Giants hold four of the first 68 picks in the shortened draft that begins today
In a year in which diehard Giants fans expected to comb through Augusta Greenjackets, San Jose Giants and Richmond Flying Squirrels box scores to keep tabs on the future, nothing has gone according to plan.
The coronavirus pandemic has delayed the start of Major League Baseball’s regular season and threatens to cancel the minor league season.
Catching grainy video highlights of Marco Luciano, Hunter Bishop and Heliot Ramos launching home runs for minor league affiliates was supposed to keep energy and hope alive among Giants fans this summer. It is instead home workout videos and the occasional glimpse of a prospect taking swings on a near-empty field that have proven to be the only entertainment available.
At long last Giants fans finally have a reason to get excited and an opportunity to think about a promising future.
When the MLB draft begins today, the organization will continue its quest to stockpile prospects who will join an already impressive farm system that is expected to eventually turn the big league club into a winner again.
The MLB draft is not traditionally a marquee event, but at a time when no one is certain when the next baseball game will be played, it’s all fans have.
What should you expect from the Giants in this year’s draft? We took a look at what amateur scouting director Michael Holmes and his staff hope to accomplish.
The picks
The Giants and St. Louis Cardinals each hold seven selections, tied for the most among all 30 teams, in an amateur draft that’s been shortened to five rounds.
San Francisco’s first selection is the 13th overall pick, which will be made today.
The Giants also will pick six times on Thursday as they have the 49th, 67th, 68th, 85th, 114th and 144th selections this year.
With five picks among the first 85, the Giants have more top 100 picks than they’ve had in any draft since they held six of the first 51 picks in the 2007 draft. San Francisco didn’t hit on all of those selections, but they did take Madison Bumgarner 10th overall.
The talent pool
Draft evaluators believe this year’s pool of talent is particularly deep and Holmes said there are quality players across the board, from pitchers to hitters and high school players to college players.
The strength of the class, appears to fit exactly what the Giants are looking for.
“I would say this is one of the deeper college pitching classes that there’s been over the last 10-to-12 years,” Holmes said.
Over the past three years, the Giants have amassed impressive talent at the lower levels of the farm system and have done a particularly nice job drafting and signing highly-regarded position players. On MLB. com’s rankings of the top 30 Giants prospects, eight of the top 10 and 14 of the top 20 are hitters.
The Giants have several promising starting pitching candidates in their farm system including fifth-ranked prospect Seth Corry eighth-ranked prospect Sean Hjelle, but after failing to develop front-end of the rotation pitchers following Matt Cain, Tim Lincecum and Bumgarner, the organization would be wellserved to add starters in the draft.
Holmes insists the club will take a best player available strategy with each pick, but after going heavy on position players early in last year’s draft, it wouldn’t come as a surprise if the majority of players the team picks are pitchers.
The mad scramble
Welcome to chaos, scouting departments.
After this year’s fiveround draft is complete, teams will have a few days to regroup before a signing period begins in which clubs will be permitted to sign undrafted amateur players for up to $20,000. There is no limit on the amount of players each team can add, but Holmes said if the Giants feel there’s an opportunity to fill up the farm system with quality prospects, the team won’t let a budget get in the way.
“We’re preparing for our seven picks, but we’re also preparing for where we’re in a position to be active in the passed over market because we see this is a great opportunity to put talent in the system and we think it’s going to be a really good pool of players,” Holmes said.
Some of the top undrafted players may opt to return to college, enroll in junior college or even sign a more lucrative contract with an independent league team, but there’s no question a handful of teams will come away with at least a few players who would have been sixth round targets if the draft was extended.
The Giants hope their franchise pedigree, their player development model and their emphasis on acquiring local talent will pay dividends in the post-draft scramble, and they’re committed to adding from within California.
“We need to be good in our backyard,” Holmes said. “The beauty of the fans and the people of the Bay Area is they’re very passionate about Giants baseball and there’s a lot of players in the Bay Area and Northern California that have a passion for the Giants and I think that’s a place we need to be good at in drafting and signing players. I think that does play a role when you start looking at our approach.”
What will draft success look like?
Like any draft, it will be impossible to judge how the Giants fared until several years from now.
The good news for Giants fans is that the team is entering what’s considered a deep draft with four of the top 68 picks and more selections than all but one other club. There’s obviously more opportunity for the Giants to acquire premium talent and the team would appear to be wellpositioned to sign top undrafted prospects beginning next week.
It’s never easy to judge a draft in baseball, but it’s clear the Giants will have a chance to take a major step forward in a year when the sport as a whole has taken a gigantic step back.