SAN FRANCISCO – Before Friday’s game against the Cincinnati Reds, President of Baseball Operations Farhan Zaidi, joined Tolbert and Lund to talk about how the Giants plan to approach the upcoming draft.
In his first year with the Giants, Zaidi has made several small changes, but will show his real value as a talent evaluator as the draft comes into focus. The former general manger for the Los Angeles Dodgers helped bring them to two World Series appearances in just three seasons.
Zaidi’s philosophy was simple – get the best player possible.
He elaborated by differentiating the return on high school vs college players in the draft.
“The college route is attractive in the sense that we’ve got guys like [Joey] Bart and [Heliot] Ramos in San Jose, and if you draft someone who’s a little more advanced as opposed to drafting a high school kid who’s going to be in rookieball and is going to be a year or two behind those guys,” Zaidi said.
Zaidi made it clear though that age and experience was was second to scouting the best overall talent.
He went on say that the team’s emphasis would lean towards hitting. This stems not only from the overall lack of offense within the Giants organization but also due to the fact that in general, the Giants have found it easier to attract pitchers to their pitcher-friendly park.
“One, [hitting] is an organizational need for us and secondly going forward that’s something we have to be better at developing where as we can go out and get pitching like you said.” Zaidi said.
Despite their offensive woes, the Giants put up a surprising show of offense in their last road series, posting 58 hits in just six games. The Giants produced a season high 17-hit game against the very same Reds that are walking into Oracle Park for a three-game series tonight.
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