2025 There R Giants' Top 50: Just Missed

Oh so close....

Photo Credit: Mick Anders | Richmond Flying Squirrels

Every year, I begin my “Just Missed” post with the same, somewhat downcast and agonized thoughts: “wait, this guy didn’t make it?!?!? I HAVE to get him in somewhere!” Frequently, this leads me to some last minute switcheroos, but then I simply repeat the process with my newly relegated player, who had been holding on at 49 or 50, until I forced him out with the new entry. “Wait! Now this guy isn’t on there?”

Ah, the tyranny of the ordinal number system. We’ve just been through every player in the Giants’ organization, and you all well know at this point that I’ve given the lion’s share of them very similar 35/40 area grades. Everybody I talk about today has a legitimate argument to be ranked in front of many of the players we’ll get to in the next couple of posts. But they’re not.

Binary reality. You’re in, or you’re out. It’s that simple.

But that’s only for list purposes, of course. In the end, people make the back end of the list as much because I find something in their game interesting to write about than for any other reason.

Many of the players we’ll discuss in today’s post could legitimately be in Friday’s (indeed, I made one last minute switcheroo after beginning today’s!). Maybe even in Monday’s? But they’re not. They’re here in the annual “Just Missed” group. And, who knows, some of them I might regret putting here. In last year’s version, I put Jack Choate in this group and almost immediately regretted the decision (he’s not here this year). And several years ago, coming out of the wasteland of the lost pandemic season, I rather controversially left Aeverson Arteaga off my list, mostly because I really had no idea what being stuck in Venezuela without access to training resources for the year might have done to his skillset (it turned out, he had smartly built a home training facility with his signing bonus, even going so far as to stock it with food and nutrition, so that he could really put the time to good use). That one didn’t age all that well — but I didn’t feel terrible about my logic at the time.

Anyway, enough with visiting the Ghosts of Top 50s Past. I’m sure this is the year my Top 50 leaves me with no regrets. Hear that Listicle Gods? ZE.RO. REGRETS!

So let’s meet the folks who came oh-so-close before we head on to the list proper next time out.