SF Giants notes: Luciano promoted to Triple-A; Kruk and Kuip named top MLB broadcast crew
The good news down the farm system keeps coming for the San Francisco Giants.
The Giants have promoted Marco Luciano, the 21-year-old shortstop ranked as MLB.com’s No. 15 prospect in all of baseball, to Triple-A Sacramento.
Ranked as the No. 2 prospect in the Giants’ system, Luciano will now join the No. 1 prospect Kyle Harrison in Sacramento (Harrison is currently out with a hamstring injury).
In 56 games at Double-A Richmond, Luciano slashed .228/.339/.450 with 11 homers and 32 RBI. After an injury-riddled 2022, which saw Luciano only play in 57 games at High-A Eugene, his strong 2023 has led to this promotion.
Marco Luciano has been promoted to @RiverCats pic.twitter.com/HIjwQb2DIr
— SFGProspects (@SFGProspects) July 18, 2023
It now means the Giants’ top three prospects, who are all 21, are either in Triple-A Sacramento (Harrison and Luciano) or on the MLB roster (outfielder Luis Matos).
Luciano’s move up comes after a flurry of promotions last week, highlighted by their No. 8 prospect, 2022 first-round pick Reggie Crawford, moving from Low-A San Jose to High-A Eugene and No. 9 prospect, 2021 third-round pick Mason Black, going from Richmond to Sacramento.
The Giants have also aggressively moved No. 4 prospect and 2022 second-round pick Carson Whisenhunt through the system this year, quickly moving him from San Jose to Eugene and then to his current stop in Richmond. Whisenhunt could move up another level or two again this season, too.
With the trade deadline only two weeks away, the prospects’ strong seasons could be valuable for the Giants as potential trades for MLB-level talent loom.
Krukow, Kuiper back on top of MLB broadcast rankings
The Giants’ television duo of Duane Kuiper and Duane Kuiper have regained their spot at the top of an annual ranking of MLB broadcasters.
The website Awful Announcing has resumed its audience poll on broadcast teams after a COVID pause. For the fourth time in six polls since 2014, the Giants’ broadcast took the top spot.
Led by Krukow and Kuiper, the Giants’ broadcast has won in 2014, 2017, 2018 and now 2023, and finished second in the other two — in 2016, behind the Dodgers’ Vin Scully, and in 2019, behind the Padres’ duo of Don Orsillo and Mark Grant.
Fans vote on broadcasts by assessing them a letter grade, ranking from A to F. The Giants broadcast received over 60% of A-grade votes and the overall weighted score of 3.41 was their third-highest of the six surveys. Awful Announcing called Krukow and Kuiper “baseball’s most beloved local broadcast team.”
Awful Announcing did not do its reader survey from 2020-22, but brought it back in 2023. The website noted that reader participation dropped sharply from its last survey (over 64,000 votes in 2019) to this one (just over 10,000).
The A’s broadcast team, which had previously ranked in or just outside of the Top 10, dropped to 29th in the survey. The team fired longtime play-by-play broadcaster Glen Kuiper earlier this season after Kuiper used a racial epithet on the air leading into an A’s broadcast on May 5 in Kansas City.
Awful Announcing noted the instability in the play-by-play seat, with Johnny Doskow and Vince Cotroneo currently splitting duties calling games, and the team’s plans to move to Las Vegas as factors that “probably played a significant role” in the A’s broadcast’s precipitous drop in their rankings.