Photo Credit: Jared Ravich | MiLB.com
We’re into the There R Giants Top 50. Over the winter months, I’ll write a post on each of the fifty players in my rankings, leading us back to the much-needed spring. Our list of previously covered players is getting a little long, so from here on out I’m moving the links for the full list down the bottom of the post.
One of the most fascinating storylines from the Giants 2021 farm system was the twisting, alternating, up and down fates of the two A-ball catchers: Patrick Bailey and Ricardo Genovés. One would surge, one would stumble, then they flipped places and swapped fates. In some respects, the pair seemed locked in a double-helix shaped spiral dance, with their stars brightening or dimming in a nearly zero-sum balance with each other throughout the year.
For a long time, I actually thought I would put the two next to each other on my rankings and then write up one gigantic dual-profile post. That idea got shunted aside for a variety of reasons (almost certainly to the benefit of you, the reader), but I do still tend to think of the pair’s seasons in tandem, weighing them one against the other. And I think, in the end, Bailey’s late season surge has somehow overshadowed what was the strongest development push yet from the long-time farmhand, Genovés. While Giants fans argue whether Bailey or Joey Bart is really the team’s “catcher of the future” (or if any such thing exists), Geno — as he is universally known around the Giants organization — continues to assert himself into the picture. With a strong full season debut behind him, it’s looking more and more like a big league career lies in his future.
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