Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
Without a minor league season in 2020, there were only precious alternate-site spots for prospects to develop under the guidance of coaches. The steady reps for good prospects did not exist.
The Giants have a pipeline of talent, but it’s further off than a lot of clubs. The majority of the Giants’ best prospects aren’t that close to being ready, which means they need a season of leaps for the farm system to take a leap.
As some farm rankings rolled out this week, a leap into the top five, as might have been expected by now, has not yet been made. The Giants’ system looks promising, but it would take a solid 2021 — and a 2021 that allows prospects to grow — for the system to look powerful.
Of the well-regarded media publications, the Giants can be most thankful for The Athletic’s, which ranked their farm system ninth best. That’s about on par with last year’s listing, which had the Giants 10th in a system that has infused some talent with draft picks, though Joey Bart has lost a bit of value after a rough major league debut at the plate.
In Baseball America’s rankings, the Giants are 15th, a step back from last year’s 14th.
Solid-to-OK sounds about right for a system whose best asset is Marco Luciano, a 19-year-old phenom whom Giants fans can pin dreams to but who hasn’t played above short-season ball yet.
Other well-regarded future pieces such as outfielders Hunter Bishop, Luis Matos and Alexander Canario, catcher Patrick Bailey and infielders Luis Toribio and Will Wilson fall into the same bucket: high ceilings but far off, making 2020’s missed season all the more frustrating.
The pieces at the top who perhaps can help in 2021 are led by Bart and outfielder Heliot Ramos, who’s expected to start the season at Double-A Richmond. The organization’s pitching prospects are mostly a while away, too, but Sean Hjelle could debut this season and Seth Corry is the closest the system has to a future ace.
As Keith Law wrote in The Athletic, “[I]f we get games this year this system is likely to jump into the top 5 — helped, naturally, by the fact that they’ll lose almost nobody to promotion to the majors, and by some of those high-ceiling hitters getting to play.”