There R Giants #27: Chris Wright

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.

Perhaps it’s time to pull back the curtain a bit on my process with these rankings. I’ve said before that the specific ordinal rankings aren’t as important to me as the details of the players’ development — the potential paths for them to develop into useful big leaguers or interesting trade pieces, as well as the challenges still in front of them to get to those futures. But I still do have an order here — I have ranked them! And one of the first things I did in putting together that ranking was to look at similar types of players and order them first into mini-rankings.

For instance, I sat for a long time with the duo of Seth Corry, whom we have just seen at #28, and Sammy Long, whom we have not yet reached. Both lefties have curves that could fool major league hitters right now — literally in Long’s case! Both pair that with low-to-mid 90s fastballs and a change that shows promise. Both could stand to tighten up the control a bit. In either case, there’s a chance that the command elevates to a point where they can become consistent starters, with fallback options of swingman or useful reliever. Looked at in that way, I felt compelled to push Long higher as he’s closer to achieving that ultimate result, with some big league success already on his resumé, while Corry still needs some major refinements to get to Long’s point. A pecking order was established in my mind.

You may, by this point, be wondering: what does any of this have to do with the putative subject of today’s post, Chris Wright? Excellent question, fictional reader! There’s no question about Wright’s role, now or in the future — he’s a one-inning reliever, no question. But he inserted himself into this triad by starting his career off with such dominance that he raised the specter of becoming the rare relief pitcher who might match a low-end starter’s (or swing man’s) value.

I said in Wednesday’s post that one well-respected talent evaluator told me I should have Wright in front of Corry. That was only a half truth. In fact, he believed that Wright was the best lefty in the system and suggested I push him even higher. That a two-way player from an obscure little school in Rhode Island could have seen such a dramatic rise in estimation in a single year was one of the truly great stories of the Giants’ 2021 minor league season.

Josh Norris @jnorris427

Chris Wright puts a bow on this one for Eugene