There R Giants 2024 Top 50: #16-20

The Big Leaguer Arrive on the Scene

Photo Credit: KA Fullmore / Richmond Flying Squirrels

So far in the Top 50:

• Just Missed List

• #50-46 (Lisbel Diaz, Hayden Wynja, Alix Hernandez, Carson Ragsdale, Ben Madison)

• #45-41 (Jose Cruz, Tyler Myrick, Eric Silva, Nick Zwack, Josh Bostick)

• #40-36 (William Kempner, R.J. Dabovich, Scott Bandura, Cole Foster, Nick Avila)

• #35-31 (Jairo Pomares, Manuel Mercedes, Ryan Murphy, Erik Miller, Spencer Miles)

• #26-30 (Kai-Wei Teng, Cole Waites, Randy Rodriguez, Maui Ahuna, Liam Simon)

• #21-25 (Gerelmi Maldonado, Carson Seymour, Adrian Sugastey, Onil Perez, Diego Velasquez)

It’s an over-used trope these days, but the Giants had an honest to God “sliding doors” moment in the 2023 season. On August 14, as the season was slowly starting to slip away from them, the Giants found out that Mike Yastrzemski had suffered a setback in his rehab from a hamstring strain. Partially in response to that news, the team decided to place Wade Meckler on the 40-man, less than five months into his first full professional season. Meckler had already blitzed his way up to Triple-A by then, where he was hitting .400 with a .545 (!!!) OBP in 10 games. Moreover, his success was being driven by an approach that perfectly personified the organizational philosophy: he didn’t swing at balls, and he made contact with strikes.

That was the door that slid open; the door that slid close, however, slammed tight on Heliot Ramos’ chance of boarding the Opportunity Train. Ramos had just been recalled on August 11, his first taste of the majors since early April. That night, he had pinch-hit in the 9th inning, lacing a 112.7 mph double before scoring the team’s only run. On the 12th, he got the start and belted his first homer as a major leaguer, a 110-mph missile that would have been a homer in 29 of 30 ballparks, according to StatCast. And on the 13th, in another start, he ripped a 101-mph double that would have been a homer in 20 of 30 ballparks. For a lineup that was suffering a team-wide power outage, Ramos had offered a glimpse of the kind of impact they hadn’t seen in weeks. He’d get just eight more PA before being sent back down a week later — without ever playing another complete game in that time.

Of course, it wasn’t a true “sliding doors” moment, because we, the viewing audience, were not given the chance to contrast and compare how two different choices might have played out. All we know is that an alternate possibility presented itself…and was eschewed. Had the club made a different choice — to give Ramos another week to show whether those PCL improvements were “sticky” or not — we would have a little more evidence with which to evaluate Ramos and a little less evidence with which to evaluate Meckler — possibly to the benefit of both.

As it is, however, we must make do with only the information we were granted. And in today’s There R Giants’ Top 50 post, we’ll use that limited knowledge to grapple with each of our protagonists’ cases. All prospecting, of course, is a matter of imagining “what if….” Though perhaps not all prospect posts must ask the question quite so literally so as today’s.