Mauricio Dubon’s strong spring shows the Giants’ rebuild is on track
There is only one way to build a successful, sustainable winning team in this modern, analytical era of baseball: from the bottom up.
That, of course, makes it difficult for fans of rebuilding teams to get a clean read on how things are progressing. But Spring Training, in all of its chaos, is arguably the only time of the season where we get to see every level of the operation in play.
That’s what has made the Giants’ preseason so exciting.
No, they’re not going to be competing with the
Dodgers for the National League West crown anytime soon, but as the team enters its second year of the Farhan Zaidi regime, we’re seeing some progress.
It’s early yet, but the rebuild seems to be on track.
The farm system has made a huge jump over the past year. The Giants have gone from Keith Law’s second-worst farm system in baseball in 2018 to No. 10 this preseason.
And when it comes to the Major League roster, there’s clear advancement, too.
I know ranking players can be uncouth, but teams do it for their 26-man roster — each squad has a top, middle, and bottom tranche.
Now, when you have a rebuilding team, you can go mining.
Mining means giving quadruple-A players another shot at the big leagues and taking flyers on guys like Drew Pomeranz.
No one turned over the bottom of a roster like Zaidi did last year. Remember Connor Joe?
Most of the bottom-end players, like Joe, don’t cut it, but with Pomeranz, mining worked — the Giants were able to trade him and his expiring contract to Milwaukee at last season’s trade deadline in exchange for a solid prospect, Mauricio Dubon.
It’s early yet in spring, but we don’t need to see much more to know that Dubon has what it takes to be a steady Major League player. The kid has been raking in Arizona, hitting two home runs with an OPS of 1.500 going into Monday. He didn’t suddenly turn into Barry Bonds — the numbers will dip — but with his positional versatility and professional approach at the plate, Dubon appears to have all the makings of a middle-tier player on the Giants roster as a strong utility player or two-to-three WAR starter in the years to come.
You might be thinking
that I’m selling Dubon short — perhaps I am — but cementing the Honduran as a near-certain mid-level player this spring is outstanding news for the Giants. In many ways, he’s the canary in San Francisco’s coal mine. It shows that the Giants are moving up.
You see, Dubon doesn’t need to be a star for the Giants to be successful in the future. No, the top-end players for the Giants — the core of the teams that in a few years the organization is hoping will compete with the Dodgers — are currently in the minors. And they’re mostly bats — hitters are historically more difficult to create than pitchers, hence the need to invest heavily in talent. (This is a model the Cubs and Astros have used.)
You already know their names if you’re a Giants fan: Joey Bart (hitting the cover off the ball in Arizona), Heliot Ramos (impressive before an oblique injury that shouldn’t stall his progression), Hunter Bishop (at least a year from making the big leagues), Marco Luciano (think 2022 or 2023), Alexander Canario (same), and Will Wilson (again).
More players will be added in the coming months — the Giants are as active as any team in the international market and have early draft picks again this summer — but those aforementioned position players, in addition to the pitchers the organization develops under its new instructional system (which is arguably already showing results), and a few key free agents (the Giants will have stacks of cash to spend in upcoming offseason), are expected to be the backbone of winning teams in a few years.
In the meantime, while those prospects pick up some seasoning, the Giants will keep looking to turn bottom-of-the-roster players into middle-tier guys. Find a few more players like Dubon for the pipeline — solid upside, high-floor prospects; rock-solid middle-tier players — over the next year or two and the Giants might have something cooking by the time their current “top-tier” players see their contracts expire after the 2021 and 2022 seasons.