Reading Between the Baselines: Giants start youth movement

Through the free agent signings of Barry Bonds (42 years old), Ray Durham (35), Rich Aurilia (35), Dave Roberts (34), Bengie Molina (32), and Pedro Feliz (31), the San Francisco Giants began their Post-Barry Bonds Youth Movement.

I’m serious.

Bonds and Feliz signed for just one year. Durham and Aurilia are inked for two, while Roberts and Molina are on for three. This leaves the Giants with an entirely clean offensive slate in 2010, the precise time by which the team can realistically expect to draft and develop some impact bats.

Of course, this brings up the question of whether or not San Francisco will be able to build a young offensive core with the draft and other transactions anytime soon.

There’s so much talk about how the Giants haven’t developed an average major league hitter since Bill Mueller (15^th round, 1993), who wasn’t even that good for that long. But how many people know that it has been nine years since San Francisco last used a first round pick on a hitter?

Giants 1st Round Draft Picks Since 1998
Year	Player	Pick	Position
1997	Jason Grilli	4	SP
1998	Arturo McDowell	28	OF
1998	Nate Bump	25	SP
1998	Tony Torcato	19	3B
1999	Kurt Ainsworth	24	SP
2000	Boof Bonser	21	SP
2001	Noah Lowry	30	SP
2001	Brad Hennessey	21	SP
2002	Matt Cain	25	SP
2003	David Aardsma	22	RP
2004	n/a	n/a	n/a
2005	n/a	n/a	n/a
2006	Tim Lincecum	10	SP

You can expect the Giants to draft one, two, maybe even three hitters in the first round of the 2007 draft. To go along with the 10^th overall pick, the Giants will have the 22^nd (from LA for Schmidt) and 29^th (from NYM for Alou) overall draft selections.

For comparison, the A’s had the 16^th, 24^th, 26^th, and 30^th picks in their well-chronicled 2002 draft. Oakland took Nick Swisher with the 16^th pick and Joe Blanton 24^th in that draft. Both players made their big league debuts two years later, so it’s realistic to expect the Giants to swoop up some potential 2010 impact players next June.

And who’s to say that Giants GM Brian Sabean and Co. can’t start bringing in the offensive talent to get the job done? As you can see in the table (right), the team has clearly emphasized pitching over the last decade.

Sabean was part of the Yankee front office that dug up sleepers in Jorge Posada (24^th round, 1990), and J.T. Snow (5^th round, 1989). So even though Giants fans haven’t experienced it yet, he has been involved in drafting above-average major league hitters.

San Francisco also showed that it is willing to become a big investor in top international talent – a method that brought the franchise a lot of success in the 1970’s – when they paid $2.1 million for Angel Villalona last August.

Like it or not, signing a bunch of veterans as stopgap options was the Giants’ way of starting a youth movement this offseason. And while everyone is fixated on Barry Bonds catching Hank Aaron this summer, San Francisco’s front office will be preparing for its biggest draft in decades.

Adam Foster invites every Giants fan who is upset about the team’s actions this offseason to email him at adamwfoster@gmail.com. He has ample storage space in his email and has practiced consoling Bay Area friends and family all week.