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The Giants were listening and they responded in a big way.
For an organization that has a lot of exciting prospects for success, the San Francisco farming system has lacked pitch.
After selecting College World Series MVP Will Bednar with the No. 14 pick in the first round of the 2021 MLB Draft, the Giants selected another pitcher in the second round. And another in the third. And another in turns four, five, six, seven, eight and nine.
That’s right, the Giants drafted nine straight pitchers in the first two days of this year’s draft. Why so much?
“We’re very excited about what we’ve been able to do,” Giants director of amateur scouting Michael Holmes told reporters after the draft. “To be honest with you, yeah, we had a nice little set of throws there. I wouldn’t say that was mainly our goal when we started the day, it just started to play out that way. .
“We felt like one of the depths of this year’s draft was the pitching market. Although there were a lot of positional players that we had long discussions about and were on the line in different parts of today’s draft he really kind of fell by the We are really excited about the arm group and the one position player (outfielder Vaun Brown) at the end that we were able to add.
Last year’s draft was reduced to just five rounds due to the coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19). With more picks at their disposal for the draft this time around, the Giants returned to some of the arms they were interested in last year.
Giants second-round pick left-handed pitcher Matt Mikulski was a player the organization had a history with, having nearly drafted him in 2020.
“He’s definitely a guy we really liked last year and we talked about his place in the five-round draft that happened,” said Holmes. The thing that Matt [Mikulski] was able to do was really take advantage of the COVID time, free time to play in the spring and last summer and he really made some changes to his delivery and his arm action and we really saw his stuff s ‘accelerate, especially speed.
Mikulski, along with some of the other pitchers the Giants drafted this year, took advantage of the gap year, which really impressed the scouting service.
“It tells us a lot about the individual,” Holmes said. “There are two ways to deal with this type of situation, and for a lot of these guys, they handled it well. They took the time to grow up, to get stronger, to identify areas of their game that They had to improve. Those guys who took advantage of that showed up on the pitch this spring and early this summer before the draft.
RELATED: Why Giants think Bednar was right with the No.14 draft pick
Of the nine pitchers the Giants drafted, only one was a high school arm. Right-hander Eric Silva has signed up to UCLA, but Holmes and the Giants are confident they’ll be able to close a deal with their fourth-round pick.
“We’re really confident we’re doing something and putting it in a Giants uniform,” Holmes said.
The Giants’ farm system needed to add weapons, and boy, did they do just that.
There haven’t been many home pitchers established in the Giants’ starting rotation since Madison Bumgarner. With nine arms added in 2021, there’s a good chance at least one of them will leave their mark on the organization.
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