SF Giants minor-league report: What is the 2024 outlook for these top prospects?
PHOENIX — Standing at the intersection of the four main fields at the Giants’ minor-league complex, a 10-minute drive from their Scottsdale spring home, Kyle Haines paused his sentence and surveyed the action in front of him. With MLB’s hyped “Spring Breakout” game postponed the previous day, the Single-A game taking place against the A’s on Field 2 turned into a veritable showcase of its own.
Bryce Eldridge, their 6-foot-7 first-round pick in last year’s draft, towered at first base. He took throws from a toolsy, bushy haired shortstop the team selected 36 picks after him, 52nd overall, and handed a $3 million signing bonus, Walker Martin. Roaming center field was 17-year-old Rayner Arias, getting in some of his first action domestically since signing for $2.6 million out of the Dominican Republic in 2023, the second-most lucrative deal the franchise has awarded an international amateur.
“Really just nice to see that upside type player position-wise,” the farm director remarked.
The Giants’ farm system has produced an All-Star closer, Camilo Doval and the ace of their pitching staff, Logan Webb. It has unearthed bullpen stalwarts in Tyler Rogers and Ryan Walker; and last year graduated 12 players to the major leagues, one of whom, Patrick Bailey, was a runner-up for a Gold Glove.
What it hasn’t done is deliver a sustainable core of position players, or a superstar to anchor it.
Not yet, at least, not since the days of Buster Posey, Brandon Crawford and Brandon Belt.
“I think if you look at championship teams, they tend to have a balance of all acquisitions. They trade well. They draft well. They perform well in international. Free agency. They’re all contributors,” Haines said. “It’d be great if it was all (player development) and draft, but you need international, you need trades, you need waivers. … It’s an interesting group, because up and down the system we definitely have a lot of good players of various degrees.”
A wave of talent from the Giants’ highly touted 2018 international signing class looks to be on the verge of breaking through, between Marco Luciano and Luis Matos, both on display Sunday evening as the major-league team scrimmaged the Triple-A River Cats in Sacramento. But Arias, Eldridge and Martin represent the organization’s next and best chance at developing the face of the franchise it has lacked since Posey retired.
While all are advanced for their age, they are also years away from the big leagues.
Martin turned 20 in February, and Eldridge will be a teenager for another seven months. Arias would still be in high school if he had been born in the U.S.
All three impressed in their entrances to pro ball, though Martin’s was delayed until this spring. In the game taking place, he worked a walk and showed off a compact left-handed swing, while Haines said, “there’s still a lot of development left. But he’s strong, he’s physical, he’s athletic. Huge aptitude. … He’s shown a good eye and some power potential.”
The largest power potential lays in Eldridge, who will have every chance to harness it this year having dropped the two-way designation to focus on first base and his left-handed swing in his first full professional season.
Eldridge played at two levels in 2023 after being drafted, making it to Single-A San Jose, and batted .294/.400/.505 with six home runs in 31 games. But it was his eye-popping exit velocity — 92.4 mph on average and 107.1 mph on his hardest 10% of contact — that led Baseball America to offer Matt Olson, the reigning home run champion, as a comparison.
“He’s got an advanced approach. Hits live drives to all fields. He’ll hit for power one day,” Haines said. “Realistically this year he’s going to have a good year, but we know those high school kids are going to go through ups and downs. It’s pretty rare when they don’t.”
While Eldridge should start the year with San Jose, the rookie-level Arizona Complex League is more likely for Martin and Arias as they get their feet wet. Arias played only 16 games in the Dominican Summer League before a broken wrist suffered diving for a fly ball ended his season.
In the limited sample, Arias slugged four home runs while batting .414/.539/.793, and showed off an advanced approach in the Single-A game at Papago, working his way back from a two-strike count to draw a walk. As he grows into his 6-foot-2 frame, Arias could eventually shift to a corner outfield spot, but for now the Giants like him in center.
“He’s really athletic. And he’s a good runner. So we’ll see if we can keep him out there as long as we can,” Haines said. “He’s still so young, it’s hard to tell if he’ll hit for power one day. He’s still got a lot of physical development to do. But he gives a good at-bat.
“I’d rather have it that way right now than guys just hitting the ball to the moon and wondering if he’s going to swing at good pitches. He’s swinging at good pitches, he’s shown that. We’ll see if he fills out physically enough to get to that power potential that might be there. … He needs at-bats. He didn’t get very many at-bats last year.”
Losing out on their second- and third-round selections in the upcoming draft because of their signings of Matt Chapman and Blake Snell, it will be more difficult for the Giants to stockpile high-end talent. But, in Eldridge, Martin, second-round lefty Joe Whitman and fourth-round shortstop Maui Ahuna, the Giants believe they added four first-round worthy talents in last summer’s draft.
Closer to the show, Haines said the strength of the system lays in its upper-level pitching.
It’s been on display this spring, with Mason Black and Landen Roupp fighting for roster spots and Hayden Birdsong, Carson Whisenhunt, Carson Seymour and Reggie Crawford also spending time in big league camp. Black, a fourth-round pick in 2021 who got the nod against the Giants’ major-league hitters Sunday, is a likely bet to start the year in the rotation until Blake Snell is ready.
“I think throughout the year we should have some arms that could help,” Haines said, including R.J. Dabovich, a hard-throwing reliever who seemed to be on a fast track to the majors but had his season cut short by hip surgery and wasn’t invited to big-league camp this spring.
“He’s a guy that could grab some eyes really fast. I think that’s a guy that people I don’t want to say forgot about but definitely hasn’t been at big league camp or maybe as visible as others.”
Whisenhunt, a polished lefty with a major-league changeup, was slow-played to begin spring after being shut down by an elbow injury last July but has been pitching in minor-league games for the past two weeks now and could debut later this season.
Birdsong, a sixth-round pick in 2022, “would be in those top 100 lists, no doubt in my mind, if he’d have been picked higher in the draft,” Haines said. “Big, strong 6-4 right-hander. Mid-to-upper 90s with a legit wipeout breaking ball. This guy belongs on the top prospect list. He’s hopefully in the big-league picture soon.”
Like Eldridge, Crawford dropped the two-way pursuit and is focusing on pitching, though a lat strain prevented him from throwing in big-league camp before he was reassigned to the minor-league complex. He’s since gotten off a mound, but the 2022 first-round pick is likely to remain in Arizona once the minor-league season begins to continue his build up because, Haines said, “I don’t think just throwing him out there is a good idea from a health standpoint. To be honest, we probably don’t need him in April, anyway. We’re going to need him throughout the rest of the year.”
When it comes to satisfying a director of player development, 2023 will be tough to beat.
Entering his sixth year on the job, Haines watched Luciano and Matos, a couple of highly-touted teenagers when he took the job, make their long-awaited major-league debuts, along with 10 others from the system (11, if you count Alexander Canario, now with the Cubs).
At the All-Star Game, the Giants were represented by Doval, and in the Cy Young voting, they were represented by Webb, two homegrown pitchers Haines has been singing the praises of long before they received national acclaim.
“I will say we promoted so many rookies last year,” Haines said, “you look up and we could use another good growth year in the minor leagues to replenish.”