Rule 5 Decisions: Grant McCray

Athletic CF mostly held steady in 2022

Photo Credits: Kevin Cunningham | Giants Futures

Do I have to start every one of these darned things by talking about COVID? How far must we go to be out of the long shadow of that foul year? I opened my post on Kai-Wei Teng on Monday talking about the veritable Fly Machine that 2020 often represented for prospects — they went in as one specimen and came out a different one.

How much more is that the case for those players whose careers had scarcely begun? The Giants’ 2019 draft wasn’t quite as “high school forward” as the classes of 2013, 2017, or 2023 (in each case, the top two picks came from the high school ranks, and in 2017, the top three did). Still, there was a significant presence of high school talent in that crop. Three of the top six picks and four of the top six bonuses were handed out to high school players.

I’ll be talking about a couple of the members of the high school class of 2019 in this series, but each of them has had to deal with that unknown factor: how was their development impacted by the inability to get on a field and play when they were 19 years old — a fairly significant age as far as development goes?

Grant McCray reported to Scottsdale as an 18-year-old 3rd round pick in 2019, and showed off more refinement and a better feel to hit than some veteran observers had anticipated. He got 220 PA that summer and left everyone eager to see what the next step would look like. And then….over the next two years, he had just 150 more PA, including just 24 games played in full-season ball. After the lost year of 2020, his development was pushed back by a minor hip injury in spring of 2021 that kept him in extended spring — and later in the Arizona Complex League — until late August.

His Low-A debut ended up taking place about 16 months later than anticipated — but he certainly made it memorable, going deep in his first at bat in a San Jose lineup (as captured here by my friend Kevin Cunningham):

My point is, of course, that, in theory, the Rule 5 protection decision isn’t meant to be made for high school players who haven’t made it out of A ball yet. In a different, more normal timeline, McCray would have a season of Double-A under his belt (or more!) and the shape of his career would be much clearer and more definite, and the decision to use a 40-man spot on him would be easier. But that’s not the timeline we live in.

Which isn’t, of course, to say that the lost year of 2020 explains all. That high school class of 2019 also included Corbin Carroll, Riley Greene, Bobby Witt, Jr., Anthony Volpe, Gunnar Henderson, and Michael Harris II (a 3rd round pick just like McCray). Missed time helps provide context for McCray’s development, but what’s happened on the field is still where the full story is to be found. The play is still the thing wherein we’ll capture the decision of the king. So let’s look at the play of the dynamic kid from Florida.