Top 50 Kickoff! The 'Just Missed' List

Let's get it started!

Photo Credit: Mick Anders | Richmond Flying Squirrels

With pitchers and catchers set to report in less than a month, the time has come to start the real business of my offseason, the There R Giants’ Top 50. I promise not to screw things up as badly as I did last year, when Patrick Bailey was loitering down at the #20 mark, and my last-second decision to omit Hayden Birdsong from the list entirely ended up giving me a massive case of Regret (with a capital ‘R’!) all summer long. I did, at least, slip Victor Bericoto into that final spot, which looked good in retrospect, but I knew perfectly well that Birdsong was going to explode and just didn’t act on it. Dangit!

No more of that! This year it’s my plan to work with perfect foresight and precognition, lining every single player up into the platonic ideal of a prospect list. Seems reasonable, right? My new year’s mantra: “2024: No More Dumb Mistakes!”

And with that goal set in mind, as usual I’ll start things off with my annual list of guys who just missed the 50 proper, as well as few who may be ready to move up in the coming year — an exercise that will absolutely NOT come back to embarrass me and make me delete previous posts from the archives of the internet. Cuz this is the year that I totally nail this sucker! And it all starts riiggggght…