2015 Player Projection: Johnny Giavotella

Johnny Giavotella somehow went from being the detritus of the Royals farm system to the presumptive starter at second base for the Angels. Can the Halos help him finally realize his potential or did Kansas City jettison Giavotella for good reason?

[table id=92 /] *The MWAH projections are simply my best guess based off my own personal opinion and research (my wOBA calculation is approximate because my math skills are only “meh”)

What happened in 2014?
The former top prospect sank about as low as a top prospect not named Brandon Wood can go. The Royals completely gave up trying to make Giavotella work. They gave him semi-legitimate looks in 2011 and 2012, but in 2013 and 2014, Johnny G. barely even got a cup of coffee. In 2014 though, the Royals weren’t even pretending like he had a shot at second base anymore as they went out and signed Omar Infante to be the starter for the next several years.

For his part, Giavotella still managed to have success in Triple-A. He posted a 112 wRC+ and actually had more walks than strikeouts, which is pretty impressive no matter what level a player is at. Kansas City wasn’t going to be lulled into believing him again though, so they designated him for assignment after the season. At that point, the Angels swooped in and acquire Giavotella for some random guy they had just signed out of an independent league.

What do the projections think he will do in 2015?
Shockingly, the projection systems actually think Johnny Giavotella can be a useful baseball player. Steamer and CAIRO have fairly similar projections that would cast him as a second division starter if he received everyday playing time. ZiPS is a little more pessimistic about his bat, but gives him a positive marks defensively to project him as a more viable regular. That’s pretty surprising given that Giavotella has 465 plate appearances worth of being an epic failure in the big leagues.

Does the Monkey agree or disagree?
Nope, sorry. Not buying it. Every once in awhile a top prospect flames out, moves to a different organization and then finally makes good. I can see how folks think Johnny Giavotella could be one of those guys since he never seemed to get a fair shake with the Royals, but with how patient they’ve been with all their other talent, I have to think that their unwillingness to even give Giavotella a long look is pretty telling.

THREE OPEN QUESTIONS FOR JOHNNY GIAVOTELLA IN 2015
1) Is Johnny Giavotella really going to be the starter?
It depends on how much stock the Angels put into Spring Training number, which hopefully isn’t much. Johnny G. has put up the best offensive number of any of the four second base candidates while Rutledge seems to be hitting his way out of a job and Grant Green has been fielding his way out of a job simultaneously. With Featherston not really being a contender for the job, Giavotella has pretty much become the starter by default.

If he keeps hitting and keeps not screwing up to badly on defense, he could very well win the job for real. It is probably more important though that Josh Rutledge continue to stink up the joint. It does help Giavotella’s case though that he is out of options. That might provide Dipoto enough incentive to keep him around to see if he can translate his spring success to the regular season rather than exposing him to waivers.

2) What is his ceiling?
Back when he was still a hot prospect with Kansas City he was, stop me when this starts to sound familiar, a guy who many thought would be a future batting champion! No way!

That was the thought four years ago, but like so many other Royals prospects from that era, Giavotella’s bat just didn’t play when he got to the majors. He was the first one of that crop that the Royals gave up on though. That probably doesn’t bode well for him, but it does leave a glimmer of hope that maybe Johnny could land with another franchise and they can undo whatever curse the Royals development staff has cast on all their failed bats.

The future batting champ thing obviously isn’t going to happen, but with his ability to put the bat on the ball and the Angels preaching a more OBP-driven philosophy, perhaps they can scale back his aggressive approach and get him to hit at a league average level for a second baseman.

3) But can he field?
Oh, right, that. Yeah, the glove could be a problem. In fact, his glove was the bigger issue during his early stints with the Royals. They hated his defense and just rode him about it, possibly to his detriment. One might even be able to argue that Giavotella failed to hit in the bigs because he was so focused on his fielding that he wasn’t able to concentrate on making the adjustments at the plate that were required for him to succeed.

While Giavotella has undoubtedly been working on his glove, we don’t really have a sense of where his defense is right now. Hopefully Dipoto and his scouting department have a better idea. All I know is that he hasn’t looked awful during Spring Training, but he hasn’t looked good either.

The Final Word (and GIF)
“Escape”

Johnny Giavotella escaped from the minor league prison the Royals had him in. The question is will he make the most of his freedom and become a useful MLB starter or end up lasting only a few weeks on the outside before metaphorically hanging himself from a support beam after carving “Johnny G. was here” into it.