The Giants have acquired right-hander Sam Delaplane from the Mariners in exchange for cash considerations. Delaplane has been optioned to the Giants’ Triple-A affiliate.
Delaplane was designated for assignment earlier this week, and will be out of action for likely the first half of the 2022 season after undergoing Tommy John surgery in April. However, the Giants took the opportunity to trade for a local product (Delaplane is from San Jose) who has a rather eye-opening minor league track record.
A 23-round pick for the Mariners in the 2017 draft, Delaplane has a 2.29 ERA over 161 1/3 relief innings in Seattle’s farm system. He also has an overwhelming 40.91% strikeout rate, whiffing 270 of 660 batters faced over his career. Between all those missed bats and some solid control (8.2% walk rate), it’s easy to see why San Francisco took a long-term flier on Delaplane to see if he can continue anything close to this form at the MLB level when healthy.
Likely depth since Caleb Baragar is headed to the IL.
Looks like this guy hasn’t pitched in a couple of years. Do Mariners fans know anything about him?
Delaplane is a good RP prospect, but he had TJ surgery in April, so he will not be pitching again until mid 2022.
The part about TJ was just added to the article, but yeah, that means he’s not a replacement for Baragar, but a long-term outlook.
Zaidi is very good at identifying arms like this. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if he’s a piece down the road.
Zaidi is as good as any exec in the game. He played a major role in building the current Dodgers. Step by step, he’s made the Giants better. He has an uncanny knack for finding pieces by that fit, both on the field and off. He also hired the right guy to be his manager, trusting his own instincts based on the solid information he had working with Kapler in the Dodgers organization. No one else was going to give Kapler a chance so soon after he was wrongly blamed for the Phillies not being any good. Executive of the Year? Farhan Zaidi looks like a slam dunk. Remember that terrible outfield he inherited with the Giants? Now he has a bunch of guys out there capable of playing centerfield. Fantastic planning.
No one should have given Kapler a chance after the terrible judgement he displayed related to the sexual assault allegations in the Dodgers minors. Who cares if he can manage, he’s already set a terrible example.
@averageJoe
You’re correct. No human should ever be allowed to work in their profession if and when they show some semblance of poor judgement. Instead, they should be executed in a public square to serve as an example to all others that any deviation from established precedence can-and-will not be tolerated.
Average Joe has never made a mistake in his life, thats why he’s the leader of team cancel culture
averagejoe15:
Maybe you have better information that I do, but from what I understand, Kapler can’t really be blamed for his role in the incident. He was the farm director, not the player’s manager, so he had no direct contact with the players. The woman contacted him of to report the incident, and immediately passed it on to his superiors.
He has stated since then that he regrets not being more proactive, but that’s hardly something that should prevent him from moving on in his career.
The incidents were during spring training and the player dev folks like Kapler are hands on there.
My issue isn’t Kapler getting a job in baseball again ever, it’s that he went right on to another managers role and had no discipline outside of bad PR for a couple months.
Not sure what’s not being grasped here. Kapler, and the Dodgers, attempted to cover up criminal behavior multiple times. It’s not just some run of the mill bad decision an every day person would make.
If you are publicly caught covering up for some else’s crime do you really expect to just jump right back into the same job at a new company?
Dude can have another job in baseball at same point but make him earn the manager’s office again. And let’s not pretend he’s some kind of role model because he said sorry.
Farm Directors are *never* on field. Farm directors are the general managers-per say- of farm systems-NOT managers. Almost ZERO player interaction. And, guess who has the oversight of trading/acquiring players? STILL the GM. It’s an office gig, dude. His only interaction with people on the field are with the managers of each farm team to hear recommendations from them. That’s why they got a former baseball player to do it-who else is better at understanding managers than a career 4th/5th outfielder?
He was tasked with speaking to the media just as Farhan/Sabien would have when Larry Baer had that domestic violence video of him pulling the phone from his wife. What one person/group of people do, their actions are entirely on their own and their own responsibility. People talk about this like these guys were Kapler’s friends and would smoke weed in the garage and Kapler would come out and be like “Just don’t hide it guys! I’m not gonna tell your parents, I just want you to be saaaafe!” When in all reality he MIGHT have met these players once or twice——if at all?
get a life you loser! lmao at this guy
He was the Director of Player Dev at the time. Do some actual research on the incidents in question and Kapler’s role rather than spouting off nonsense as though you are informed. The Ringer has a good piece on it as do several other outlets.
Zaidi’s bullpen will be looking a lot better as the year goes on. Ugly at first, but Zack Litell looks like a great find, Jarlin Garcia is finally turning a corner, Wisler just had a shutdown series vs. the Dodgers, and Tyler Beede and John Brebbia will be ready to go in the next few months. Hopefully this kid turns out to be a legit piece in 2023.
Sam Long is another arm to keep an eye on the next few weeks. 31 K’s in 18 innings and his command has been good.
If you’re in the MLB and named Sam, the Giants likely have you in their bullpen.
Jarlin Garcia has such a high ceiling and a lot of potential due to his live arm. Heaven forbid an injury come his way as he could be something- if he gets better with his control
The bullpen prospect I think will be the best is Patrick Ruotolo. In 5 years as a minor league he has 12.9 SO rate, 3.3 walk rate and 0.9 WHIP.
His minor league numbers are great. I wonder why they gave up on him?
The Mariners wanted his roster spot and simply didn’t want to pay him a major league salary to go onto the 60-day injured list while he rehabs. The Giants have no such qualms.
Why would the ms give this guy up for a few bucks….makes no sense
Dipoto.
Not dipoto. It’s ownership 100%
You cant honestly believe that.
Ownership would’ve had to pay a major league minimum salary to a roster spot. That sounds like a good deal, unless you’re trying to say that John Stanton is so cheap, mlb minimums are too expensive for him. If that’s truly the case, no amount of Dipoto rebuild magic, will ever get them to the playoffs.
I still don’t get the Dipoto defenders. He’s made terrible move, after terrible move for 5 years now.
Very happy for Delaplane. He’s a SJ kid and coming back home. Nice potential and great K’s in the minors.
De plane de plane.
This is a mistake by DiPoto. Not happy
When this article was first published, I was wondering why Seattle would part with him for cash considerations given his eye-opening minor league stats, but the recent TJS info added explains it now. With that said, I’m surprised Seattle didn’t hold onto him. Looks like he has the ceiling of a closer, with a fall back option of a late inning setup guy.
Really wish the M’s would have kept him. Won’t pitch for at least a year but would’ve been a nice one to keep. At least he goes to the NL, to his hometown no less.
Actually, this kinda seems like a pattern with Zaidi. Dubon, Bishop (both), Delaplane, kyle harrison – it seems like in addition to just making good adds, he’s finding local kids and giving them a chance with the team they grew up rooting for.
Really this is basically a no cost move for the Giants. While “cash considerations” is really good money for most of us reading and commenting, not having to lose a top prospect, and picking up what could be a future key BP piece depending on how he heals is a nice move by the front office.