The Giants’ system continues to improve and impress, with tools everywhere, high-upside bats, shortstops, power arms, anything you want — even a couple of catchers. The change in approach top to bottom under team president Farhan Zaidi has brought back a moribund system that had lagged from years of trades and low draft positions.
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To qualify for these rankings, players must still be eligible for the Rookie of the Year Award in 2022, which means they may not have more than 130 at-bats, 50 innings pitched or 45 days on an active major-league roster heading into this season.
Note: Ages as of July 1, 2022.
1. Marco Luciano, SS (Top 100 ranking: No. 15)
Age: 20 | 6-2 | 178 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
The Giants signed Luciano for $2.6 million in 2018, in the Before Times, for his physical projection and explosive bat speed. He’s already started to show some of that on the field, hitting 18 homers in 70 games in Low A last year, with a .278/.373/.556 overall line at the level — outstanding for a 19-year-old who was among the youngest players in his league. The Giants bumped him up to High A in August, and he struggled, punching out more than a third of the time without any power to show for it — a sign of his inexperience and difficulty laying off pitches he can’t drive. He has extremely quick hands and swings hard most of the time, and the ball flies off his bat with power from his pull side all the way over to right-center. Luciano is not a shortstop; yes, he played shortstop exclusively last year, but at 19 he is already a big kid, and he’s going to get bigger. The question around his position is not whether he can stay at short, but whether he can stay on the dirt. He has very sure hands and he’s athletic enough to do it, but he’s going to be the size of a strong safety before he’s 24, and he might end up in right field. His bat will still profile there, but he’ll lose some value with each move down the defensive spectrum. There’s huge upside here — maybe a third baseman who hits 35 homers a year with some walks — but also some risk in the hit tool and size, which could push him to an outfield corner when he reaches his peak.
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2. Luis Matos, OF (Top 100 ranking: No. 55)
Age: 20 | 5-11 | 160 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Matos has an unorthodox approach, nearly barring his lead arm, but despite that obstacle, he has exceptional plate coverage and rarely punches out, with his 12.4 percent rate last year in Low A the worst of his brief career so far. Matos has tools, from fast wrists to above-average power to above-average running speed, with a chance to stay in center, and the bat speed to be able to continue to hit against better velocity. He does have that arm bar, but he’s otherwise extremely balanced through contact, with a strong lower half and good timing on his hip rotation to let his legs generate power. There’s risk here with the bat and that he might slow down enough to move to a corner, but there’s also upside here given his exceptional contact rates — among the 25 minor leaguers with the lowest strikeout rates (min. 400 PA), he was the youngest – and potential to get 15-20 homer power in the majors.
3. Heliot Ramos, OF (Top 100 ranking: No. 70)
Age: 22 | 6-1 | 188 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 19 in 2017
Ramos was young for Double A last year at 21, and didn’t hit well for Richmond, but the Giants bumped him up to Triple A and got similar results from him. The 19th overall pick in 2017, Ramos has filled out physically and looks like he should be able to overpower the ball and make hard contact even with some swing and miss. He shows plus raw power in BP and occasionally in games, while pitchers at the higher levels saw some vulnerability to soft stuff and he didn’t make a counter-adjustment. He’s a solid-average runner who has mostly played center so far, but his body is going to push him to right field, where his plus arm will help him become an above-average defender. He may be a 150-strikeouts-a-year kind of hitter, but who hits .280 with 20-25 homers and a fringy OBP, making him a solid regular who would have to improve his pitch recognition to become more.
4. Joey Bart, C (Top 100 ranking: No. 79)
Age: 25 | 6-2 | 238 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 2 in 2018
Bart had a disappointing year in Triple A, missing time with a quad strain, playing lethargic defense, and striking out nearly 30 percent of the time. The No. 2 overall pick in 2018, Bart is capable of playing plus defense with a plus arm, and may have been going through the motions in Triple A after spending part of 2020 in the big leagues. He has pull power and some pitch recognition, with swing and miss issues that make him more likely to be a .230/.300/.450 guy than a high-average hitter. Assuming his defensive issues were a temporary matter of being at a level where he didn’t want to be, with the majors beckoning this year, he still projects to be an everyday catcher for a long time, perhaps without the star potential the Giants wanted when they drafted him.
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5. Kyle Harrison, LHP (Top 100 ranking: 82)
Age: 20 | 6-2 | 200 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Left
Drafted: No. 85 in 2020
Harrison tied for eighth among all minor-league pitchers with 157 strikeouts in 2021, and was the only guy in the top 10 who threw less than 100 innings. He punched out 35.7 percent of opposing hitters, good for fifth among minor-league starters. Harrison has premium stuff, sitting mid-90s, touching 98, with good ride on the pitch thanks to a low 3/4 slot that also makes him very tough on left-handed batters. He throws a slurvy slider now but could probably throw a harder slider and a distinct curveball, while his changeup is solid-average but rather dusty from lack of use. He actually had a reverse platoon split last year thanks to a .547 BABIP — not a typo — against lefties, which, and I cannot emphasize this enough, will not continue. He’s still developing as a pitcher, rather than someone who can dominate with his fastball, but his command and control showed improvement as the season went on. He’ll have to cut the walks, and figure out some stuff with his secondaries, but he might have No. 1 starter upside and at worst his ceiling is that of a well above-average starting pitcher.
6. Patrick Bailey, C
Age: 23 | 6-1 | 220 pounds
Bats: Both | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 13 in 2020
Bailey was the Giants’ first-round pick in 2020, making his pro debut this past year in High-A Eugene, but he started to have back tightness right away, and hit just .185/.290/.296 before landing on the IL in late June. After he returned and played a few rehab games, Bailey went to Low A instead of returning to Eugene, and of course he mashed there as a 22-year-old ACC product. The one thing he did show last year was a great command of the strike zone, which should help him get to 15-18 homers a year if not a bit more. He’s a solid defender, receiving and throwing well enough to profile there, but back problems are particularly scary for a catcher. Bart is the better defender, but Bailey has a better chance to hit and get on base — if he can stay healthy.
7. Will Bednar, RHP
Age: 22 | 6-2 | 230 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 14 in 2021
The Giants’ first-round pick in 2021 featured heavily in Mississippi State’s run to the College World Series championship, with a plus slider right now and a mid-90s fastball that was good enough to be his primary pitch as a starter in the SEC. He’s aggressive and throws both pitches for strikes, often quality strikes, even with an arm action that’s kind of long and not that easy to repeat. He does need a better third pitch for lefties, with a changeup that’s fringy now, especially since he might back off to 92-94 mph when he goes every fifth day instead of once a week. There’s some reliever risk here but a very high floor there — I think he could get major-league right-handers out this year if the situation arose where the Giants needed him for the pennant race.
8. Hunter Bishop, OF
Age: 24 | 6-5 | 210 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 10 in 2019
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A sore throwing shoulder wiped out most of 2021 for Bishop, who needed those reps to work on pitch recognition and selection, and he still didn’t look great in a brief stint in the Arizona Fall League; for a guy with his kind of outrageous power and consistently high exit velocities to go 107 PA in a year without a homer says something about how bad his lead shoulder must have been bothering him. He was already heading for left field, so the injury probably doesn’t affect his defensive outlook. It’s 30+ homer upside if he gets healthy and can cut down on the swing and miss, both in zone and out.
9. Aeverson Arteaga, SS
Age: 20 | 5-11 | 160 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Arteaga signed for $1 million back in 2019, and the Venezuelan shortstop’s pro debut in 2021 couldn’t have gone better, as he skipped the DSL and hit .294/.367/.503 in the Arizona Complex League as an 18-year-old, finishing third in the league with nine homers, even getting into one game in Low A to end the season. He’s a shortstop with a chance to stay there, showing a strong arm and improving actions, with second base probably his worst case scenario. He’s more power than hit right now, with easy bat speed and strong wrists, and will have to cut down on some chase to be more than a low-OBP middle infielder with power … but those are still good, right?
10. Matt Mikulski, LHP
Age: 23 | 6-4 | 205 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Left
Drafted: No. 50 in 2021
Mikulski was probably a first-round talent last year, and the Giants had to be thrilled to get the Fordham senior in the second round, as he’s been up to 97 with a potential four-pitch mix highlighted by a 50/55 slider. He has size and some deception, with funk in the delivery, although that effort might hold him back as a starter.
11. Jairo Pomares, OF
Age: 21 | 6-1 | 185 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right
Pomares has big left-handed power with a swing-first mentality, so he doesn’t walk because he thinks he can hit everything. He started 2021 on the IL with back spasms, then destroyed Low A at age 20 before a late promotion to High-A Eugene, where he continued to hit the ball hard but struck out 33 times in 120 PA against just one walk. He’s not just some inveterate hacker, as he has intent at the plate and is looking for pitches he can pull, giving some hope he can make adjustments as he returns to High A this year. He’s a left fielder only, so he has to hit to have value, with a .280/.320/.500 kind of upside.
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12. Alexander Suarez, OF
Age: 20 | 6-2 | 160 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Suarez, who is Luis Matos’s cousin, is extremely tooled-out, with plus-plus speed, extremely quick wrists, and strength to get to power. He punched out a third of the time in the ACL last year as a 19-year-old, albeit one with just 53 pro plate appearances before 2021, without much patience, but it’s what he did with the contact he made that stands out — a .470 BABIP, which isn’t going to last, but is also a sign of the hard contact he makes. Getting him to narrow his stance a little before he strides might help give him some more time to pick up pitches. Opinions on his defense vary widely — he has the speed to cover the ground but not the instincts or reads right now. He has the upside of a 20/20 centerfielder who doesn’t walk a ton but hits for high averages.
13. Carson Ragsdale, RHP
Age: 24 | 6-8 | 225 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 116 in 2020
The Giants acquired Ragsdale in the trade that sent Sam Coonrod to the Phillies, who had drafted Ragsdale as a senior out of the University of South Florida just seven months earlier. He made his pro debut in 2021 in Low A with mixed results — only Cade Cavalli struck out more batters than Ragsdale did in the minors last year, but Ragsdale got hit, and walked too many guys, and was a bit homer-prone for a 23-year-old in Low A. He gets great plane on his fastball from a high slot, and has a power slurve for a swing-and-miss pitch, but it might all be a lot more effective in short bursts in relief.
14. Casey Schmitt, 3B
Age: 23 | 6-2 | 215 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 49 in 2020
Schmitt got off to a terrible start in 2021 that didn’t turn around until the calendar hit June. From the start of that month until his season ended when he was hit in the face by a pitch in August, he hit .292/.362/.454 while playing Gold Glove-caliber defense at third with a plus arm. The injury eventually required surgery, although he’s expected to be ready to go for spring training. The bad May and truncated season made his 2021 look worse than it was; he might be a 15-18 homer guy with 70 defense at third.
15. Nick Swiney, LHP
Age: 23 | 6-3 | 185 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Left
Drafted: No. 67 in 2020
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Swiney missed a huge chunk of 2021 recovering from a concussion he suffered after his first start of the season, returning more than two months later to show the same high-quality offspeed stuff he had in college but not quite the same command. Swiney might show you a plus curveball and plus-plus changeup along with solid-average velocity, and some funk in the delivery as well. He struck out 40 percent of the guys he faced in Low A, and he’s left-handed, so there’s a high floor in the bullpen here, with fourth starter upside.
16. Ryan Murphy, RHP
Age: 22 | 6-1 | 190 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 144 in 2020
Division II Le Moyne just gained its sixth big leaguer last year when Josiah Gray, a former top-100 prospect, reached the majors. They might get another one soon in Murphy, an under-slot sign in the fifth round in 2020, who had an outstanding full-season debut at both levels of A-ball, missing bats and barely walking anyone. He’s been up to 94-95 but pitches more at 90-92, hitting his spots around the zone, with good feel for his changeup and two fringy to below-average breaking balls. He has nothing plus or even really above-average, but he’s so competitive and his control is so good — he had one start all year where he walked more than two batters — that he kept racking up outs. He isn’t projectable, so he may have to work on some grip or other design changes to improve his stuff. The command and the competitiveness could give him a back-end starter ceiling.
17. Sean Hjelle, RHP
Age: 25 | 6-11 | 230 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 45 in 2018
Hjelle is 6-foot-11, which gives him a natural advantage because he’s halfway to the plate by the time he releases the ball, and his combination of above-average control of a repertoire of three average pitches worked all the way up through Double A … and then he got to Triple A late last season, and the major-league baseball, and better hitters, and it didn’t work any more. He posted the worst strikeout and walk rates of his career, with barely more of the former than the latter. He looked like a fourth starter until he hit the Triple-A wall, but now it’s not clear what role he might have without improving one of his pitches or becoming a plus command guy.
18. Seth Corry, LHP
Age: 23 | 6-2 | 195 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Left
Drafted: No. 96 in 2017
Corry was on my top 100 last year, but he was a disaster in High A, walking 63 in 67 2/3 innings, and in the AFL, where he walked a batter an inning. His velocity was just as good as it had been before the season, but he completely lost the strike zone, and he lost feel for his changeup later in the year, too. You can’t give up on a lefty with this stuff, but he needs some sort of Ctrl-Alt-Del this winter.
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19. Eric Silva, RHP
Age: 19 | 6-1 | 185 pounds
Bats: Right | Throws: Right
Drafted: No. 115 in 2021
Silva, selected out of a Southern California high school, was 90-95 with a decent breaking ball in his limited pro time, while he showed four pitches as an amateur and was more consistently 93-95 pitching once a week. He’s a six-foot right-hander with some projection but not a ton, whereas the delivery is good enough that you might project more improvement in command and control than velocity.
20. Luis Toribio, 1B/3B
Age: 21 | 6-1 | 185 pounds
Bats: Left | Throws: Right
Toribio had been so good in the AZL in 2019 that his miserable season in Low A in 2021 came as a complete shock. He has a good enough approach to draw some walks, but isn’t using it to get to pitches he can drive. He played more first base than third last year, although he’s been passable at the hot corner before. It doesn’t matter unless he gets back to hitting and showing some of the power that was there two years ago.
Others of note
Right-hander Kai-Wei Teng misses a lot of bats with a three-pitch mix that features a plus split-change, but he’s trying so hard to miss every bat that he both walked way too many guys (13 percent) and gave up too much hard contact in High A last year … Right-hander Trevor McDonald was sitting 94 last year, touching 97, coming from a low 3/4 slot that’s hard on right-handed batters, but his control was not good, with 34 walks, 12 hit batsmen, and 16 wild pitches in 70 innings … Manuel Mercedes is up to 100 mph with a projectable 6-3 frame, although I’m not sure what I’m projecting here, it’s not like he’s going to throw 108 some day, are any of you even still reading? He does need to develop his secondary stuff but he’s a name to keep in the back of your mind if I haven’t lost you already … Randy Rodriguez throws an invisiball that plays beyond its mid-90s velocity because of his very cross-body delivery, which hides the ball especially from right-handed batters. He struck out 39 percent of batters he faced in Low A but showed some platoon split and it’s reliever all the way … Right-hander Gregory Santos is a giant of a man, and works 96-101 with a power slider and not a whole lot of control … The Giants took left-hander Rohan Handa in the fifth round out of a summer collegiate league, where the Yalie was 87-93 with a short slider that was promising enough to give him middle relief upside. … Fourth-rounder Mason Black has been up to 95 with a 55 slider but his command took a big step back last spring while he pitched at Lehigh.
2022 impact
Buster Posey’s retirement clears the runway for Bart to take over behind the plate.
The fallen
Will Wilson was the Angels’ first-rounder in 2019, but they traded him to San Francisco along with Zack Cozart’s contract to dump some money, which seemed like a huge win for the Giants at the time. Wilson wasn’t good in High-A Eugene and was awful in Double A as a 23-year-old, following it up with a terrible fall league. He’s a bat-first second baseman who hit 31 homers in his last two years at North Carolina State, but the power has been absent in pro ball and he struck out 37 percent of the time in Double A. He might need a swing overhaul to reestablish himself as a prospect.
Sleeper
There’s so much talent bubbling under the surface here, but Arteaga is the one who gets scouts most excited.
(Photo of Marco Luciano: Chris Bernacchi / Diamond Images via Getty Images)
