It looks like something good has come from the Giants’ two consecutive losing seasons.
Both of their first round picks from 2017 and 2018 — catcher Joey Bart, and outfielder Heliot Ramos — have been included in MLB Pipeline’s annual list of the Top 100 MLB Prospects. This is the first time the Giants have had two players on the list since 2009. Bart is ranked 22nd after being ranked 23rd last year, while Ramos is ranked 92nd, dropping from his 74th overall ranking in 2018. Bart was also the only Giants player included in Baseball America’s Top 100 prospect list that came out last week. Bart, 22, was selected with the second overall pick in the 2018 draft. Ramos, 19, was selected with the 19th overall pick in 2017.
MLB Pipeline expects both players to join the big league club in 2021, but Giants VP of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said that both could get called up at the end of this year depending on how the season goes.
“You want to find the right balance between moving guys aggressively and challenging them, versus creating too much pressure and moving them too quickly, where you can have a negative impact on their careers,” Zaidi told NBC Sports Bay Area. “We’re going to try to walk that tightrope a bit with those guys, but we’re certainly not going to hold them back if they show dominance at that level early in the season.”
Here’s what MLB Pipeline said about each prospect.
Joey Bart:
Bart turned down the chance to go in the first five rounds of the 2015 Draft as a Georgia high schooler to attend Georgia Tech, where he improved offensively and defensively. The Atlantic Coast Conference player of the year and defensive player of the year in 2018, he went No. 2 overall to the Giants and signed for largest up-front bonus for a position player ($7,025,000) in Draft history. He continued to impress in his pro debut, finishing third in the short-season Northwest League with 13 homers despite playing just 45 games of a 76-game schedule.
Thanks to his bat speed, strength and leverage, Bart rivaled Alec Bohm (No. 3 overall to the Phillies) as the best right-handed power hitter in the 2018 Draft. He learned in college that he has natural power and doesn’t have to swing for the fences, and he has the potential to produce 25 homers per season. With his controlled swing and improved plate discipline, he should hit for average to go with his pop.
Scouts were divided on Bart’s ability to stay behind the plate when he was coming out of high school, but he has put those questions to rest. He lacks speed like most catchers but is relatively athletic for his position, moves well behind the plate and has made himself into a solid receiver. He has a strong arm and threw out 39 percent of basestealers during his debut.
Heliot Ramos:
Ramos comes from a family of athletes, with one brother (Henry) spending 2018 in Triple-A as an outfielder in the Dodgers system and another (Hector) playing professional soccer. Heliot starred on the high school showcase circuit and had offered one of the best power/speed combinations in the 2017 Draft, propelling him to the No. 19 overall pick in the first round and a $3,101,700 bonus. After leading the Rookie-level Arizona League with a .645 slugging percentage and posting a 1.049 OPS in his pro debut, he dipped to a .709 OPS in low Class A during his first full season.
Ramos’ 2018 struggles weren’t entirely unexpected because at age 18 he was the youngest regular in the South Atlantic League, and he did make improvements over the course of the season. His bat speed and strength remain impressive, giving him the raw power to crush home runs to all fields. He needs to develop a more patient approach in order to make enough contact to do damage against advanced pitching, though his strikeout rate actually decreased from 2017 (32 percent) to 2018 (25 percent).
While Ramos displayed plus speed in pre-Draft workout, he plays as more of a solid runner and could slow a bit more as his muscular frame continues to mature. He spent all of his first two pro seasons in center field and is presently an average defender there, thanks more to his quickness than his instincts. He projects as a right fielder in the long term and has the power and plus arm to profile well there.
