The Cycle.............

[opzoneworld]

For the most part, everyone seems happy with the 1st round of the 2007 draft and the 1st round of the 2008 draft. On paper our drafts look good enough to give us a few Top 100 prospects in the near future. However, very few of our 1st rounders have panned out. Can we really break this cycle?

2000 - John Bonser (bust)

2001 - Brad Hennessey (major disappointment)
Noah Lowry (great pick)
Todd Linden (huge bust)

2002 - Matt Cain (extremely great pick)

2003 - David Aardsma (never lived up to potential)
Roger Whitaker (who?)

2006 - Tim Lincecum (best pick to this point)
Emmanuel Burriss (very promising but too early to tell)

2007 - Madison Bumgarner (very promising)
Timothy Alderson (very promising)
Wendell Fairley (?)
Nicholas Noonan (very promising)
Jackson Williams (potential bust)
Charles Culberson (?)

2008 - Buster Posey
Conor Gillaspie

This is a very sad statistic. Can this new group of youngsters honestly break the trend?

[footballfanatic]

I'm sorry, but in the last 6 years, we've drafted 3 staff aces in Lincecum, Cain, and Bumgarner, and a great reliever in Aardsma(currently has a 2.73 ERA at the age of 26...not living up to potential and being a bad pick are two completely different things) We have also gotten a few position players who have great, albeit unrealized, potential(Noonan, Fairley, etc.).

The Giants really have gotten a bad wrap when it comes to drafting(mostly because they have drafted so many pitchers, the large majority of which have panned out, making them great picks).

I'd be willing to bet that most baseball teams have similar track records in the draft...the majority of draft picks never even see AAA.

[opzoneworld]

I'll give you Lin and Cain like I said above but no way can you say Bumgarner is an ace. Players cannot be judged on their minor league performances. It is what they do in the majors that matters and only the majors that matters. There are countless players who dominated in the minors and could not translate that success into the majors. Bumgarner has looked like he could be an ace for sure, but to say he is one without a single inning pitched at the major league level cannot be said.

And the Noonan's and the Fiarley's, as you say, are the point I'm trying to make. We have young players again with loads of potential much like we did with Linden and Ortmier and Niekro and even Lewis. Yet none of these players have reached their potential. Lewis has looked good this year but with his tools there is no reason why he should not be an all-star.

Will the Noonan's and the Fiarley's continue to be so-so major leaguers or can the Giants figure out a way to fully tap these kid's potential? That remains to be seen.

[footballfanatic]

From that post, I'm honestly confused at your point in this thread. The OP is based almost entirely on minor league performances/potential, but then you turn around and say that stuff doesn't matter(which it does, very much so, but you're right, Bumgarner isn't an ace yet, but he profiles as one, and from what he's shown in A ball at the age 18 has been incredibly impressive). 8 out of the 18 players you listed are still in the low minors, and are still very young so to label them as "busts" or to list them as evidence for the Giants poor drafting is the same as me calling Bumgarner an ace before he's reached AA(which again, I shouldn't have said, even though I'm in love with his stuff).

Also, it seems that this thread is more about the Giants ability(or lack thereof) to develop talent, rather than their ability to draft it.

I don't think there's any evidence(especially in the recent drafts) to support the idea that the Giants are in some kind of cycle of bad drafting...