He hits for average, he hits for power, he’s got speed, arm strength and a nice glove, too.
His name is Heliot Ramos, and he’s the newest member of the San Francisco Giants.
On Monday evening, the Giants selected Ramos with the 19th overall pick in the first round of the 2017 Major League Baseball Draft, inviting the 17-year-old Puerto Rican outfielder to join an organization in pursuit of more homegrown talent in the outfield.
The analysis above came directly from Giants’ scouting director John Barr, who spoke on a conference call with reporters Monday evening and shared with us how the team’s front office honed in on Ramos.
“We’ve been watching this guy (Ramos) for two years, he was on our radar, we saw him last summer, he performed last summer in Chicago,” Barr said. “But then every single time we’d go see him, whether it be in November or January or throughout the spring, he just continued getting better. We think he’s a five-tool type player, he’s one of the youngest players in the draft and someone that we think can stay in center field.”
Three times during the course of the call, Barr called Ramos a five-tool prospect, and said the franchise took the chance on Ramos because of the rare athleticism he’s displayed at his young age.
“His age is the fact from a development standpoint, he already shows power, but he’s very young,” Barr said. “He can run, when he matures into his body, continues to mature into his body, we feel that we may have something special.”
Barr said the Giants don’t often have the opportunity to draft a player as young and athletically advanced as Ramos is, and he’s right. Since Barr became the Giants’ scouting director in 2008, the franchise has used its first overall pick on high school prospects just three times, perhaps because the team’s success has often forced it to draft late in the first round.
Ramos joins 2009 first round draft choice Zach Wheeler and 2013 first round selection Christian Arroyo as the only two high school prospects the Giants have bit on in the first round under Barr.
After forfeiting their first round draft choice in 2016 to sign right-handed pitcher Jeff Samardzija, the Giants used their second and third round picks on a pair of collegiate outfielders, Vanderbilt’s Bryan Reynolds and Samford’s Heath Quinn. Though the Giants have more homegrown talent in their infield than their outfield, Barr said the team isn’t loading up on outfielders in the early rounds as a result of San Francisco’s perceived needs in the future.
“We didn’t plan it out that way,” Barr said. “It just came down to that’s how the draft board fell for us this year, and also last year. I don’t think we thought that Reynolds was going to be there last year when we made our selection and this year, we just had Ramos the highest-rated guy on our board at the time it was for us to pick.”
Barr said projecting how a player as young as Ramos will pan out is a difficult process for scouts, but the Giants’ took comfort in the fact he comes from an athletic family. Barr pointed out that Henry Ramos, a AA prospect for the Los Angeles Dodgers, is Ramos’ older brother, and said he also has another brother who plays professional soccer.
Barr indicated the Giants’ scouting department was comfortable with the power Ramos displayed swinging a wooden bat, and said that if he was able to look as strong as he does at the age of 17, then there’s certainly room for even more development and growth.
“We identified the fact that he had strength enough to swing the wooden bat,” Barr said. “He has a brother that’s actually in AAA with the Dodgers, he was a first round selection at one point in time back with Boston a few years ago, he also has another brother that’s like professional soccer player so it’s an athletic family.”
Since Barr took charge of the Giants’ draft board in 2008, the team has had a nice run of success, starting with catcher Buster Posey, the fifth overall pick in 2008, and continuing on with the likes of former first round selection Joe Panik, former fourth round choice Brandon Crawford and former fifth round pick Brandon Belt.
Before Ramos can enter the Giants’ farm system, which ranks 24th in the Major Leagues, he’ll need to agree to a deal with the franchise by the August 15 deadline. Ramos is a Florida International commit and was selected a bit higher than many experts anticipated, but the Giants are keen on the combination of power and speed he’s displayed and they hope they’ve found a center fielder of the future.
“Power and speed,” Barr said. “When we saw him run, he was like a 6.5 60-guy, and he also showed power even with the wooden bat and so I think he’s a speed and power combination which made it stand out.”
