have to hope they can carry over some of their high-flying minor-league success to the big leagues. Each of their top three affiliates is in first place, and while the standings aren’t the first data point in determining a healthy farm system, it’s been a welcome sight for Winn and farm director Kyle Haines.

Winn took some time with The Athletic to review the year on the farm thus far:

A general question to start: So much of player development has changed since you came up through the minors. Now that you’re in Year 2 of leading the department with Kyle Haines, what have you learned about the current state of player development? Has anything surprised you?

I think the biggest change has also been the biggest surprise, and it’s the number of people that are in and around player development. From an extra coach on every staff to Triple A, where it’s a couple extra guys, and then in player development, you’ve got an analytics staff, biomechanics staff, nutrition, strength and conditioning, physical therapy. It is a very, very large department. So I think that’s been the biggest change.

And then there’s coordinating all those people and all the information they generate. In biomechanics, they have research projects — some of them are deep dives — and it’s figuring out where the information goes, what to do with it, how to filter it. All of that stuff is a topic for me, maybe not on a daily basis, but on a very regular basis.

How do you measure progress or the overall health of the Giants’ system? As a media ecosystem, we lean so much on the three or four entities that rank prospects and generate lists. But how do you measure progress and how much do you feel has been made?

I have not paid a lot of attention to the rankings. It comes up where certain guys are and what their number is. Are they top-100? Are they not? Should they be? Obviously, it comes across, let’s call it my desk. I tend not to focus on that. What I have focused on is what I said from Day 1: How are we playing the game? What are we teaching, what do we stand for, how do we want to play? And I think we’ve made great strides in that. Let’s take our San Jose club from last year. They obviously won (the Low-A California League title), they had a lot of talent, but the way that they played was what Buster talked about when he took the job a year-plus ago. He’s seen how championship teams play, whether it’s getting runners in from third, whether it’s bunting, good base running, pitching, pounding the zone, throwing strikes. Very loosely, my job is to take the things Buster believes in and sprinkle them through our minor-league system. To me, that’s been the biggest positive, just watching how our guys are playing.

I know that’s not maybe how others measure success. I do not think it’s wins and losses (but) I do think it’s important. You need to learn how to win in the minor leagues, and playing to the scoreboard.  That’s how you develop your character as a team.

Let’s talk about those records. Triple-A Sacramento is 32-22 and in first place. Double-A Richmond is 34-16 and in first place. They’re 19-5 in their new ballpark, too. High-A Eugene is flat-out ridiculous: 37-14 with a 10 1/2-game lead over the second-place club. Low-A San Jose is the only full-season affiliate that isn’t in first place, but the club is 28-22, has the best run differential in the Cal League and has Jhonny Level, who is probably your organizational player of the year right now. What do you chalk all this winning up to?

I know I said I don’t look at wins and losses, but that’s very nice to hear. The easiest thing to say, and what I’ll keep saying, is all the things we’ve preached and all the things we’ve hammered in the last year-plus, watching our guys go out and do it and have success on a team and individual level has been very gratifying. Guys are understanding, “OK, if I play this way, if I hustle, if I’m a good teammate, I see how that benefits the guy behind me.” It’s been exciting to watch the guys sort of eat it up and have success.

There’s been such an industry-wide movement toward developing skills, developing bat speed, developing exit velocity. On the pitching front, so much of development is about pure velocity and measurable pitch characteristics. How important is that to you, and how would you assess the current organizational infrastructure in terms of helping players to develop those skills?

Obviously, all that’s important. But I do think in general, very general, the industry has gone really far towards individual skill acquisition and not some of the stuff that we’ve talked about. I think it’s a balance between the two. We want our guys to throw hard, we want our guys to have great stuff, but we also want them to be in the zone, and we don’t want them to get injured. So how do you balance out all those things? Yes, we are trying to acquire new skills — we have drills and all sorts of stuff for all these things that you mentioned — but that’s not the focus. It’s, “How hard can you hit the ball and still be under control?” Or, “How hard can you swing but still make contact?” If you’re a hitter and you’re swinging so hard that you have no balance or no adjustability, then you start to have diminishing returns. It’s marrying the two.

You’ve drafted a lot of contact-oriented hitters in the past two years. Is there an organizational hitting philosophy that’s built around contact?

Sounds silly, but every great power hitter makes contact. Right? I do think that power is one of the last things to come. There are a few examples like Bryce Eldridge, who’s big and strong. But if I reflect back on my career, my development, watching the players around me, there were lots of players that were good line-drive hitters, good contact hitters, and as they progressed, they figured out how to hit the ball out of the park. There’s a lot more examples of those hitters than power guys who learn how to make more contact. We did trend towards contact guys in the draft, but we’ve got some guys that can hit the ball out of the park, too.

You mentioned Eldridge. Now that he’s graduated to the big leagues, is he out of your purview? Or do you keep an eye on how players continue to develop in the big leagues?

I’m not on the major-league staff. I’m not the manager. That’s Tony (Vitello) and his job. If he ever wanted to ask me anything, he could. We do have a lot of communication around the 40-man (roster) guys, their strengths and weaknesses, what they’re working on. It is a shared job to develop players who are at that level.

Let’s talk about some players. What should we make of Jonah Cox’s hot start for Richmond? 

Really good. Jonah’s always had great speed, been a great base runner, great base stealer, and a tremendous defender. Now this year we’re seeing more contact. You would see flashes of him able to drive the ball or causing havoc with the speed, or the ability to drive the ball in the right-center gap. But he worked hard this spring and was in a really good spot coming out of spring training. He made some adjustments and we’re seeing a really consistent, short swing with a middle-of-the-field approach, and it’s paying dividends. He’s a great athlete, great hand-eye. It’s been very impressive.

Parks Harber got a late start because of his hamstring injury in the spring, but it looks like he’s gotten in a power-hitting groove quickly for Richmond.

He was having a tremendous spring and now he’s back and swinging the bat really well, playing third, playing first, playing a little bit of left field. He did that for us last year, so it’s the same plan: playing corner infield and corner outfield.

Dakota Jordan?

I would say he’s played well without having his best stuff. That was a conversation that we were having just last week. It’s a good learning lesson when you don’t feel right or your timing’s off. You need to figure out how to compete and get hits, and that’s what he’s done. He hasn’t hit for a ton of power yet. I’m assuming that’s coming. But he’s still driving in a ton of runs, playing great defense, he’s stealing bases. He’s very, very talented. I would say he is playing well without really getting on that hot streak. He’s missed a bunch of pitches he felt he should’ve hit. I had to tell him, “It’s fine.” You can have a terrible month and still have a great season.

How much is Eugene’s record a reflection of the Emeralds’ manager? Jacob Heyward has a lot of fans in the organization and he’s certainly getting results in his first experience managing a full-season club.

Jacob’s been great. He did a great job with the Arizona complex team last year. He’s not the loudest guy, but he commands respect, holds the players accountable. Tremendous worker. He’s done a really nice job.

Outfielder Scott Bandura just got promoted to Triple A. What can you say about his progress?

Scott had a very good year last year and didn’t play quite as well at Double A. But he really worked hard in the offseason. Got a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger. He has really good bat-to-ball skills. He has a unique ability to, when he’s off-balance, still put the ball in play. I really like that about him, even if that’s not something you want to do all the time. He’s got speed, plays corner outfield really well, and the ball is traveling for him now that he’s stronger. He hit a ball early in the season — caught a fastball deep for a line drive — and the left fielder just stood there. Went out of the park. Kind of like Jonah: He’s a guy who can impact the game in a lot of ways.

Obviously, the system is tilted toward position players, but on the pitching side, does Joe Whitman stand out for you this season?

He has pitched great. His May has been phenomenal. We didn’t add any pitches. It’s just been consistency, throwing fastball to both sides of the plate, throwing slider for strikes and then expanding off. It sounds very basic, but he wasn’t doing that consistently last year. Yeah, his fastball has played up a little this year (touching 95 mph), but I don’t think that’s the main reason he’s having success. He’s a bit funky, so even at 93, he can get his fastball on top of guys. It’s really the consistency and command of his pitches.

Jacob Bresnahan started the season late. How’s he looking now?

I just saw him in Eugene. He was up to 97 at one point. For him, it’s about consistency of secondary pitches to go along with an explosive fastball. We landed on some grips and shapes he liked last season. Watching him last week, it was uncomfortable for hitters. They were taking some funky swings and funky takes. His fastball gets on top of guys.

Out of Keyner Martinez and Argenis Cayama, who’s further along?

That’s tough, but I’ll say Cayama. He got fatigued (at the end of last year) and it wasn’t a good showing. But he was really good in Arizona. Both of them have been really good. Cayama is throwing four-seam and two-seam fastballs and has a really good feel for his slider. He’s back to throwing as hard as he did last year. Keyner is up to 97, has a good feel for the slider, still getting a feel for the changeup. When Keyner went up (to San Jose) last year, he looked like he’d been there before. He’s not afraid to go after hitters.

It doesn’t seem like you have another fast-rising prospect like Ryan Walker was a couple years ago who could impact the big-league bullpen this season. But Tyler Vogel impressed when he made some Cactus League appearances. He’s also walked 17 in 20 innings while closing for Richmond. If he throws more strikes, could he move quickly?

I don’t think he’s put himself on that map yet. But his peripheral numbers are very good. He does need to throw the ball over the plate more. He’s got four really good pitches. If he’s in the strike zone more, he could put himself in that position. Marques Johnson is another guy who had a really good spring, and when he’s in the strike zone, it’s been really good.

Is Level the ultra-rare switch hitter who doesn’t have a weak side? How do you not get too excited about a player like that?

I’ve said this about Jhonny: If I could go back and do it all over again as a switch hitter, I would take his swings. They’re simple. They’re repeatable. It’s the right move. His ability to handle in-zone stuff, he just doesn’t swing and miss. Now this year, he’s not chasing as much. He has confidence that if you throw something over the plate, he’ll do damage.

When you see a box score that says “Giants 23, Dodgers 2,” does it matter that it happens in the Arizona Complex League?

Oh, I was there. I watched it live. I mean, beating the Dodgers is always nice, right? The two guys that get the most hype down there had tremendous days.

Josuar Gonzalez scored six runs and Luis Hernández drove in nine. That qualifies as tremendous.

Tremendous days. You watch them, and you dream on it, and you hope they’re doing that up here against the big Dodgers. Josuar is a very electric player. His ability to influence the game from multiple spots on the field, whether it’s making a great defensive play, hitting the ball in the gap, hitting the ball over the fence, base running, base stealing, he puts a lot of pressure on the opposing team. That’s what makes him so exciting. You have to account for him. They talk about that in football: You have to account for a guy when he’s on the field. Josuar is that type of player. You have to account for him. He’s a very exciting, explosive player.

And Luis is very polished. He has an incredibly short, direct swing for a kid at that age. You go to a Perfect Game event or a tryout camp and you see guys swinging hard and throwing hard. His swing is very under control. You can tell he has a very good understanding of the strike zone and how to hit. It’s very impressive for a kid at his age. I happen to know the person he worked out with (in Venezuela). I played with Carlos Guillén in Seattle. I watched Carlos take ground balls and how fundamentally sound he was. Just catch it, quick shuffle and throw. Watching Luis do that at age 17 is very impressive. And then he’ll make a throw and remind you that he’s got a great arm, too.

What is your development plan for those two, especially in light of the pitching issues teams are having in the ACL? Are they alternating between middle-infield positions?

They’ll play both short and second. Luis will probably play some third as well. We don’t feel like that’s going to hurt or slow down their development. I really think you can learn aspects of a position by playing another position. You’re understanding how to help your teammate out when you see the game from another angle.

Do you hope to keep them on the same level as they move up?

Hope is too strong a word. Ultimately, you let the player tell you where they should go and how soon they should move. We’re just gonna let this play out, hopefully sit back and enjoy it. If one of them takes off, then that player could move a little bit faster. We don’t have anything, like, mapped out yet. We’re just going to kind of sit back and see what they do.

How soon do you plan to challenge them with a promotion to San Jose?

I would like them to. Jhonny was able to go up to San Jose at the end of last year and I think that really helped him to get a taste of it and be a little humbled by it. You really understand the monster you’re chasing. It would be nice for that to happen to the other two, but developmentally, you have to just see how it plays out.

We know that player development is important to Buster Posey, but he’s also been inundated with trying to fix the many issues with the major-league roster. Has he gotten to spend as much time in player development as he’d like to?

You’d have to ask him. He did go with me to Eugene this year. He’s expressed interest in seeing all the levels. We went to the Dominican last year. As much as he’d like? I assume he’d like to be in all places all the time. He knows his job is about today and it’s also about tomorrow. We’ll talk hitters, what we feel it takes to win, and it’s my job to pass that along.

Finally, how do you feel about the state of the system from now compared to when you started?

The way the teams have started, they’ve done everything that we’ve asked them to do in terms of how we would like the game to be played. Has it been perfect? Do we want more? Yes, but I would say I’m happy. Happy but not satisfied.