tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723610406379824887.post4572067187293735153..comments2023-05-27T08:20:02.829-07:00Comments on Remember '51 - An often biased look at baseball and the SF Giants: Can 2012 Be Bounce Back Campaigns for Juan Perez and Nick Noonan?Kevin O'Brienhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00114732419318117049noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5723610406379824887.post-40437776390631214022012-04-25T20:19:05.428-07:002012-04-25T20:19:05.428-07:00Noonan had what I thought was a breakout in the se...Noonan had what I thought was a breakout in the second half of his first season in San Jose. Basically, it is much like what he is doing in AAA right now: not striking out much, BB/K ratio very high, near the 1.0 the best hitters reach. That was 2009, second half, which we can't see now, but was available at that great minor league stats site that no longer is updated.<br><br>Since then, he had been pretty much overmatched in AA.<br><br>But remember, only the best prospects even make AA by age 22, which he was last season. He's still only 23 and doing well in AAA, we have to remember that he's younger than the competition right now, and yet doing well against them.<br><br>Plus, we have to remember how hard it is to hit in the Eastern League. Seems to me that only the best prospects figure out how to hit there, but the tweeners and below just suffer there.<br><br>I also think the comparisons with Utley did him a disservice, setting expectations too high (too be more precise, what was said then was that he was viewed as an Utley-lite, in that he could be like Utley except for the power). Partly because when people hear Utley, they then don't hear the "lite", and then think HR power.<br><br>He's becoming too much of a Burriss, though, in that his power is almost non-existent. Do you know if he had some bad injury to his legs in 2009? His stolen bases and ISO had sharp drops after that nice, what I thought breakout, half season in 2009 (I can dig up the stats if you like). And have stayed down ever since, I thought he was going to be good for double digits in triples, homers, and SB early on.<br><br>Plus, he did the video training system same time as Belt and said back then that he was hitting more line drives back then, but his ISO is even worse this season, so far.<br><br>Of course, he might be a tweener like Nate. Nate usually struggled with his promotion, so what he appeared to do, based on his stat pattern, was first focus on learning how to hit at his new level, so his batting average would be pretty good, but his ISO and thus SLG was not so great. Then once he got his legs in that league, he would then figure out how to hit for HR power once he got hitting down.<br><br>Maybe Noonan is like that?<br><br>I think the only reason he's playing SS and 3B in recent years is because Culberson had risen above him as a prospect, and so they wanted Charlie playing at the position they hope he makes the majors in, which was 2B, which left SS and 3B for Noonan to play. Plus, at the rate he was going, being a utility player who can play a lot of positions was his best hopes of making the majors, much like Burriss.<br><br>But the good news is that he's still very young, and with Franchez probably gone in 2013, both Burriss and Culberson (and probably Gillaspie) will be battling for the 2B position that year, and Panik don't look like he's going to force his way into AAA for 2013 either, so Noonan might get to start at 2B again in 2013 at Fresno.<br><br>I'm still hopeful for Noonan, nice to see him doing well, but he still have a lot to prove still to make the majors.obsessivegiantscompulsivehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11362706004246875823noreply@blogger.com