This year’s Top 50:
#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)
#30-26 (Kai-Wei Teng, Cole Waites, Randy Rodriguez, Maui Ahuna, Liam Simon)
#25-21 (Gerelmi Maldonado, Carson Seymour, Adrian Sugastey, Onil Perez, Diego Velasquez)
#20-16 (Heliot Ramos, Trevor McDonald, Landen Roupp, Victor Bericoto, Wade Meckler)
#15-12 (Tyler Fitzgerald, Joe Whitman, Vaun Brown, Reggie Crawford)
And that’s a wrap!
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, but it really does feel to me like I’m reaching the end of — in Marvel Cinematic Universe terms — Phase One of There R Giants. Every top 50 ranking that I’ve done since beginning this site has featured Marco Luciano, Luis Matos, and Kyle Harrison at, or near, the top. And I’ve spilled a lot of ink saying that this trio — who played together as teenagers in San Jose, as 20-year-olds in Eugene, and who all made their major league debuts in their age 21 season in San Francisco — should become the future core of the Giants going forward, if their player development program under Farhan Zaidi was to be a success. They’ve all included Patrick Bailey as well, and though I haven’t always been as effusive of praise for the svengali-esque backstop, he’s clearly in that “potential core” group now as well.
We’ve already seen Matos and Bailey graduate from the lists, while Harrison is barely 15 innings away from his post-prospect days, and Luciano is less than 100 at bats away from his, as well. They’ll all be gone from these rankings next year, and we’re left with the question: will this group form a core to build around, and, if so, what kind of core will it be? As their various Top 50 profiles over the years have hopefully made clear, there are different shapes that each of their careers might take. They can come together to form a power core, they can end up filling roles as solid starting pieces, but not exactly impact players, or their paths might lead to different enough places that the metaphorical stool ends up a non-functioning one- or two-legged sort. The coming year should tell us much about what this young group will mean to the future of the franchise, though the ultimate answers are only ever revealed over the long haul.
Still, this Top 50 feels like the end of something important to me. As There R Giants now turns its focus to an even younger generation of high upside hopefuls, our long-hoped for core will be working to get over that final hurdle, and hopefully, provide the Giants with what’s been lacking for far too long.
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