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.
This is the hardest one, really. Because, honestly, I don’t have any great idea — I don’t think anyone does. If you listened to yesterday’s podcast episode with Tess Taruskin, she laid out a very plausible case for Hunter Bishop still being one of the top talents in the system, as had Melissa Lockard in a previous episode. Others (Eric Longenhagen, Sam Dykstra, Josh Norris) have been more muted in their assessments. But really, we are all just casting about with Bishop, who has been absent much more than present in his pro career — we’re all seeing as through a glass, darkly.
One thing is for sure: there is a starter kit here for not just a big league talent, but a big league talent who is particularly suited to becoming a San Francisco Giants legend. Bishop is a local talent, a Giants fan steeped in Giants lore. He went to Barry Bonds’ high school. He has long been one of Brandon Crawford’s most vocal fans. He’s an immensely likable kid — thoughtful and open and fun. His interests and talent extend beyond athletics — he’s written and recorded music professionally. He and his family went through the public tragedy of losing their mother to Alzheimer’s Disease with grace and strength and togetherness, even turning their pain into charity work when they started 4MOM afterwards. And, of course, the most important on-field part: his baseball game is built to bring you leaping out of your seat, screaming “Oh. Freakin’. WOW!” The ingredients are in place here for an absolute generationally beloved Giants’ star — if everything comes together.
Unfortunately, thus far in his professional journey, things have very much stayed apart. Two and a half years since his draft day, so many questions adhere to Bishop’s development that he might as well suit up looking like this:
There are questions about how well the tools translate into baseball skills, there are performance questions. There are questions about health that certainly aren’t helping to answer the performance questions. He is the Giants’ Mystery Man, the Question Man. And the biggest question of all is this: will 2022 be the year that starts to deliver some answers for this prodigiously talented young man.
Because, if it is, then maybe by the end of the year, he’ll be able to take the field looking like this!
Let’s dig in on the first draft pick ever taken by the Giants in the Farhan Zaidi era and see what answers we can divine.
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