San Francisco Giants: The Unfortunate Truth About Prospect Sean Hjelle

I’d like to give a hot take on one of the San Francisco Giants’ top pitching prospects. Don’t jump off the ledge yet, not referring to Kyle Harrison or Will Bednar. I’m speaking of Sean Hjelle, the Giants’ 26th-ranked prospect. While he has the ceiling of a back-end starter, his main role will certainly, at his absolute floor, be a long relief bullpen guy. Giants fans need to realize and accept this.

I saw Hjelle during his two starts for the Sacramento Rivercats against the Oklahoma City Dodgers. Hjelle fared much better in his second start, but I was very surprised to see him lack the control and location of his pitches in start one. While Hjelle hasn’t always maintained the best control in AAA (2.3 BB/9 before AAA compared to 4.0 in AAA BB/9), I was left underwhelmed and disappointed by that outing.

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In game two I saw a bit more promise from Hjelle. He was still throwing balls and had control issues (not as much as in Game one) however, limited the number of hits. While encouraging, I’m still of the belief he’s a bullpen arm. Hjelle stands at 6’11, one of the tallest players in baseball history. Given the advantage of the long extension from his frame, your fastball will be pretty hard to miss. Hjelle (who tops out at 94 with a very rare 96), hasn’t had that effect in AAA. His K/9 had gone down from 8.9 in AA to 5.7 in AAA, partly because that fastball isn’t working or fooling anyone.

When looking at Hjelle, who has a fastball that is obviously not as effective as it had been in the lower levels of the minors, we must question how he will fare against major league talent. For Hjelle, he really doesn’t have one true plus pitch. His curveball is his best offering, however, that alone can’t make up for the declining fastball and slowly developing change-up. Thus, Hjelle, with one decent curve and below-average fastball, can’t really be considered a frontline starter.

The obvious excitement over Hjelle was him using that frame and extension of his arms to really throw hitters off with the fastball. Again, as we’ve seen, that’s not happening as he progresses through the system. San Francisco needs to look at Hjelle as a long-inning reliever, or, and this is probably where he ends up, a specialist out of the pen with a near-plus curve.

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I’m not all down on Hjelle, though. He did have a few ABs I was impressed by. One of the Dodgers’ top prospects, Miguel Vargas, was fooled by Hjelle’s off-speed offerings. Vargas hasn’t been in the majors, perhaps he was caught a bit off guard by a Hjelle, and his height, having the off-speed he did. With that being said, Vargas is a talented prospect and will probably make adjustments going forward, can’t say Hjelle will. Hjelle should look to develop that off-speed going forward if he has any chance as a 4 or 5 starter (again his absolute ceiling).

I’m not implying Hjelle is a bad pitcher. I don’t believe he’s a firm rotation starter. With a below-average fastball and near-plus curve (changeup isn’t really effective), it’s hard to really establish yourself as a 2-pitch guy (especially when 2 of those pitches aren’t plus). He will make a great arm out of the pen. Given his size and curve, it’ll be enough to throw some hitters off in certain scenarios. I’m just not expecting anything more than that.

Image Source: Randy Vazquez / Bay Area News Group