There R Giants

My guest this week is NBC Sports Bay Area beat writer, Alex Pavlovic. We talk about the perception that the Giants are moving against the grain of analytically-driven decision making, the upcoming roster crunch, and the way forward for this Giants’ team. There R Giants is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rogermunter.substack.com/subscribe

Time for the off-season (for the Giants at least). Kerry Crowley and I get into the question of whether the Giants should look to compete in 2027 or take a step back for runs in 2028 and 2029 — and whether or not it really changes their winter strategy very much. There R Giants is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rogermunter.substack.com/subscribe

One of my favorite twitter follows, Matthew Knauer joins me this week to talk pitch shapes, pitch data, and analysis, the Giants upcoming roster crunch, sleeper arms in the org, and much more. Matthew is a great follow on Twitter (@matthewk36711) as well as a contributor to another of my favorite baseball resources, TJStats, in between his work for the UCLA Bruins baseball team and the Daily Bruin. That’s a busy schedule! There R Giants is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rogermunter.substack.com/subscribe

I’m clearing out the last of my in-season interviews on this week’s podcast. There’s a lot of out-of-date talk about upcoming playoffs, but also a lot of great conversation looking back on the season that passed — successes, failures, trades, promotions, and trying to keep pushing through it all! My guests Zander Darby, Kaeden Kent, and Jacob Bresnahan all have much to reflect on fro this year with satisfaction — and Kent’s year isn’t quite over, as he now heads to the Arizona Fall League, which starts its schedule on Saturday. As I mentioned in the podcast, my talk with Bresnahan was meant to be a video interview and I think it is better in that format. If you’d like to see the full think (with actual video of pitch grips rather than just talking about pitch grips, you can become a There R Giants’ full subscriber, where you get all posts and videos delivered direct to your Inbox. There R Giants is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rogermunter.substack.com/subscribe

I still have a few more conversations with players that I recorded in the final few weeks of the season to get out, and today is a big one! We start with my conversation with Jhonny Level, who simply had a sensational season at the age of 19, vaulting into the Top 100 level of prospectdom as the buzz around this young player really built. I also got to talk with Cam Maldonado about his first full season, one that had a injury interruption in the middle of the season. We talk about his excellent speed — and the challenges of being a speedy player in the chilly northeast where he went to college, and how to balance going all out on the field and also taking care of your body to stay on the field. Maldonado was one of the three 20/20 players in the system — and Level finished just shy of that mark, so it’s a good power/speed combo on this week’s episode of the There R Giants podcast. There R Giants is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit rogermunter.substack.com/subscribe