San Francisco Giants Top 42 Prospects

Harrison peppers the top of the strike zone with an uphill fastball that has averaged 93 mph so far in 2024. As a minor leaguer, he would show you anywhere between 92-97 mph and it appears he’s settled into the lower part of that range, at least for now. He generates a ton of fastball chase because of the pitch’s angle and his delivery’s deception. The thick-thighed southpaw throws from a low three-quarter arm slot and further lowers his release point by way of a deep knee bend as he lunges toward the plate.

Harrison started 2023 at Triple-A and spent most of the year there (minus a few weeks on the IL with a hamstring injury) before joining the Giants’ big league rotation in late August. He broke camp in the rotation this season and has amassed enough innings to graduate from rookie status. Harrison has been surprisingly efficient so far as a big leaguer after he was rather walk-prone early in his pro career. He still has a big bending breaking ball that works best as a show-me pitch versus lefties, but his most-used secondary is now his changeup. Again, Harrison’s changeup plays because of how often it’s chased more than because of its pure swing-and-miss action. It often finishes in the middle/bottom of the zone rather than down and to his arm side like a normal changeup. We’ve made no changes to Harrison’s offseason evaluation based on how he’s looked so far. He continues to project as a mid-rotation mainstay.

Whisenhunt was a mid-first round prospect at East Carolina who had his junior year scuttled by a PED suspension. He’s posted gaudy strikeout totals in pro ball thanks mostly to his trademark changeup, which has a chance to be an elite pitch and has an absolutely absurd 60% miss rate in the early going of 2024. Whisenhunt’s control has dipped substantially, and he’s posted walk rates in the teens since entering the upper levels. This, plus the lack of a dynamic third pitch, had us consider sliding Whisenhunt out of the Top 100 on this update. We like how the shape of his upper-70s curveball interacts with the way Whisenhunt uses his fastball (a vertical attack), but he babies the curveball into the zone in an identifiable way. He needs to throw that pitch with more conviction, but we think it has the potential to be an average pitch. You could feasibly be worried that Whisenhunt will end up on a trajectory like Chris Paddack, where his lack of a third pitch takes a minute to catch up to him, but Whisenhunt’s changeup might be even better than Paddack’s and his fastball has better power pitcher’s utility at the letters. There’s relief risk here but, assuming that comes with a velo boost, Whisenhunt could have a 60-grade pitch and an 80-grade one and simply be an awesome backend option. That feels more in play now that he’s again scattering his fastball all over the place early in 2024.

At 6-foot-7, Eldridge has plenty of room to build on an already strong frame, and he’s going to have enormous power in the Matt Olson/Adam Dunn zip code one day; he already showed plus measureable power late last season. Any time a hitter this size comes along, there are justifiable doubts about whether or not he’ll be able to catch up to pro velocity. Eldridge looks relatively short to the baseball, especially for a guy his size. He can be a little long getting to the bottom of the zone right now, but he has a surprising ability to get on top of high fastballs; most lefty hitters built like him are the opposite and have low-ball tendencies. There is probably always going to be a heavy dose of strikeouts here (as there are with Olson), but Eldridge’s combination of power and patience is going to make him a potent offensive threat. Whether he ends up playing right field or first base is probably going to be immaterial. He’s quite a ways from the big leagues and there is some hit tool risk here, but Eldridge projects as a middle-of-the-order-force with elite power.

Eldridge was shut down after six games in 2024 with an undisclosed injury (it sounds like it isn’t even listed in EBIS, which is odd), but scouts who cover the Giants org seem to think it’s something from which Eldridge will return from relatively soon.

After losing two seasons of development — one to the pandemic and the other to Tommy John — Winn rocketed to the upper levels of the minors very quickly once he was healthy in 2022 and made his big league debut in 2023. He showed much more arm strength on the other side of his surgery, and he retained it even as the Giants stretched him out from working just two or three innings at a time to working as many as six. He sat 94-97 all last year across about 100 innings of work, and he’s parked in that range again at the start of 2024.

Winn was a polished slider away from making the offseason Top 100 list. He has had success (but not been dominate) in the majors even though his repertoire is missing a great breaking ball. Winn instead more often deploys a four- and two-seam fastball and his devastating splitter, which is one of the nastier ones in pro ball. Winn’s upper-80s slider is hard but lacks the biting movement of a great finishing pitch. Athletically, Winn is a little bit stiff and eyeball evaluations of his relatively violent delivery have tended to funnel him toward the bullpen, but at this point his strike-throwing track record is long enough to bet he’s going to start as long as he can stay healthy under a slightly larger workload. He’s going to perform pretty well on a rate stat basis, but whether he generates big WAR production is going to depend on how many more innings Winn can throw and whether or not he can find a better breaking ball.

It was surprising to see Arias on the Giants backfields during 2023 minor league spring training because even the best international prospects tend to stay in the Dominican Republic for their entire first calendar year of pro ball. After watching him for a couple of weeks, it was clear he belonged with a more advanced tier of player. He mashed during his brief time in Arizona and was sent back to the D.R. prior to extended spring training to get ready for the DSL season. After a couple of dominant weeks in the DSL, he broke his left wrist while diving for a ball in the outfield and his season was over. Arias again looked fantastic during 2024 minor league spring training and during the early portion of extended, but in the week prior to list publication, he again dove for a ball in the outfield, got up in pain, and slammed his glove to the turf in frustration. A Giants source relayed that it’s just a sprain this time, but it’s something to keep an eye on.

Arias is a big-framed, physical corner outfield prospect with heart-of-the-order power potential. He’s built like an NBA combo guard and only turns 18 a few days before the start of the 2024 complex slate. He is already quite strong and should have superlative physicality at maturity. Though his swing looks a little longer and has more scoop and lift during 2024 looks, he has also shown an ability to be short to the baseball with power. His swing path is somewhat grooved and there hasn’t been a ton of barrel variability during in-person looks, but because of his injuries, we still don’t have a great sense of Arias’ bat-to-ball ability from a data standpoint because the sample is too small (though his 76 PA sample from 2023 was strong).

Arias is most often playing center field right now, but he isn’t able to get to the balls in play that look like 50/50 propositions off the bat and his size means it’s very likely he matures into a corner. As such, the hit tool piece of things (and how much power Arias can get to as a result) is of paramount importance to his profile. Arias was an offseason Pick to Click and is still tracking as hoped, though we likely won’t move him into the Top 100 until we have contact data that reinforces our eyeball look.

Whitman is a super smooth lefty with a beautiful arm action and delivery. After two years with just 5.2 total innings pitched at Purdue, Whitman transferred to Kent State for his junior year and had a breakout season. Given the arc of his college career, it seemed feasible that Whitman had both skill and physical development remaining, with a chance to blow up on a pro strength and conditioning program. Early on in 2024, it appears that’s happening. He’s had a two-tick velo bump, as his fastball has gone from the 90-94 mph range to the 92-96 mph range at Low-A San Jose.

He has taken a power-over-precision approach with his fastball so far in pro ball, leaning on it at about a 70% clip so far in San Jose, and Whitman’s size and the pacing of his delivery causes his heater to jump on hitters. His slider has plus teeth and two-planed depth at its best, and we’re projecting heavily on Whitman’s changeup here because of the quality of his arm action and athleticism. And remember, he barely pitched in a competitive setting until 2023. His mechanical grace, especially at his size, make him one of the more viable starting pitching prospects in the Giants system. This is a great tip-of-the-iceberg prospect who has already shown progress in one of the areas we hoped he would upon his entry into pro ball (velocity), and has the ingredients to be a good team’s no. 4 starter if his changeup or a second breaking ball develop.

In 2021, Crawford was the first player in Cape Cod League history to top 100 mph on the mound and also hit a home run in the same season. He was regularly up to 99 mph and would peak at 102 that summer, putting himself in the mix for the following draft’s top 10 picks or so, but Crawford blew out and needed Tommy John that fall. The injury cost him his junior season, but his pre-injury look was exciting enough for the Giants to select him 30th overall in 2022. He was developed as a two-way player through 2023, making short starts every five days with one DH appearance in between. He totalled just 19 innings before going to the Fall League, where he had one last gasp as a hitter; Crawford has plus power but his bat is often too late to make contact. He’s being developed solely as a pitcher in 2024.

Crawford began the season in extended spring training (you can see his recent outing there in the linked video), where he was throwing hard (95-98) but not with the all-world gas we saw before his injury. His heater has huge uphill tailing action that he doesn’t always command, while his curveball (78-81 mph during his Arizona tune up) has superlative two-plane break and is going to be a lethal pitch. Crawford’s changeup also has bat-missing action at times, but as with his fastball, it often tails into unpredictable locations.

Crawford’s 40-man platform year is 2025, so realistically the Giants have through 2026 or so to build his innings count and help him polish his repertoire and command enough to start. He entered 2024 having thrown just 19 professional innings, and he’s only been both healthy and focusing on pitching for a couple of months. We love tip-of-the-iceberg types like Crawford, whose career context gives us a reason to project on his skills. Stiff, muscular, and approaching bulky, Crawford doesn’t move with the fluidity of a typical big league starter, and it’s more likely he ends up pitching toward the back of a bullpen than the top or middle of a good rotation, but because of his career context it makes sense for the Giants to see if he’s only scratching the surface of his potential command. He’s still graded here on par with a late first rounder.

McCray is a toolsy power/speed threat whose lackluster hit tool will likely cause his offensive production to be very streaky and and limit him to a part-time role. Similar to Dodgers outfielder James Outman, McCray’s uppercut style of swinging leaves him very vulnerable at the top of the strike zone, with his barrel breezing below a lot of pitches up there. His strikeout rate has typically hovered around the 30% mark in the minors, which is actually more substantial than Outman’s was at the same time, and it’d be surprising if he developed better than a 30-grade hit tool. Lithe and lean, McCray’s swing packs a surprising punch for a guy with his build, and he’s a very dangerous low-ball, pull-side hitter. His style of swing should enable him to get to his power when he’s making contact. Combine that with electric center field defense and McCray should be a solid extra outfielder. He’s getting his first taste of Double-A to start 2024. Though he isn’t necessarily young for the level, McCray was a multi-sport high schooler whose would-be first full season was squashed by the pandemic. His baseball acumen has always been a little bit behind for a player his age, but he’s got deep body and skill projection into his mid-20s.

Once a bat speed prodigy who looked like a potential 35-homer shortstop, back issues, strikeouts, and stagnating development on defense have clouded and soured Luciano’s forecast. The muscular 22-year-old has plus-plus power, but he’s only truly dangerous in the very middle of the zone. He ran a 64% contact rate in 2023, as Luciano lacks the barrel feel to impact pitches all over the zone. He often works to the opposite field, but this is more a product of his bat path than expert feel to hit. Chase has historically also been somewhat of an issue for Luciano, but scouts coming out of Sacramento this year have had positive things to say about the quality of his at-bats, just not his hit tool.

If he could play shortstop, his contact issues might be liveable given how much power Luciano has, but his defense isn’t consistent enough to consider him a shortstop. He has the arm for it, but his range and hands are not as reliable. It’s tough to find anyone who is comfortable projecting Luciano on the infield at all, let alone at its most difficult position. Aside from a handful of games at second base (most of those in LIDOM rather than with a Giants affiliate), he has only ever been developed at short. Now in his second option year, the time to assess Luciano at other positions is dwindling. If you believe his hit tool is insufficient to support a profile at any other position, it makes sense to try to force things at short for as long as possible. The positive outcome here is something similar to Miguel Sanó‘s Twins arc, where the power provides for a couple peak seasons, but near bottom-of-the-scale contact ability and frustrating defense have Luciano more often looking like a 40-grade player. Teams down the competitive continuum that may want to take a post-hype flier on Luciano sometime during the next year and a half should have a very firm idea of how they might help him improve on at least one side of the ball. We think Luciano will have a lefty-mashing window of relevance, but he isn’t a foundational, impact player.

Martin was not a high school showcase fixture until fairly late in the scouting process when he had a breakout at the 2022 Area Code Games. There he showed a sweet lefty stroke, a projectable build, and the arm strength to stay at short. His feel to hit was harder to evaluate due to a smaller showcase sample than is typical for a high-end infield prospect, but in short looks it appeared rather undercooked, especially for a high school prospect who’d be 19 on draft day. He destroyed opposing Colorado high schoolers, but that isn’t especially telling. Martin got a substantial bonus (nearly $3 million) to eschew a commitment to Arkansas but didn’t play after the draft due to a back injury, nor did he break camp with an affiliate in 2024.

Martin is now 20 and hasn’t yet played at an affiliate. A hamstring issue that popped up during extended spring training will have him shelved for another few weeks until after the 2024 Complex League season begins. His spring training and extended looks were about the same: exciting but raw. Martin’s hitting hands are explosive and portend good power for a shortstop if he can stay there. He has some idea of the strike zone, but his on-field acumen is lacking for a talented 20-year-old, especially on defense, where the game has been too fast for him. He is trending more like a bat-oriented second baseman. There’s still pretty considerable power-hitting upside here, and there has been no change to Martin’s predraft FV grade even though his pro career is struggling to get off the ground.

Rodríguez had a breakout 2021 during which he sat 94-96 mph while incorporating a low-80s slider with big horizontal sweeping action. Across the last couple of seasons, his velocity and effectiveness have yo-yo’d as Rodríguez’s option years have poured through the hourglass. He’s had stretches of wildness where he’s walked nearly a batter per inning, but Rodríguez is incredibly athletic, the sort of on-mound athlete for whom we think things will click over time, enabling him to be a core middle relief piece. Rodríguez’s pitch mix is headlined by a fastball that regularly resides in the upper-90s and also features plus carry through the zone, which allows the offering to play despite his shotgun command. When his slider is at its best, it has a vertical, downer shape, and regularly has plus teeth. However, he has a tendency to get on the side of it, which gives the offering inconsistent shape and spin. Rodríguez has the pure stuff of a high-leverage reliever, but his lack of control and inconsistency in harnessing his mix looks to have him bound for a lesser role. If his feel for location takes a step forward in his mid-20s, which feels possible given the way his body moves, then he’ll become a higher-leverage option.

Harris was another older pop-up reliever who first became known to those who frequent the backfields late in the summer of 2023. An undrafted two-way player from UNC Pembroke, Harris came out the gate sitting 94-96 with bat-missing carry and a hammer curveball last summer. He has continued to sit in the mid-90s again in 2024 while being deployed in a multi-inning relief role at San Jose. Harris stands a chance to move into the rotation eventually. He’s a strapping, athletic righty who has two plus pitches on board, and it’s plausible the Giants could parlay either his feel for spin or athleticism into a third viable pitch. He throws with such effort that we tend to think he’ll just wind up in relief, but while he doesn’t throw quite as hard, there are some similarities to Pete Fairbanks here that could push Harris into a late-inning role if his velo ticks up in single-inning outings.

Choate is a large-framed southpaw who struck out 87 batters over 68 frames between Low- and High-A in 2023. He’s still being developed as a starter and opened the season in the Eugene rotation. We are split as to whether he’ll be able to stay there long-term. Choate comes at batters from a low three-quarters slot and also has some crossfire direction in his stride. This combo is especially tough on left-handed hitters, but it’s also an atypical look for a starter. He has to pitch around his fastball, which lacks effective life. He has a great strike-throwing track record in pro ball but doesn’t have precise command, which is hindered by a long arm swing that disrupts his timing. So far he’s been able to avoid walks in a way that we think merits continued development as a starter and puts him more squarely on the starter/reliever line. Choate’s slider tends to be wide and sweepy, and can give left-handed hitters fits. The other secondary pitch in Choate’s mix is a changeup that features very late depth and is an effective offering against both righties and lefties. It’s his best pitch, and it needs to be in order to keep righty hitters off his fastball. Choate has a shot to start and checks a lot of the modern boxes that analytically driven scouts and orgs look for in a sleeper starter prospect.

Born in Hawaii, Ahuna spent his first two college seasons at Kansas and had one of the hottest lines in all of 2022 college baseball, slashing .396/.479/.634 before transferring to Tennessee for his draft year. He wasn’t eligible for the start of the season because Tennessee didn’t handle the transfer process correctly, and it cast a pall on the rest of Ahuna’s year, which was just fair. He struck out 77 times in 247 PA, twice as often as he walked. That’s a 31% strikeout rate, a pretty serious red flag for a college hitter. He began 2024 at San Jose, which is frankly beneath a player of Ahuna’s SEC and Big 12 experience.

Ahuna can spray pitches in the lower third of the zone to all fields, wielding doubles pop to both gaps, but his bat path naturally cuts underneath high fastballs, which are increasingly common. The length of his swing is going to make it tough for him to hit and we expect that his hit tool issues will persist. He is, however, a lock to stay at shortstop thanks to his hands, acrobatic actions, and arm, and he has a shot to be an impact defender there. This is the foundation of Ahuna’s profile rather than his offense. He projects as an athletic utility guy who relies on the power he generates when he makes contact to carry the offensive burden.

Arteaga signed for $1 million in 2019 and was tough to scout until 2021 because of travel restrictions in and out of Venezuela during the meat of the pandemic. The time off may be part of why Arteaga still doesn’t have especially good feel to hit or breaking ball recognition, which he has struggled with in the low minors. He managed to hit 17 homers in 2023 but still posted a below-average wRC+ in the Northwest League in large part because of his poor OBP. Arteaga is likely to mature into 45- or 50-grade raw power that plays down because of his issues discerning spin. He’s a slick and acrobatic shortstop defender, though, and should be an Edmundo Sosa type of bench infielder on the back of his defense. He began 2024 on the 60-day IL while recovering from postseason thoracic outlet surgery. Arteaga showed no ill-effects on defense despite seemingly playing through this ailment last year, though it adds to the volatility around his hit tool because it’s another long stretch during which he isn’t getting live reps.

Black covered 123.2 frames across Double- and Triple-A in 2023, striking out 30% of the batters he faced while keeping his walks right around 10%. Black utilizes both a four-seamer and a sinker in his mix, preferring his four-seamer more against lefties and the sinker more when facing righties. The four-seamer has averaged 92 mph so far this season (down a little bit from last year, and down a lot from the 96-97 mph peaks he’s shown once in a while as a prospect) and lacks the outlier life that would allow the offering to play above its velocity. His sinker will show above-average movement, and his command of his fastballs projects a tick above average. Black’s breaking ball arsenal consists of a sweeping slider and a slider that is much more vertically-oriented. He has obvious feel for spin, and the sweepy slider will routinely show above-average break, while the downer slider is a bit more inconsistent in producing sharp, quality spin. Black lacks a pitch with which he can regularly generate whiffs, which is why we view him as a future multi-inning reliever who can be used in more low-leverage situations to get bulk outs out of the bullpen.

After sitting 90-93 mph at Eastern Illinois and in the Northwoods League in 2022, Birdsong’s fastball was parked in the 93-96 mph range throughout 2023. He ended up working 100 innings as a starter and climbed from Low- to Double-A throughout the year, with his walk rate ticking up toward the end. He opened the 2024 season in the Richmond starting rotation, but to us he still comes off as more of a reliever long-term.

Birdsong has significant length in his arm path that often hampers the timing of his release and command, though it also creates some deception because of how long he hides the ball from batters. He’s relied more on his 12-to-6 curveball in 2024, which routinely shows above-average teeth but is very reliant on chase. It’s a pitch that pairs better with his four-seamer than his slider does because of its significant depth. He can throw it out of the same tunnel as his elevated four-seamer, but presently the pitch ends up in the dirt more often than not, and major league hitters will just eliminate it if he isn’t able to show he can land it for a strike with greater frequency. He’s still utilizing his late-tilting slider, but it hasn’t shown sharpness as consistently so far this year (its chase and miss rate stats were great in 2023) and seems to have taken a bit of a backseat to the curveball usage wise. Birdsong will also throw a changeup that often lacks notable action, and while it will show some slight depth on occasion, it projects as a show-me pitch at best. It was exciting how quickly Birdsong appeared to be developing last year, and there are still changes being made to his pitch mix, but his command has plateaued. We think Birdsong profiles as a single-inning reliever, a role where his stuff can play up in short bursts and his limited command is less of a factor.

A back injury limited Roupp’s 2023 and he really only threw his fastball and curveball during his 10 healthy starts, so perhaps it’s unsurprising the Giants accelerated his big league timeline and proactively put him in the bullpen at the start of 2024. Roupp has one of the better curveballs in all of baseball. It bends in around 77 mph with a ridiculous amount of depth. It has in-zone and bat-missing utility against hitters of either handedness and, especially in relief, it is likely to be the pitch Roupp throws most of all. Like a lot of Giants pitching prospects, Roupp has a drop-and-drive delivery and low-ish arm slot, which together create a shallow approach angle on his sinking fastball. The line on his heater pairs nicely with his curveball and he’s going to be able to sneak it past hitters at the belt. Because of his starter’s pedigree, Roupp could conceivably work multiple innings, which is part of why he’s been juiced into an impact FV tier rather than being given a generic middle relief grade.

Acquired from the Phillies before the 2023 season in exchange for hard-throwing reliever Yunior Marte, Miller is a stiff, hard-throwing lefty reliever with a great changeup. The Giants never bothered developing him as a starter and moved Miller straight into the bullpen after they acquired him. He has enjoyed a three-tick velo bump since joining the org (some of that is from the bullpen move), and sat 96 mph in 2023 and again early in 2024. Miller’s arm slot and release varies frequently, especially when he throws his changeup, for which he has a tendency to drop down to a noticeably lower angle. His changeup has big fading action and is going to be a bat-missing big league offering anyway; it’s easily his best pitch, as he lacks feel for locating his low-80s slurve. He has a pretty standard changeup-oriented middle reliever’s stuff.

McDonald was a late pop-up guy in the 2019 draft out of a high school in rural Mississippi. The Giants used their excess bonus pool money to sign him out of the 11th round for $800,000. He had something of a 2022 breakout in a piggyback starter role at Low-A en route to an incredible 2.39 ERA in the Cal League. His 2023 season was interrupted multiple times by injury — an AC joint sprain and a tweaked hammy — and McDonald only threw half as many innings as the year before. He looked healthy and effective at the end of the campaign and was added to San Francisco’s 40-man roster after the season.

McDonald began 2024 on the IL with a groin injury. We suppose you could consider him injury prone, but McDonald hasn’t had persistent, recurring ailments — his issues are all over the board. He hasn’t necessarily been missing out on building a starter’s stamina because his arm action, which is ultra-short, relatively stiff and odd looking (Jason Adam is a fair delivery comp), as well as a fairly inefficient approach to pitching with his fastball, seemed likely to funnel him toward the bullpen anyway. His collection of secondary stuff gives him the repertoire depth of a bulk relief or swingman. McDonald has been sitting 93-95 when healthy for the last three seasons and has a big-breaking, low-80s curveball that has overwhelmed lower-level hitters. His changeup has consistent below-the-zone finish and McDonald could stand to use it more often.

Pitchers on a 40-man roster tend to wear a big league uniform during the course of the year, and it’s likely McDonald debuts sometime toward the end of 2024 once he’s healthy and establishes himself at Richmond for a while.

Meckler fell to the eighth round of the 2022 draft because he was viewed as a corner outfield fit with very little power, but his hit tool turned out to be special enough to get him to the big leagues in 2023. He doesn’t quite have Steven Kwan’s bat control, but he was tracking like another Day Two steal from Oregon State. Meckler is a career .370 hitter in the minors across 106 games, but after he raced across three minor league levels and all the way to San Francisco last year, the diminutive outfielder looked physically overmatched against big league stuff. Meckler had an 87% contact rate as he climbed through the minors but that dipped to a more pedestrian 78% by the end of the season. He doesn’t have great feel for defense and is probably just a left fielder, and he lacks the power to profile as a regular there. Meckler did look a bit stronger during 2024 spring training but a left wrist sprain shelved him before the season began. It’s tougher to roster a guy like Meckler than a contact-only guy who can actually play center field. Realistically, with a lot of playing time, he’d likely produce akin to Raimel Tapia.

Level signed for just shy of $1 million in January and will begin his career in the 2024 DSL. He is barely 17 as of Giants list publication but already very strong. He’s built like Jasson Domínguez was as an amateur, with huge pythons, pecs, and traps. Still, a lack of arm strength will likely limit him to second base, putting pressure on his offensive tools to be loud enough for him to be an everyday player. As you can imagine, there’s practically no raw power projection here because Level is already so strong and maxed out. The good news is scouts like his hit tool enough to give him a puncher’s chance to be an everyday guy.

Sanchez is a slightly built lefty with a great changeup who is now on the doorstep of the big leagues. He works out of a closed-off stretch position and has an exaggerated inward rotation during his delivery to hide the ball from hitters even longer. Sanchez also creates a tough angle for left-handed hitters with his crossfire stride direction. He throws both a four-seamer (92-96 mph) and sinker (92-94 mph); the sinker shows average tail and sinking action while the four-seamer has solid carry through the zone. His go-to pitch is his changeup, which ranges between 83-87 mph and features very late bottom action. It routinely slips under bats and is exceptionally hard for hitters to identify because of the arm speed with which he throws the pitch. The changeup is also an offering he shows advanced feel for, as reflected in the 47% whiff rate and 43% chase rate the offering produced in 2023. Sanchez will infrequently show you an 84-86 mph slider that tends to have tilt to it, but it has below average tightness and best projects as a pitch he can drop it to steal strikes on occasion. Sanchez looks to have a single-inning middle-relief path ahead of him, one where he can lean on his bat-missing changeup and odd fastball angle to get outs against both lefties and righties.

An arm strength relief prospect from Notre Dame, Simon came out of the 2023 gates throwing gas, sitting 95-97 mph even as he was stretched out to work as many as four innings. It looked like he had made a successful leap to a minor league rotation when Simon was shut down with an elbow issue that led to a Tommy John in May. A typical recovery would put him on track for a mid-2024 return.

He needs to develop a third pitch, but the fastball/slider combo that drives many a relief profile is already here, and Simon didn’t pitch a ton in college and had already taken a leap from a strike-throwing standpoint before he went on the IL. He projects as a solid middle reliever here, but things were off to a pretty good start before the injury and others have returned from surgery having made strides in pitch design while they were away. Teams should prioritize a pre-deadline look at Simon just in case he’s made a leap during rehab like Keaton Winn did.

Miles went undrafted as an eligible sophomore and had an ERA over 6.00 at Mizzou, but the Giants still used a pretty high pick on him, a move that looked pretty sly by the end of the summer: Miles was sitting 95-98 mph and touching 99 in the 2022 ACL while flashing two average secondary pitches. He looked like a quick-moving reliever. Unfortunately, he hasn’t thrown a pitch at an affiliate since. A back injury cost him all of 2023 and an elbow issue has him on the 60-day IL to start 2024. We don’t know the exact nature of the elbow issue or when it cropped up; it’s possible it was discovered during Miles’ recovery from the back stuff. It still sounds like we could see him in 2024.

Healthy Miles stands out in the uniform for his size and physique; he’s well-built and his arm is fast. His low-80s slider has late horizontal movement, and he can vary its shape and give it more of a curveball look, and some of his pre-injury changeups (also in the low-80s) were plus. It’s clear there was pitch design meat left on the bone here in college, and if not for his injury, it’s possible Miles would have been one of the breakout prospects in this system either of the past two seasons.

Fitzgerald has hit an average of 20 homers annually since 2021 by utilizing a pull-heavy approach to contact. He doesn’t quite have average raw power but has still produced in-game power because of how focused his approach is, with a little bit due to the PCL offensive environment. A toned down leg kick in 2023 seemed to help him cut his strikeout rate from north of 30% to a more reasonable 24% at Triple-A, but Fitzgerald still swings and misses an awful lot, especially at sliders away from him, and not just sliders that finish off the plate. His desire to pull everything often causes him to swing inside sliders that don’t quite turn the corner, and he ran a 69% contact rate in 2023 (which is not good) even as his strikeout rate improved. While a poor hit tool will probably prevent Fitzgerald from hitting enough to be heavily used, his defensive versatility should ensure Fitz stays on a big league roster consistently. He’s capable (but not great) at a variety of infield spots and he successfully took to center field in 2023, where he got most of his late-season big league reps. He’s a righty-hitting utility guy.

Sugastey is a talented but flawed catching prospect who has had moderate success through the mid-minors despite a wreckless, over-aggressive approach. He’s an athletic mover in the batter’s box, especially for a catcher, and has modest but meaningful thunder in his hands, which produce average bat speed. Sugastey does everything he can to prioritize contact. He has a fairly simple swing that becomes strideless and simpler with two strikes, and he tracks pitches well and works a ton of well-timed contact back into the middle of the diamond. He had a two-strike chase rate over 60% in 2023 and his walk rates have dwindled into a problematic range (less than 5%) of late.

Sugastey is more “fine” on defense than very good. He’s a fair one-knee receiver who works through the ball from the ground up, but he isn’t strong or skilled enough yet to frame pitches in other parts of the zone. Sugastey also doesn’t have great pure arm strength, but his exchange is rhythmic and consistent — he’s a threat to hose you because of accuracy more than velocity. Even when catchers have monster tools, plate discipline this poor still creates risk and volatility — think Jorge Alfaro and Francisco Mejía. Sugastey isn’t that toolsy, but he can hit pretty well for a catcher and has no significant flaw besides his chase, so he profiles as a streaky bat-first backup.

Bericoto slugged 27 homers in a season split between High- and Double-A in 2023, with his scissor-style swing (his stride and weight transfer are in the Giancarlo Stanton/Jose Altuve/Druw Jones mold) producing above-average big league pull power already at age 22. Bericoto’s prodigious power is enough to give him some prospect clout as a role-playing corner bat, but his contact rates have historically been near the bottom of what is typical of big league 1B/LF (70% overall, 80% in the zone). Most successful corner bats who make so little contact either hit left-handed or have immense, plus-plus power, which is probably more than Bericoto will grow into. Early in 2024, some of what has historically ailed Bericoto (he’s relatively chase-prone) has neutered his offense entirely, and as of list publication, he had yet to walk in just over 60 PA.

Bericoto is also limited on defense. While he has experience at three corner positions, he’s a liability in the outfield. If he can continue to produce like he did in 2023, Bericoto should compete for a 40-man roster spot across the next two seasons, and we think he’ll have a few peak years in his prime when he has relevance as a short-side corner platoon guy.

A stocky 18-year-old outfielder currently on San Francisco’s extended spring training roster, Guzman has an exciting present contact and power blend but isn’t especially projectable. His top-hand driven swing covers a lot of the plate and his overall package is seasoned with a pretty good idea of the strike zone. He’ll have to hit all the way up the ladder as a likely left fielder, but Guzman is off to a good start.

Acquired from the Pirates not long before list publication in exchange for Joey Bart, Strickland popped up in extended spring training piggybacking with a rehabbing Reggie Crawford. He was mostly a reliever at Kentucky but could be developed as a starter in pro ball. He’s a fairly smooth-operating righty with a fastball that was in the 93-95 mph range during his couple of complex innings last week. Off of that heater, Strickland bends in two distinct breaking balls. One is a slider in the 83-86 mph range and the other is a curveball that hovers around 80 mph. Strickland’s rate stats at Kentucky suggest he can throw strikes and he may develop a changeup late once he’s forced to use one as a starter. His pro career is just underway and he hasn’t yet pitched at an affiliate as of list publication, but he’s a name to monitor in the system.

Velasquez has a strong contact track record for a switch-hitting infielder of his age, but the way scouts have described his level of athleticism and bat speed has varied substantially across the last three years, and this spring he has looked like the lesser version. It’s important for Velasquez to have his best bat speed and hit for some power because, athletically, he’s likely destined for second base. His range and arm are both better fits on the right side of the infield and he needs power to profile without defensive versatility. Contact skills on such a young switch-hitter are hard to find, but there isn’t great long-term physical projection here and it will take changes to his conditioning to better Velasquez’s mobility.

Foster’s feel and soft skills on defense drive his prospectdom — at the very least, they’re going to enable him to stay at shortstop throughout his time in the minors. What Foster lacks in athletic ability he somewhat makes up for with on-field acumen and awareness. His internal clock is well-timed, his arm stroke is true and consistent (plenty for the left side of the infield), and his hands are slick and sure. Foster is also a switch-hitter who hit fairly well in the SEC. Like teammate Maui Ahuna, his Low-A assignment to start 2024 is pretty cushy and he should dominate the Cal League after playing well at Auburn. His loping, low-ball swing will end up underneath a lot of pro fastballs, but Foster’s defense should enable him to be a rosterable bench infielder.

Teng was signed by the Twins and traded as part of the 2019 Sam Dyson deal. He has slowly marched to the big leagues as a four-pitch starter prospect, but his lack of athleticism and issues with walks made him more likely to be a big league reliever. That seems to have happened as Teng made the Giants’ big league roster out of 2024 camp but has since been optioned, as is his probable destiny. In his early 2024 relief outings, his repertoire has been pared down to sinkers and sliders. Teng will reach back for the occasional 96, but tends to sit a few ticks below that as a starter. His mid-80s slider is tough to spot out of hand and generated a 46% miss rate in 2023. As a starter, Teng also threw a fair number of changeups and curveballs, but those are probably going to be rare show-me pitches if he ends up staying in the bullpen in perpetuity.

Avila was once a Rule 5 pick of the White Sox, but he didn’t stick on their roster. In 2023, he worked in multi-inning relief at Sacramento, where he pitched 72 innings in 56 games. Avila is a kitchen sink reliever of sorts. He has a cutter-heavy approach to pitching and will vary four- and two-seam fastballs from a very vertical arm slot. He can also slow things down and bend in an upper-70s curveball, which often surprises hitters. It’s the pitch he threw the least, but it generated the best rate of whiffs of any of his offerings in 2023. Expect him to be up and down from Triple-A.

Cruz was 2022’s Randy Rodríguez, a low-level reliever who had a big enough breakout to merit a 40-man spot even though he was still a sizable distance from the big leagues and was likely to spend at least one whole season continuing to develop in the minors. Cruz has stagnated, regressed even, and started walking hitters at an excessive rate in 2023 after he was promoted to Richmond. That has continued in 2024. Cruz appears to have added some strength over the offseason and has a mature, medium frame. He has ditched the windup in favor of working out of the stretch full-time, and his stride down the mound is so ridiculously huge that it appears as though he has a hard time maintaining mechanical consistency enough to throw a strike. Cruz throws from a high three-quarters arm slot that helps to create above-average carry on his four-seamer, but the pitch plays well below its velocity and life grades overall due to his poor command. It’s a similar story with his sinker, which has average tail and sink to it. Cruz’s bread and butter pitch is a changeup that features significant late fading action and will also flash depth. Cruz does a good job of maintaining his fastball arm speed when throwing his changeup to add an extra element of deception, but again, it’s a pitch that he’s unable to consistently control, which makes him overly reliant on hitters chasing out of the zone. Cruz flashes pure stuff that is more in line with a future setup man, but his very limited strike-throwing ability best projects for a low-leverage single inning role, which will still require more overall control than what he’s shown so far in his professional career.

Madison has a mature, medium frame that lacks projection. As a 25-year-old in 2023, he struck out 35.5% of the hitters he faced between Eugene and Richmond, but also walked 16.9% of them. He throws from a high slot, has slight crossfire direction in his stride, and is max effort on every pitch he throws. His fastball does have plus riding action through the zone, but that’s largely negated by his shotgun command. Madison also has a sharp downer slider that features late action, but it’s also greatly hindered by his inability to land it with any frequency. His lack of strike throwing ability is best suited for a low-leverage single-inning role.

After he was used as a swingman and in a piggyback starter role early during his draft year with Long Beach State, Johnson was stretched out toward the very end of the season and had some dandy starts in late April and May. The Red Sox shut him down after the draft and then deployed him exclusively in relief during his first pro season. Johnson enjoyed a three-tick bump to his fastball prior to being traded to San Francisco for Mauricio Llovera and was sitting 94 at the time of the trade. He struck out 63 batters over 52.2 frames in A-ball last season but also issued 33 free passes along the way. Johnson’s overhand slot contributes to the plus carry on his mid-90s four-seamer, which will also show late cut action and is capable of generating whiffs. He has a power over precision approach, and his command ceiling is below average at best. His breaking ball has inconsistent shape, and varies between a slurvey offering and a vertical downer. What is consistent, however, is the above-average bite on the pitch. It’s another pitch he struggles to control, which hinders its overall effectiveness. It’s an electric two-pitch combo, and you hope the control/command clicks one day, but until then, Johnson presents a single-inning middle-relief profile. Johnson recently underwent surgery to repair a fracture in his right elbow and joins the legion of injured arms of note in this system.

Kiest has been at it for nearly a decade. He was a 28th round pick of the Phillies in 2014 and was released after two seasons. After a few years away from affiliated ball, he signed with the Twins in 2018 and pitched just 14 innings at Cedar Rapids before he was released again. Since then, he’s pitched in Mexico and Independent ball; the Giants added him to their system at the very end of May 2023. Since then, Kiest has been scattering a mid-to-upper-90s fastball with hair on it, and he’ll occasionally show you an above-average slider as well. His control is pretty fringy, and finding release consistency will be key to his journey continuing through the upper minors. Kiest began 2024 at Richmond and continues to throw hard without a great idea of where the baseball is going.

Wynja pitched at four different colleges in four years — first at Purdue, then Lincoln Trail College, South Florida, and finally Murray State — after which he was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2022. The gigantic 6-foot-9 lefty has already added about four ticks to his fastball, which sat 87-88 mph at Murray State then was suddenly in the 90-92 range in 2023. That’s better but still below-average, and although Wynja continues to be developed as a starter, his fringy command of an already below-average fastball makes it very difficult to see him consistently turning over a lineup of major league hitters as a starter. We think he’s best suited to cover lower-leverage assignments where he can air it out in an attempt to get his stuff to tick up in single-inning bursts. Most importantly, Wynja has a plus slider that he commands with aplomb. Last list cycle, Wynja and his several late-bloomer traits (his size and nomadic amateur career) made him seem like he might continue to improve, but he has settled into looking like an up/down lefty specialist.

Perez is a young catcher who has made a ton of contact in the lower levels. He has a quick bat and sprays the ball to all fields, but he is a relatively projectionless athlete without much power right now. Most importantly, Perez has some clear things to work on defensively. He’s a pretty good young receiver with deft hands around the edge of the zone and his throwing has gotten a bit better, but he’s a fringe athlete with a maxed out build and it’s possible he’ll have a hard time remaining athletic enough to be a good catcher as he ages. It’s encouraging that Prez has continued to hit as he’s entered the mid-minors, but he’s still just a bat control sleeper at a premium position, a prospect to monitor for change in the areas that need improvement but not one with an imminent or certain high-impact projection.

Sanchez is a viable defensive catcher prospect (his arm strength is better than his receiving right now) with above-average power for a hitter his age. There are scouts who think he’ll develop truly plus raw power at peak and others who think he’s more or less maxed out. He signed for $1.4 million and will begin his career in the DSL as a dev project at a premium position.

After experiencing delays to his development – first the 2020 shutdown, then a 2021 meniscus tear – Waites rocketed from High-A to the majors in 2022 as he pumped upper-90s gas past hitters and struck out well over 40% of them during the season. He dealt with a lat strain during 2023 spring camp and pitched with reduced velocity when he returned, velo that ticked down more and more throughout the year until Waites went from sitting 97-101 at peak to 93-96 toward the end of his season. He had his second career Tommy John in September and will miss all of 2024.

Healthy Waites’ fastball touches triple-digits, misses bats up in the zone, and punishes righties on the inside of the plate. His slider quality and command were not especially good (he only throws it 20% of the time), and much of the swing-and-miss with his breaking ball is the result of the batter gearing up for the fastball rather than the quality of the slider on its own. Waites hasn’t had a ton of reps — his 41 innings in 2022 were easily the most of his career. It’s plausible he could improve his slider or command enough to be more than the wild up/down reliever he was projected as before his most recent TJ, but another year of missed development will make that more difficult. He’ll be nearly 27 when he next throws a competitive pitch and we expect he’ll be more of a “lightning in a bottle” type reliever who could make a meaningful big league bullpen impact but probably during a narrow window of time rather than for five or more consistent seasons.