Back at practice, now face challenge
San Jose tries to move on without Hertl, who will be gone weeks
It would have been understandable if the San Jose Sharks experienced some mixed emotions in their return to work Friday.
The Sharks practiced for the first time since Tuesday as no other player besides Tomas Hertl landed on the NHL’s COVID-19 list with a positive coronavirus test. Their home game Saturday with the St. Louis Blues remained on track to be played as scheduled.
They were also thinking of Hertl, with captain Logan Couture saying, “we all checked in with him and he’s in good spirits, so that’s obviously good news. Good news in a bad news situation.”
But the reality also set in that the Sharks will be without one of their most important players in Hertl for roughly the next two weeks, if not more, just as they embark on one of the most challenging portions of their schedule.
Hertl tested positive for the coronavirus earlier this week and it appears he’ll miss the next six Sharks games or more due to NHL protocols.
“You’re safe to say he’s out for 14 days before we see him back in our lineup,” said Sharks coach Bob Boughner, who added that the veteran forward was asymptomatic and isolating at home. “Big loss, obviously.”
Hertl first appeared on the NHL’s COVID-19 list Wednesday, just hours after the Sharks abruptly canceled practice for that day. The Sharks also did not practice Thursday but did not receive any more positive tests, clearing the way for them to resume skating at their facility.
“It’s good news for us that we’re in day three now and we haven’t had any more positive cases,” Boughner said.
Boughner said Hertl was unsure as to how he may have contracted the disease.
The Sharks played the Blues in St. Louis last Saturday and
of the regular season, needing time off during the most important part of a playoff push.
Shortstop Brandon Crawford doesn’t have a natural backup as Mauricio Dubón, the team’s starting center fielder, appears to slot in behind Crawford on the depth chart. Prior to last year’s 60- game season, Crawford appeared in at least 140 games in eight straight years, which is remarkable considering the physical demands of his position.
Third baseman Evan Longoria is another starter who could conceivably be called an “everyday” player, but the Giants are attempting to find more ways to get Longoria off of his feet this season. They’ll have Tommy La Stella available to start at third against some righthanded starters and will train Wilmer Flores at the position too.
Under Zaidi and Kapler, the Giants have preached about the importance of keeping players as fresh as possible. They don’t want an 80% version of Yastrzemski or a 75% version of Crawford. They need completely healthy, rejuvenated starters and they want the players in the lineup on any given day to have a favorable matchup against a starting pitcher.
Even as rosters drop from 28 to 26 players for the 2021 season, the Giants’ position player group is built to support one another thanks to the premium the front office has placed on defensive versatility. The everyday player, the 162- game warrior like Hunter Pence, is going out of style.
Expect more mixing and matching with lineups and days off for so- called “regulars” so that when the Giants do need to make a push, everyone has the energy to contribute.
DOWN ON THE FARM >> Since the beginning of spring training, I’ve used this space to detail some of my early impressions of the young group of Giants prospects who received invitations to big league camp.
With games set to start
Sunday, there will be an excellent chance to see exciting players such as Heliot Ramos, Hunter Bishop and Sean Hjelle in action, but before I get that opportunity, I want to highlight two prospects you should know who aren’t yet in Scottsdale.
The Giants’ top pitching prospect who will open the year in minor league camp in April is left-hander Seth Corry, a 2017 third round draft pick who has reportedly been a mentor to the Giants’ 2020 third round draft choice, De La Salle left-hander Kyle Harrison.
Corry has appeared on a few top 100 prospect lists and has a bright future, but both Corry and the Giants know he’ll need to gain better command of his offspeed offerings, a curveball and a changeup, to make an impact at the big league level. Corry struck out 172 hitters in 122 2/3 innings with Low A Augusta in 2019, so it’s not out of the question that he could open the season with High-A Eugene this summer and work his way up to the Triple-A level.
Corr y fig ures to be among the most prominent pitching prospects worth following in the minors this season while outfielder Luis Matos should be one of the top hitters turning heads. The Venezuela native just turned 19 and has plenty of room left to develop, but the Giants are eager for him to build off of a 2019 season in which he hit .362 with a .572 slugging percentage in the Dominican Summer League.
Those eye-popping numbers are rare for even the best prospects in that league and it wouldn’t be a surprise to see Matos spend some time with Low-A San Jose this year, giving local Giants fans a chance to see a potential star- of-tomorrow in action.
It would have been thrilling to see Corry work alongside Hjelle, Tristan Beck and Kai-Wei Teng this spring and equally fun to watch Matos take batting practice with Bishop, Will Wilson and others, but given their current trajectories, it shouldn’t be long before both Corry and Matos are making noise in big league camp.
THE EVOLUTION OF MAURIDIO DUCÓN >> If all goes according to plan for the Giants this season, Mauricio Dubón will spend a considerable amount of time in center field and also take down reps behind Brandon Crawford at shortstop.
The club is counting on the twitchy, high instincts defender to be versatile enough to bounce back and forth from the infield to the outfield, which was an assignment he didn’t quite seem ready for last summer. The Giants knew there was some room left for Dubón to mature and refine his skill set in the majors and Kapler made the decision early in the season to let
Dubón focus almost exclusively on the outfield, and it’s clear that the Honduras native benefitted in a variety of ways.
A deeper look at Dubón’s data shows he was among the best outfield defenders in baseball in 2020, as he ranked in the 87th percentile in outfield jumps, a measure of how quickly players react, and in the 96th percentile in Outs Above Average, a range-based fielding metric that accounts for the difficulty of plays.
Those numbers suggest Dubón can play the outfield at a high level, and other Statcast data shows he’s improving as a hitter.
From 2019-2020, Dubón lowered his chase rate, the percentage of pitches he swung at outside the strike zone, from 42.6% to 32.8% while increasing his walk rate from 4.5% to 8.5%. Dubón’s average launch angle spiked from 9.5 degrees to 16.7 degrees, which coincided with his barrel percentage increasing from 2.3% to 4.0% and his average exit velocity jumping from 84.8 miles per hour to 86.2 miles per hour.
The Giants don’t need Dubón to be a middle- ofthe- order hitter who slams more than 20 home runs per season, but if he can continue to increase his walk rate and drive the ball with more authority, it will be easier for the club to rely on him on a more frequent basis because he does provide such strong coverage in center field.