There R Giants #19: Manuel Mercedes

Photo Credit: Phrake Photography

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.

My sense is that today’s the day we cross the Rubicon. We’ve been inching towards it, certainly, for awhile now, but here it is at last. From this point on, we’ll be talking about how players might travel the road to a certain pinnacle of development success: “major league starting player.” Oh, we’ve dipped our toes in the river before now. If the rumored conversion of Randy Rodriguez to starting pitcher has legs, perhaps we were up to our shins, checking out the current, on Monday. Obviously, we’ve passed by players who formerly profiled as big league starters before rough years might have dimmed the ceiling a bit. And youngsters like Adrian Sugastey certainly have time to develop into real starter candidates — not to mention guys like Mauricio Pierre & Co. down in the Dominican, barely old enough to put their skater punk days behind them.

Still, taken as a whole, in my head, the list up to now has been about players who can provide some kind of major league value, likely in complementary or depth roles — future utility players, platoon mates, swing men and relievers. Of course, we always remember that a player has the power to change his stars, but up till now, my write-ups have focused on contributor attributes. From here on out, to my mind, every player we talk about will be someone who has a viable — not to say “likely,” certainly not! keep in mind, this game is hard — but a “viable” path to being a starting player at the highest level.

Of course, some of those “viable paths” are still mostly untraveled, with a long journey still to come. Some players are so few steps down the yellow brick road that they’re still within the city limits of Munchkinland, no sight yet of the cornfields where the Scarecrow hangs, and they’re many days away from any deep, dark woods or fields of poppies (if you don’t mind a little mixed metaphor where apparently now I have Julius Caesar approaching the Wizard of Oz and asking for a throne).

The longest untrod path undoubtedly belongs Manuel Mercedes, who represents the greatest distance in the organization between who he currently is and who he might become. If he is able to climb even a small portion of that distance, he can become a useful player — even now he’d probably make an interesting part of a trade package. If he can cover a substantial portion of the distance in front of him, there’s a decent chance that he’s a future #1 prospect in this system — and a chance that he’s a whole lot more than that someday on a big league field.

SFGProspects @SFGProspects

Manuel Mercedes struck out 6 over five innings in his professional debut on June 29th.