San Francisco Giants Top 50 Prospects

Eldridge signed for just shy of $4 million in the 2023 draft, an unusually large bonus for a high schooler widely expected to wind up at first base. It’s the kind of investment teams only make in outlier talents, which is the case here. At a supple 6-foot-7, Eldridge has immense power and enough hit skill to think he could be a 40-homer guy at maturity. After overwhelming the low minors, he continued to hit at Double- and Triple-A last summer and received a call-up amidst San Francisco’s desperate bid for a Wild Card berth down the stretch.

Long-levered power hitters often swing and miss plenty, and while Eldridge is no exception, he’s already making a viable amount of contact as a big leaguer. His bat path is inherently long, but he has a fast bat and is direct to the ball. His cut is ferocious and lofted, and when he gets ahold of one out front, the Splash Counter operator better be ready. He’s already got plus power and projects to develop more as he fully fills out. The strikeouts mask it somewhat, but Eldridge also has hit skill. He can adjust off the fastball, he has a good understanding of the zone, and he’s aggressive enough to pull the trigger on most of the balls in his wheelhouse. Spin, particularly from the left side, has been a challenge for him thus far, but he’s shown an ability to barrel it in the zone at least occasionally. Some swing and miss on sliders might just be the cost of doing business here.

Coming into the year, Eldridge needed a little more seasoning and he looks all the better for it. He’s run a 122 wRC+ since returning to San Francisco, with an 11% walk rate and manageable swing and miss numbers. He’s hitting the ball hard, and he’s no longer getting dominated in the zone like he did in his big league cameo last fall. Even as just a fair defender at first base, Eldridge is one of the top position player prospects in the game, and it looks like he’s poised to take off. Elite power tends to play to some degree if there’s any hit skill at all, and Eldridge’s ability to make adjustments and use the field gives us confidence he’s no one-trick pony. He projects as a middle-of-the-order thumper.

Gonzalez is a potential five-tool player who was our top non-Roki Sasaki prospect in the 2025 international amateur class. He destroyed the DSL, hitting .288/.404/.455 while handling shortstop with aplomb. Scouts loved him and he emerged from the circuit as the consensus top prospect from the Dominican complexes. That sentiment hasn’t changed on the domestic complex, though a couple of hamstring strains have limited how often people have been able to see him.

A switch-hitting shortstop, Gonzalez is an explosive rotator with electric bat speed. As a lefty, he unwinds with rare verve, and the bend in his lower body allows for low-ball power. His right-handed swing is less coordinated, but it’s still dangerous. Gonzalez’s medium frame limits his raw power projection somewhat, but there’s enough bat speed to project above-average pop. His front side can drift toward first base, suggesting potential breaking ball vulnerability. Otherwise, he looks like a good hitter with playable power in a lot of the zone.

The twitch, range, actions, and arm for shortstop all are present, and Gonzalez is universally acclaimed as a lock to stick there by scouts who have seen him, some of whom see a top-of-the-scale defender. The lower body injuries he’s battled through this year loom as the only real obstacle between him and a very high ceiling with the glove. The fact that there have been three strains is worrisome enough to linger on here, as he’s tightly wound and it’s a potential recurring problem. Still, I’m going to stay aggressive. Gonzalez ultimately has a very strong heuristic profile as a switch-hitting up-the-middle player with power, and he has All-Star ceiling if his hit tool is average or better.

After crushing the DSL in 2024, Level was a common scout pick as the best position player on the Arizona complex last year. He crushed the Cal League this spring, notching a 133 wRC+ as the youngest player on the team, and was promoted to Eugene earlier this week. There’s an it-factor to Level’s game that belies simple explanation. On both sides of the ball, he has a knack for doing the little things, and he carries himself in a way that reflects the outward, if quiet, confidence of a player who knows he’s good, and he’s treated as such by teammates.

Level is advanced for his age. On the lighter side, he’s strong for his build and has a mature feel for when he can turn it loose and drive a pitch to the pull side from both sides of the plate. His bat is quick, and while he’ll sometimes expand on spin — particularly with two strikes — he’ll also show you good zone control and pitch recognition on the right day. A lot of guys who chase as youngsters tend to keep chasing as they get older, but in Level’s case, he looks more discerning than the numbers indicate.

At short, Level’s arm stands out, a plus hose with a quick release. He needs to refine his glovework — he may just need to get away from the pebbly, bright, and yellow grass of the Cal League and Arizona backfields — and his range is more adequate than special. He’s got a chance to stay at short, and it’s worth seeing if he can stick there, but the bevy of good gloves in San Francisco’s system complicates his path to getting reps there and I’m now projecting him as an above-average defender at second base.

The knock against Level is that he isn’t especially projectable. He’s near physical maturation and isn’t likely to develop significantly more pop. Plenty of evaluators love Level, but you can find scouts who think he’s more of a good prospect than a great one. We understand those reservations and risks. Ultimately though, this looks like a really good offensive profile for a middle infielder, one that should carry Level to an everyday role at maturity.

Hernández was the top player in the 2026 international class and signed with the Giants for just shy of $5 million. Even for a player widely seen as advanced beyond his years, it was still something of a surprise when the Giants had him skip the Dominican complex and sent him straight to Scottsdale for spring training this year.

It was the right call, as Hernández has been awesome on both sides of the ball. At the plate, his raw power is already close to the big league average, and he’s making contact on more than 80% of his swings. He’s homered five times in his first 22 games, notching a 139 wRC+ with a 9.2% walk rate and 16.3% strikeout rate. All of that is promising for any complex leaguer, much less a 17-year-old facing pitchers several years his senior. He’s doing all of this with a simple and direct swing, lofted with quiet feet and a still head. His bat isn’t fast yet, but it will be. Hernández may yet get a little taller and even if he doesn’t, he’s going to get stronger and fill out in a productive way.

Defensively, Hernández could be a plus shortstop at maturity. He has the hands, range, and speed for it and, most impressively, he’s already fairly polished. His actions, arm, and instincts all draw positive reviews from scouts and it was remarkable how at ease he seemed at San Francisco’s Spring Breakout Game, where he shared a field with Double-A veterans and kicked the club’s first-round pick (Gavin Kilen) off of short and over to second for the evening. Nobody’s a sure thing, but this looks like a prospect with an enviable floor and ceiling. Hernández has a chance to be young for his level at every stop up the minor league ladder and could be one of the top prospects in baseball just a couple years from now. He moves onto the Top 100 with this update.

Martinez signed for just $10,000 in the 2023 international class and now he’s the best arm in the system for us. He was my favorite pitcher on the Arizona complex last summer, and I’m inclined to stay aggressive on his projection even as he’s battled through a few growing pains in the Cal League.

At his best, Martinez looks like a future mid-rotation starter. It starts with his low-to-moderate-effort delivery. He’s balanced over the rubber as he begins to drive forward and lands cleanly without a heel grind or a pronounced head whack. He has a clean arm swing and a low-three-quarters slot. That gives his mid-upper 90s fastball a little carry, and the pitch plays up further when he’s able to hit both lanes and elevate, which he flashes the ability to do. He’s played around with the breaking ball a little bit, and his best sliders are plus with sweeping shape and late bite. The change is further away. It has above-average tail at its best, and needs better arm speed and more consistent execution, but it too flashes.

Martinez has been a little wild in San Jose, where he’s walked 14% of hitters, about double the rate he did last season. He’s also striking out 37.6% of opponents, and to some degree these walks are coming because opponents can’t really hit his slider and he’s always in deep counts. Still, his feel for release isn’t always great, and it has introduced at least a little more relief risk than I’d have thought a few months ago. Ultimately, though, this is what you want a pitching prospect to look like. He’s well built, he moves well, the delivery flows, and I think he’ll clean up the control and eventually ascend into a big league rotation. Martinez was a Pick to Click for me in the offseason, and Eric and I have seen enough to bump him into the Top 100. He projects as a mid-rotation starter.

Whisenhunt’s sinker/change combination annihilated low-level hitters to the point where he only made 12 starts across both A-ball levels, though better hitters have racked up walks and runs even as they’ve continued flailing at the southpaw’s sick, fading changeup. Whisenhunt responded by trying to work in the zone more last year, which led to a different flavor of still middling production in the PCL. He’s been better in 2026, as a new pitch has again breathed life into his chances of working in a big league rotation.

In an effort to find a side-to-side breaking ball, Whisenhunt experimented with a cutter in the spring, though he seems to have softened it in PCL play to the point that it just looks like a harder slider than what he’s used before. To my eye, it’s more average than sharp, but simply having an east-west offering may have a cumulative effect on the rest of his arsenal. He’s otherwise still working with a mid-90s fastball that plays beneath the number, a fringy breaking ball, and an all-world changeup. That last one missed bats even amidst heavy usage and a telegraphed lower slot in his big league cameo last year; the movement is simply too late and sharp for hitters to do much even when they’re sitting on it, and it’s among the best individual pitches in all of baseball. The rest of the attack is much more vanilla, and while he’s improved both his slider and fastball as a pro, the change is the only real weapon in the holster here.

Even though he’s rolled over the PCL, it’s not clear whether Whisenhunt will wind up in the rotation. Leaning on one telegraphed pitch over multiple trips through the lineup would be tough on anybody, all the more so for someone with fringy command and a still shallow arsenal. Perhaps the bigger question here is how dominant he could be out of the bullpen. Devin Williams springs to mind as a comp, a cambio-dominant arm who flourished in shorter stints. You can imagine all of the close-but-not-quite elements in Whisenhunt’s game falling into place in shorter stints, and the pitch grades reflect our optimism that his stuff will tick up in that role.

San Francisco acquired Tidwell from the Mets (along with José Buttó and Drew Gilbert) in exchange for Tyler Rogers at the deadline last year. They’ve since continued developing him as a starter in the minors, though he was also deployed as a reliever for eight mostly successful big league outings in April.

Tidwell has the arm strength, frame, and build of a workhorse, along with the arsenal depth to start. He pitches with downhill plane on both fastballs and likes to change speeds to an unusual degree. He can touch 99 and will alternate a 97 with a 94, even early in games. The sweeper is his best pitch, in the low-to-mid-80s with above-average length and late depth. A tighter power breaking ball is effective at the top of its velo band, but it has gotten hit a little bit when he slows it down. He has limited feel for his change, though that too has missed bats in the minors. To my eye, he’s also throwing a more traditional curve from a slightly higher slot, but not very often, and it could just be a case where he released his sweeper a little differently for whatever reason a few times.

Tidwell has also been in the zone a little more as a Giant than he was in his Mets days, particularly early in his career. He’s made a couple of tweaks to his delivery: He’s now working out of the windup, he’s lifting his leg a little higher, and he’s slowed his tempo a bit. His command is still just fair, but the uptick in strikes has increased the odds that he can start. The only real knock on him is that, sweeper aside, he hasn’t missed as many bats as you’d think a guy with this kind of stuff would. I see paths for doing that. More consistently executing the slider, which flashes plus, seems like the low hanging fruit, but trading a few sinkers for four-seamers could help too. Regardless, Tidwell looks like a near ready no. 4/5 starter with a clean mid-to-late-leverage relief fallback if he’s too hittable in a length role.

Rodriguez was part of a pretty good package of players the Giants received in exchange for Camilo Doval at the deadline last year. The 24-year-old made his big league debut earlier this season, and fans have already seen the broad outlines of what he offers a club. In his time with San Francisco (he was demoted back to Sacramento just prior to publication), he barely walked or struck out, chipped in a couple homers, and saw time at catcher and second base, as well as in left and right field.

Rodriguez has a funky setup at the plate. He starts out very open and then closes into an exaggerated coil as the pitcher strides toward the plate. He has a bat wrap and just average bat speed, but he gets away with it because his levers are short and, most importantly, he has excellent barrel control. The way he guides his bat all over the zone is reminiscent of another era, though Rodriguez is also capable of getting an A-swing off when he’s in a favorable count. As you may have inferred from the walk and strikeout comment, Rodriguez likes to roll the pole and he’ll chase plenty. Between his feel for contact, aggressive approach, and willingness to use the whole field, he’s probably sacrificing a little power for the sake of putting the ball in play, and theoretically has room to trade a little of the latter for a bit of the former as he matures.

Defensively, Rodriguez is adequate everywhere and great nowhere. Behind the plate, he’s a fair receiver with strong wrists and a little more body movement than elite framers tend to have. He has a strong arm and gets out of the crouch well, but he isn’t especially accurate. The overall package is fringy, though he’s gotten a lot better in recent years and could have another gear if the Giants choose to emphasize his development back there. Some sources think the bat is good enough for him to play everyday and that the Giants would be better off having him play elsewhere. In his career he’s filled in at third and second, and in left and right. None of those spots are an ideal fit, but he’s been competent enough everywhere to comfortably project him as a defensive Swiss Army Knife. He’s the kind of player whose flexibility may make him more valuable than WAR can account for, and he should keep a big league job even if he doesn’t quite max out on the hit tool grade.

Harber is one of a couple undrafted prospects who find themselves toward the top of this system. In hindsight, it’s hard to square the lack of interest from clubs with his production, as he was a two-year starter at Georgia before starring for North Carolina as a senior. He’s hit everywhere in pro ball: He had a 169 wRC+ in A-ball with the Yankees, and then a 196 wRC+ in Eugene after he was sent over to San Francisco in the Camilo Doval deal. He’s down to a measly (“measly”) 149 wRC+ at Double-A this spring, with seven homers in 33 games and an impressive blend of contact (77% overall, 84% in zone) and raw power.

Harber generates a lot of pop without a particularly big move. He has a small leg lift and a fairly short load. He’s a big rotator, and there is an early hip leak that gives me some pause about his ability to cover pitches on the outer half, particularly spin down and away. He doesn’t manipulate the path much and while he’s covering the top rail for now, he may be vulnerable upstairs against elite fastballs. Strangely for a guy with so much power, he’s been more of a line drive hitter than a home run threat so far.

Harber is fair at third. He isn’t especially twitchy, nor is he going to make plays deep down the line with his average arm. He compensates with reliability and pretty good feel for the position. He’s playable there, if not special.

Harber is a tricky guy to evaluate overall. There are a lot of areas in which it’s tempting to round down: The lack of game power and fringy look at third jump out, and he’s been old for the level at most of his stops. He’s always hit, though, and some sources think he’s a future everyday player. I see him as more of a good part-timer on a playoff team, which is still a huge win for the Yankees’ and Giants’ eval groups.

Of all the prospects we’ve ranked this cycle, Davidson may just be the best domestic position player who went undrafted not named Parks Harber. The Giants were on to him after he tore it up at Caldwell Tech, a North Carolina JUCO, and he hit the ground running in pro ball. He notched a 171 wRC+ in the Cal League in 2024 and had a similarly torrid three months at High-A Eugene last season. A promotion to Double-A has proved more challenging, as he’s treading water in Richmond with a walk rate about half as high as his career norm.

Davidson is quiet in the box. He has a closed-off stride and hits with practically no load at all. He keeps his head and lower half still, so when he does turn it loose, it comes with a surprising level of ferocity. Even if he’s tapped out physically, the 23-year-old is already producing plus 90th-percentile and max exit velos. He sprays the ball around and can drive it out to all fields, though like a lot of guys with a closed stance, he doesn’t handle the ball inside very well. That and some vulnerability on fastballs upstairs — his swing isn’t grooved but, perhaps because of the load, he needs a beat to get going and can be late up there — gives pitchers a couple ways to attack him. This is a case where the data is mostly good, but the visual look leaves me a little concerned about how much he’ll hit.

After splitting time between center field and the corners in previous seasons, Davidson only played up the middle in 2025. While he tracks well and takes efficient routes to the ball, he isn’t a burner. His lack of range makes him a better fit in a corner for most teams — a below-average arm should nudge him to left — his current employer perhaps chiefly among them.

It isn’t out of the question that Davidson can hold down an everyday job over the long haul, but we ultimately think the overall package is that of a quality fourth outfielder. He’s a great platoon candidate who can help you win in a lot of different ways: He’ll take a good at-bat, he can hit for a little power, and he can stand in center if you need him to. Shave a little bat off Seth Smith’s career and add a little glove, and you have something like a realistic ceiling here.

After two good seasons at Louisville, Kilen transferred to Tennessee for his junior season and had a breakout campaign at the plate. He hit .357 with 15 bombs and played his way into the top half of the 2025 draft.

Kilen is a hit-collector at the plate. He’s an aggressive hitter with average bat speed and a chance to get to average power. He has a high leg lift, and he takes a big cut and gets away with it because he’s good at directing the barrel around the zone. The loft in his swing may leave him a bit vulnerable against good fastballs up top, but the bigger risk is that his approach doesn’t let him notch enough hits to reach the hit tool projection above. The forecast here is that he does enough to keep the line moving.

Defensively, he projects to play an average shortstop. He’s one where the metrics may frown on his range, but he has good hands and instincts. Other shortstops will cover the six hole better, but Kilen’s going to gobble up all the routine ones. It isn’t a high-upside package of skills and tools, and it’s fair to wonder if San Francisco should have targeted someone with a little more projection at no. 13 overall, but Kilen looks like a guy who will play in the big leagues for a long time. He has an everyday ceiling and projects as a second-division starter or quality utility player.

McDonald, whose current run in the Giants rotation has seen him technically exhaust his prospect eligibility, is a low-three-quarters slot righty with a slight drop-and-drive, the combination of which gives him a very low release point. He works with his sinker about half the time, a pitch that sits 92-94 mph with average, though delightfully late, tail. The pitch pairs well with his low-to-mid-80s slider, a horizontal breaker that he can work on and off both sides of the plate. He also has a sinking change that moves similarly to his sinker.

McDonald’s command is a little tricky to evaluate. He can work both sides of the plate, he has good feel for executing both secondaries, and he has a real knack for running his sinker onto the black of the glove-side corner. But like a lot of lower-slot pitchers, when he misses, he does so substantially. This push and pull is already evident in the numbers, as he’s walked only nine hitters in 34 big league innings so far this year, but has also hit five; reasonable evaluators can throw different numbers around for the command grade. Regardless, McDonald pounds the zone and will throw anything at any time to any hitter. That, the aforementioned deception, and above-average command help generic stuff play up in a way that should allow him to work at the back of a rotation.

Whitman was the MAC Pitcher of the Year in 2023, which pushed him into the second round, where he signed for $800,000. He’s since progressed slowly by the standards of an early-round college arm, particularly one with pretty good control. He’s having his best year as a professional in 2026, though, and just tied Richmond’s franchise record with 24 consecutive scoreless innings, a streak that was snapped in his last start; he also had the highest strikeout rate in the Eastern League before he was promoted to Triple-A just as this list was being published.

A velo uptick helps explain why. After averaging 91.5 mph on his heater last year, Whitman’s is up to a little over 93 mph in 2026. It has a little carry, and between that and the velo increase, he’s missing plenty of bats with the fastball. The extra gas has helped the rest of his arsenal as well, most notably the slider, which is up two ticks and has a notably loftier whiff percentage alongside. Whitman’s ability to consistently execute that slider looms large, more so than for most pitchers. When he throws it just right and gets late downward depth to go with the pitch’s usual sweep, it can dodge bats like a bird ducking between branches. But it’s prone to both breaking early and backing up on him, at which point it’s almost entirely ineffective. His feel for the change comes and goes; some days he gets average fade, others he’s liable to pull it to the glove side. Still, there’s a path to a couple above-average pitches and above-average command. He projects as a backend starter and has a realistic ceiling as a no. 4.

Wilkinson and his 80-grade nickname, “Tugboat,” were acquired this May in the Patrick Bailey deal. The sobriquet is an apt metaphor for Wilkinson’s fastball, a slow-moving “heater” that’s pulling his entire profile. It’s a slow-but-mighty offering that has allowed him to strike out a batter per inning each of the last two seasons. Though his 2025 fastball performance wasn’t as incredible as his dominant, breakout 2024, the pitch still managed to generate plus miss and chase even though it only sits 90 mph thanks to its secondary traits and Wilkinson’s ability to execute it to effective locations. Wilkinson’s drop-and-drive delivery gets him so low to the ground that his left shin is almost scraping across the top of the mound as his weight shifts into his landing leg. His release height is a shade under five feet, which helps create uphill angle on his fastball that’s tough for hitters to match. The fact that he can power down the mound like this, generating six-and-a-half feet of extension at roughly 270 pounds, is remarkable.

Wilkinson’s approach to pitching with his slider changed dramatically in 2025, when he used it as an in-zone offering much more often than his chase-heavy style in 2024. Because he’s so often trying to elevate his fastball, it’s good for him to have something he can land in the zone when he needs to throw a strike, and it looks like that’ll be his slider. This pitch has tight lateral action, but it lacks the vertical finish of a bat-misser, and it should play close to average against mature hitters. He is still trying to find a way to create consistent action on a changeup that will flash bat-missing sink on occasion; you can project that pitch to average based on the quality of his arm action. If Wilkinson falls short of this projection, it’ll be because his lack of raw fastball velocity becomes more consequential against big league hitters. It’s possible he’ll be homer-prone at that level; this is an older guy, and he hasn’t missed as many bats since joining the Giants as he has in previous years. But he’s only about a year from debuting, and we believe in Wilkinson’s athleticism and secondary pitch projection enough to think he will soon have more than just a good chase fastball. He grades here as a no. 4/5 starter on a competitive team.

Cox entered the year with the look of a fairly low-variance extra outfielder. In Eugene, he was a league average hitter with 70 speed and a chance for average pop, but both attributes played down a little bit. An overly aggressive approach and a tendency to prioritize getting out of the box quickly limited how much damage he was doing, while fair defensive instincts ate into his range. Fourth outfielder chance, next profile.

But one of the delights of this job is that guys can surprise you, and Cox’s production at Double-A is among the more unexpected developments of the year. In 44 games, he hit .400/.453/.644 with six homers, 27 steals, and just a 16.9% strikeout rate (down from 22.4% last year in High-A). It appears that he’s made a real change in his approach at the plate. His chase rates, both overall and with two strikes, still aren’t amazing (25% and 40%, respectively), but they’re about average and worlds better than last year’s marks (31% and 53%). Alongside, his defense looks better in center, an observation that was echoed by other sources. These are significant improvements, and over the weekend, the Giants rewarded him with a two-rung jump to the big leagues.

The change in approach looks like the main adjustment here, as Cox’s power numbers under the hood haven’t changed much. He’s hitting the ball a little harder and a little more often — but so is just about everybody in the minor leagues this year. He perhaps isn’t loading his hands quite as high as he was last year, but the swing itself is otherwise similar. He’s also not pulling the ball much at all; this is purely speculation, but the blend of better patience and a middle-oppo approach suggests he might be consciously waiting a beat longer to get going.

What do we make of all this? Taken together, I don’t think the tools themselves have changed much, but the way his approach has matured has given him a significantly better shot of having a career as a fourth outfielder. To be more than that, he’ll have to find a way to get to more power than it looks like he will with his current swing and approach. Maybe that’s in there; after all, he’s surprised us before.

Kilian debuted with the Cubs all the way back in 2022 and has now appeared in 25 games, with three saves, for San Francisco. Somehow he’s retained list eligibility through all that, so here we are. He was a starter with a mix of fringy offerings for most of his time in Chicago, but as Giants fans still tuning in for games can attest, the righty’s stuff is late-inning quality in short stints. He works with a predominantly vertical attack, and regularly runs his fastballs into the upper 90s. The heater, generally a four-seamer, is straight with a little carry, and he does a good job of keeping it up in the zone. He mixes in a hard slider and a power curve, both of which look like and have missed bats like plus offerings. His heel grind and head whack will likely put a ceiling on how precise he can be with everything, and the high-spin curve in particular would be a tough beast for anyone to harness. He threw strikes all the way through the minors, though, and with his gas and ability to spin the ball, he can be a high-leverage guy with even average control.

Cavanaugh signed for all of $50,000 out of Florida Southern, which has made his quick ascent through the system a pleasant surprise. He has a well-rounded game that doesn’t stand out at first blush but grows through repeated viewings, and is a good reminder that both catchers and small-school players sometimes need a beat before they take off.

After a forgettable and injury-plagued 2024 season, Cavanaugh hit his way from San Jose to the upper levels in 2025, and saw time at Triple-A. This year, he crushed Double-A for a month before he was again promoted to Sacramento, where he’s torn the cover off the ball, hitting .373/.465/.746 in his first 16 games. He’s done this while reducing his whiff rates substantially, a particularly neat development when it comes with a year-over-year increase in measurable power. He isn’t a thumper and he doesn’t have a fast bat, but he’s direct to the ball, he can adjust off the fastball, and if he has a glaring weakness, upper-level arms haven’t exposed it yet.

Cavanaugh has good hands behind the plate. He gets himself in position to receive and quickly directs the glove toward the center of the plate from all angles. This comes with a little body movement, so there’s some push and pull with the framing; for what it’s worth, he didn’t grade out well by the metrics last year. Cavanaugh’s control of the running game is effective if a little unconventional. He doesn’t have a strong arm for the position, but he’s fast out of the crouch and his time from exchange to release is lightning quick. His throws aren’t always accurate and he’s only caught 15% of prospective thieves this year, but when he puts the ball on the money, runners are completely hosed.

Cavanaugh’s stock grew throughout this process. He’s graded here as a good backup, but there are people within the organization who think he’s the player most likely to emerge from the pile of upper-level catchers as the club’s starter. He’s in line to stake his claim for the job later this summer.

Jordan has big thump and stands out less for his max exit velos — which are plenty good, already 60 grade — than for how often he hits the ball hard. He has a 54% hard-hit rate, fifth in the system behind Eldridge and a few power goofs who don’t have the hit skill to make this list. Jordan’s contact rates — 65% overall, 73% in zone — are red flags themselves, however, and he’s striking out nearly 30% of the time at High-A.

Jordan’s A-swing is a violent uppercut. The ball jumps off his bat when he connects, but the path leaves him vulnerable to good heat upstairs. At other times, his swing looks inside out — he basically never pulls the ball down the line — and he’s prone to getting off balance on spin away from him. He’s made a little progress on his ability to hit breaking balls since college, but well-executed sliders loom as a major problem.

Can Jordan play center field? He’s played exclusively up the middle in Eugene this year, and remarkably for a guy his size, he has the speed to do it. His reads and routes aren’t perfect, but they too look adequate for the job. Really, the bigger long-term threat to his chances is that he’s an early mature guy who slows down sooner than his peers. For now, we’re projecting him average in center, but just know that this could change quickly.

The overall sum of the parts is pretty interesting here. There’s enough hit tool risk that I’m going to be a little cautious, even though center fielders with this kind of power are pretty rare. Jordan looks like a fourth outfielder or short side platoon candidate, and he has the potential to put together a big year or two if the hit tool exceeds this projection.

Bresnahan was drafted by the Guardians and signed for $375,000 out of a Washington high school. He fit the mold of a Cleveland draftee of that era: young, physically projectable, good body control and a strike-throwing foundation with a lot of work needed to develop viable arm strength.

It appears that Bresnahan has put in that work. He went from sitting in the upper 80s in an instructs look back in 2023 to the low 90s after a mid-season 2024 trade to the Giants. He’s still sitting 91-95, but he’s touching 96 now and the pitch plays ahead of the number due to 21 inches of vertical break. He’ll flash a plus change and an above-average slider often enough to think that he could have three 55s on the card at maturity.

While Bresnahan’s stature and looseness give him the look of an advanced arm, there’s still some rawness to his game. His command hasn’t come around fully, and he’ll miss up and arm side pretty often throughout his appearances. His walk rate has climbed north of six per nine in Eugene this year, and he can get in ruts where he can’t buy a strike. He’s walked 15.7% of hitters this year, which isn’t wild for his age and level — part of the reason he runs so many deep counts is that guys just can’t get their bat on the fastball — so much as it’s just more evidence that he’s not in the zone reliably yet. He’ll also slow his arm on the change and, a little more unusually, the slider at times too.

My gut feeling is that Bresnahan is a good enough athlete to make strides across the board here. The looseness in his stroke and the ease of his delivery are very positive markers for growth, and this looks like a case of a long-levered guy who just needs time to figure out how to get everything aligned. There’s no. 4 upside here, but enough work ahead on his command and durability — he’s again averaging about four innings per start — to hold him in this value tier for now.

Marte is not related to Yunior Marte, a fellow Dominican righty who briefly pitched for San Francisco in 2022. Our protagonist here originally signed with the Royals and came to the Giants last summer in the Mike Yastrzemski trade. He’s a big dude who throws a lot of strikes despite an ugly looking delivery: He’s a slower-twitch guy with a big open stride and a stiff arm swing. While Marte doesn’t command the ball especially well, his career walk rate is 2.9 BB/9, and he had a still-manageable 3.95 BB/9 at High-A this season before a recent promotion to Richmond.

Marte has enough stuff to pitch in a big league rotation. He leans on his fastball, which sits 94-97 mph and tickles the upper 90s, up a little bit year over year. It comes with average carry and above-average extension, and he holds his velo pretty well throughout outings. He’s experimented with both a split and a traditional change this season, and the split in particular falls off the table in a way that has overwhelmed minor league hitters when he locates well. He’ll also flash an above-average slider. I’m concerned enough about the delivery to grade him as a likely reliever, but a starter outcome is in play, and it makes all the sense in the world to develop him as one. If you want to feel even more optimistic, I’ll note that there are sources within the org who think I’m light here.

Susac was Oakland’s first-rounder out of Arizona back in 2022, and was largely seen as a high-floor selection at the time due to his ability to catch. He has good hands, reportedly works well with the staff, and he’s developed a strong, accurate arm behind the plate. Despite decent surface-level stats, Susac’s bat didn’t develop much in his time with the A’s, due in part to his see-ball, hit-ball approach and extremely high chase rate. Facing a 40-man crunch, he was left off the roster last winter, and scooped up by Minnesota in the Rule 5 draft; the Twins subsequently dealt him to San Francisco in exchange for 17-year-old catcher Miguel Caraballo.

Susac made the Opening Day roster and has started to play pretty often in the wake of Patrick Bailey’s departure. Surprisingly, at least for me, Susac has been on a tear at the plate and is currently hitting .333/.384/.424, good for a 132 wRC+. At the time of the Rule 5 draft, I wrote that his slow bat and aggressive approach were unlikely to translate against better arms, and I still lean that way. But his bat to ball skills are quite good (91% zone contact thus far), and there’s a chance he’s able to hit his way to something resembling Austin Nola’s Mariners-era production, with perhaps a little less power. If that’s the case, this “pretty good backup catcher” eval will look quite light.

Cayama was a hot name on the complex in 2025, one of several talented arms on the ACL’s best roster. How evaluators felt about Cayama tracked closely with when they saw him. Last summer, he shot out of the gate fast and looked like a potential mid-rotation starter; later in the year, as he tired and his velo tumbled, he had more of a backend look. On velo, he’s split the gap this year, as he’s started strong — 31% strikeout rate, 5.5% walks — in Low-A.

Cayama isn’t especially big or projectable, as he’s of average size and mature build for a teenager. He has great body control and a flowing, low-maintenance delivery and a clean arm stroke. It’s easy to see how he throws strikes, and his command is advanced for someone at his age and level. He works the fastball north and south, and can spot his slider to both sides of the plate. The stuff itself is more useful than loud. He sits 91-95 and touches 96 with the four-seam, without bat missing shape. His sinker is the better fastball right now, particularly since he can reliably keep it down and generate grounders. The slider has missed a ton of bats at the low levels, but to my eye it looks average; it’s playing like a monster due to Cayama’s ability to command it rather than nasty break. The change remains a lightly used third option; getting more consistent movement and hand speed on it is a developmental priority.

Should he find a change, Cayama has the control to start, and his ceiling may well come down to how hard he throws at maturity. With so many other things in place, a couple extra ticks could go a long way here, and be the difference between a generic depth starter and a legitimate Top 100 candidate. This valuation splits the gap.

De La Torre is an athletic, high-slot lefty who can run his fastball into the mid-90s. Despite all of that, he signed for a pittance, making him the latest in a growing line of $10,000 pitchers from the international market (De La Torre was born in Phoenix, grew up in Mexico, went to high school in Utah, and signed out of the Dominican Republic) to outproduce what their bonus would suggest. After breezing through the complex and Low-A last year, he was sent to the Northwest League, where he’s been a little better than his surface numbers indicate.

De La Torre works out of a high-three-quarters slot. Despite that, his fastball tails a good bit and there’s more run on both his curve and slider. The fastball sets everything up. He isn’t a big guy, but he’s able to generate mid-90s velo with relatively little effort, though he’s tended to lose a tick throughout the game in my viewings. The curve has been his big bat-misser thus far, as he maintains his arm speed well and the pitch tunnels nicely with the fastball. There’s some pitchability here. De La Torre likes to mess with his rhythm and timing, and on a night the ump was giving an inch on the glove-side corner, he went back to the well time and again. He’s experimented with a change in the past, but hasn’t thrown one much this year.

De La Torre has mostly worked in three to five inning chunks. Between that, the way his velo declines throughout his outings, a thin arsenal, and his stature, it’s hard to see him developing enough effective stamina to start. In lieu of a no. 5 projection, he looks more like a good once-through-the-order guy, likely a role that more and more of the players in this value tier will find themselves funneled into over time.

Cohen was San Francisco’s third-round pick last year, and he signed for about $850,000. He has the skill set of a fast-moving fourth or fifth outfielder. He’s a plus runner with strong contact skills, but not much impact or bat speed. His inside-out swing is that of a singles hitter, which suits his employer’s home park pretty well. He could be pesky too, as he makes a lot of contact and can take an extra base once he reaches. A lack of available footage limits my conviction in his glove, but what he’s put on tape is mostly good. He has average or so range for the position and looks comfortable making plays at full stretch and near the wall.

It’ll be interesting to see if the Giants wants him to try to hit the ball out front more. While his raw power is below average, he isn’t totally punchless, and his feel for contact suggests he could drive the ball a little more with a different approach. I’m not quite ready to project that, but things could get a lot more interesting here with a bit of a swing tweak.

You can get drafted out of Division III Whitworth University but apparently only if you’re either gigantic (like the 6-foot-10 Hugh Smith) or unusually short for a pitcher, like Dryden. While just a modest amateur prospect, Dryden rolled over the Cal League in his first pro season, striking out nearly 10 per nine with a 2.90 ERA. He’s found the waters choppier in Eugene, where hitters aren’t biting on his secondaries quite as often as they did last year.

Dryden has a drop-and-drive delivery that feeds into a high slot. It’s a high-effort motion with a head whack, and he has an uphill battle to fringy command. He can run the heater up to 98, and it has good carry and a little tail. It’s a mostly north-south mix from there, with two distinct, if inconsistent, breaking balls and a splitter. He can get the breaking balls in the zone, but the curve in particular is hittable if he doesn’t snap it off just right. It’s worth continuing to develop Dryden as a starter to help him get a better feel for all of those pitches, though this looks like a reliever’s blend of stuff and strikes. He could have a few above-average weapons in short stints, and looks like a solid middle relief prospect.

The Astros shipped Villarroel to San Francisco in exchange for Kai-Wei Teng, a seemingly minor trade at the time that now looks more significant given the latter’s success in Houston. Fortunately for the Giants, Villarroel is an interesting prospect in his own right. An aggressive hitter with short levers and bat to ball skill, he’s hit well at every level. He currently has a .283/.347/.446 line in Eugene, and his power is ticking along right on schedule. His muscly, upper-cut swing works because he’s short enough to the ball to reach fastballs upstairs, with sufficient hand-eye coordination to adjust off the heater.

Defensively, Villarroel played all over with Houston but has caught exclusively since the trade. He has a third of the on-field job figured out, as he’s a reliable 1.9 pop guy with pretty accurate throws to second, particularly given his inexperience. The framing and ball blocking need to be refined substantially, especially the latter, as Villarroel tends to stab at nearly everything in the dirt and deadens the ball about as well as a fire hydrant right now. You can project on a guy developing skills and techniques like these so long as there’s some athleticism, which is the case here, though Villarroel is small for the position and likely won’t be great at either task. The defensive projection above is aggressive, and he needs to put in a ton of work to get there, but I think it’s at least possible. I’m projecting him as a backup catcher who does enough on both sides to profile. This is a case where the report could change significantly next year depending on his progress or lack thereof behind the plate.

Harris began his college career at High Point, then finished at UNC Pembroke, which is also River Ryan’s alma mater. He has a drop-and-drive delivery with a high slot (though a slightly lower arm angle than last year) and pronounced spinal tilt. Harris spins the ball well and everything he throws moves. He works with a cutting, mid-90s fastball and two north-south breaking balls that each flash plus. At its best, the curve tunnels off the fastball, and he’s shown the ability to both bury it and throw it for a strike. Harris seems to be experimenting with his slider. He threw a nasty, tight 89-mph bender to generate a strikeout in the Giants’ Spring Breakout Game, but he has molded the pitch into a slower offering with a little more break in recent weeks; one gets the sense that it’s not yet in its final form.

While Harris’ mix of potent but inconsistent stuff and fringy control looks right at home in the 35+ section of the list, there’s a dash more upside here than usual. There are presumably a fair few teams that wouldn’t mind getting their hands on his blend of arm strength and feel for spin, particularly ones that think that his current delivery and slot don’t fully leverage what he can do with the ball. As a small school guy and former two-way player, he’s still relatively new to the mound and there may yet be growth ahead.

Furman is the kind of high-energy player every team needs, a pesky little second baseman who is one of the toughest guys in baseball to strike out. He had nearly twice as many walks as punchouts as a draft-eligible sophomore with UNC Charlotte, which, to the surprise of nobody familiar with their tendencies, tempted the Guardians to select him in the fourth round. He then posted one of the lowest swinging strike rates in all of the minors at a microscopic 3.2% during his first year in Cleveland’s system. Though he was shelved with a shoulder injury at the time, Furman was traded to San Francisco as part of the Alex Cobb deal at the 2024 deadline.

Furman’s doing it again at Triple-A, where he has a 94% in zone contact rate and basically never misses a fastball in the zone. Short levers help him consistently get to the ball on time, and while his line drive swing and approach comes at the expense of his raw power — his 90th-percentile EV is 98.7 mph, which is 30 grade — he’s capable of getting the bat out front and doing a little damage to the pull side. Realistically, though, he’ll probably be mostly a singles hitter at the highest level.

Defensively, he’s quick and has good range, but poor hands and a 30 arm limit his topline grade. Last year, Eric speculated that Furman’s speed should allow him to play the outfield too, but that hasn’t happened yet. A second base/outfield profile stands a better chance of fitting on the bottom of a roster than a keystone-only fit. As is, he could be a regular if he can hit .290, but he’ll be limited to an up-down role if he falls short of that. The forecast here is for the bat to play well enough to key a utility profile, with the Giants eventually playing him in center.

Crawford hasn’t pitched since last year, so a lightly massaged version of last cycle’s writeup has been recreated here. A two-way college player, Crawford’s draft status peaked during his pre-draft summer, when he was sitting 100 with Team USA and flashing big power on Cape Cod. He got hurt, had Tommy John that fall, and missed his entire junior year, but his upside still demanded an early pick, and the Giants popped him 30th overall in 2022.

Crawford was developed as a two-way player through 2023, but he totaled just 19 innings that year and struck out too much for the experiment to continue. In 2024, Crawford was immediately moved into the bullpen, and it seemed as though a singular focus on pitching, combined with clearance to air it out, might allow him to reach the bigs fast. And for a while, it looked like that was happening. While wild (15.4% walk rate), Crawford was overwhelming Double- and Triple-A hitters (38.5% strikeout rate) when his velocity suddenly tanked during an outing in early June, and he was shut down. He subsequently underwent shoulder surgery toward the end of the season, missed all of 2025, and then had a setback and another surgery after throwing a few bullpens last summer; he remains on the IL today.

When he’s really humming, Crawford looks like a future closer in the José Alvarado mold. He powers sinkers past hitters all over the zone and flashes a ridiculous mid-80s slider. Crawford’s delivery is pretty violent, he’s a tightly wound, bulky sort of athlete, and he doesn’t repeat his release consistently. Even though he has a viable third pitch (his changeup is fine), he was always likely to be a reliever because of these issues. Now he’s had two major injuries and three surgeries in the span of about two and a half years. It creates volatility and delay that alters the way Crawford is valued as a prospect even though his evaluation hasn’t changed. Hopefully he returns with his pre-injury stuff intact. If he does, we could see him in San Francisco sometime in 2027.

Bostick quietly had a very good 2025 season, posting a 3.71 ERA with great walk and strikeout totals at High-A. He was also pretty stretched out for the level, as he averaged just about five innings per start.

Despite the strikes, Bostick looks like a future reliever. He has a large open stride and big spinal tilt, and he falls off the mound in a way that limits both his precision and deception. The fastball in particular, plenty hard and with decent carry, seems to suffer, and the lone knock on him last year was that he was fairly dinger prone. The secondaries are pretty good. Bostick has a sweeping, low-to-mid-80s slider and a slurvier curve that’s an absolute hammer at its best, though it’s a tough pitch to corral and execute consistently. He also made substantial progress with his split over the course of the year: It often faded harmlessly in April, but by September, he had it reliably ducking the barrels of the Northwest League’s best prospects.

Unfortunately, Bostick ruptured his achilles this spring and will miss the 2026 season. It’s a blow for a player with an outside chance to start and tangible ways to make that outcome more likely. He’ll be 25 when he next takes the mound and, if he makes a full recovery, his 40-man clock will be ticking pretty loudly by that point. Bostick could have late-inning stuff in short stints, though the lack of deception rounds my projection down to a middle relief grade.

George was an unheralded 13th-round pick out of Lewis-Clark State, an Idaho-based NAIA program that has long punched above its weight on the diamond. Unfortunately, a promising debut season was cut short when he blew out last summer; he underwent Tommy John surgery and hasn’t pitched since.

Prior to the injury, George was tracking like a sleeper starting pitching prospect. He’s a high-slot righty with a clean, though somewhat long, arm swing. There’s some torque in his delivery as he snaps toward the plate, but Drake pounds the zone (6.5% walk rate last year) and has enough command to work in some kind of length role. He has a decent fastball, 93-96 mph with a bit of carry. The four-seamer tunnels well with his primary offspeed, a 12-6 curve that Low-A hitters couldn’t handle. He’ll flash an average change with good arm speed and just a tick of fade and sink, though his execution and feel loom as two of the most significant obstacles between him and a job in the rotation. For now, we’ll have to wait and see what this looks like when George gets back on the mound. You can dream on a backend starter, and he could be a middle relief fit if the change doesn’t step forward.

Velasquez can hit. He’s short to the ball with a still head and a connected swing from both sides. It comes with a pretty good approach, as he’s walked about 12% of the time at Double-A and is again running a contact rate north of 80%. At one point in his career, it looked like Velasquez might top out with 30 power, but he’s grown into a little more strength and with it enough thump to let the barrel play.

Defensively, Velasquez’s days at shortstop look to be just about over, as aside from a handful of games in winter ball, he’s almost exclusively manned the keystone at Richmond. With good hands and instincts, he plays a reliability-over-range second base. Amusingly, Eric’s comment last year that “he’s crafty and finds a way to get the ball where it needs to be” meshed perfectly with what he’s recently put on tape: When I turned on the video, the first play he made was a diving stab on a grounder and then a long, backhand flip to first as he flopped onto his belly. Velasquez would be at least an FV tier ahead of this if he could play short; as is, he has a chance to hit his way into an unconventional utility role.

Gutierrez was a small-dollar signee out of Mexico in the 2023 international class. He’s an undersized lefty hitter with a pretty swing and a mature approach. He has a soft hand loop for a load and a smooth, lofted swing path. While easy on the eye, some of the swing elements give me pause. The high hand load lengths his path and often leaves him tardy on high fastballs. He’s also prone to pulling off the plate in a way that directs a lot of his contact, particularly fly balls and line drives, up the middle or the other way. Hitting the fastball the other way and pulling the soft stuff isn’t a bad approach, but it works better if you’ve got big pop or you’re able to elevate the secondaries, neither of which is part of Gutierrez’s game right now. Defensively, he’s mostly played in a corner, and as an average runner, he doesn’t fit up the middle. He’s evaluated here as a tweener with a hit tool to monitor, and his profile could take a late leap if the 21-year-old is able to get stronger.

Szykowny (pronounced Zick-own-ee) starred for four years at Division III Wisconsin Stout before transferring to UIC in 2023, where he lit up the Missouri Valley Conference. It’s rare for D-III hitters and 23-year-olds to get drafted at all, but Szykowny managed to beat the odds. He stands out immediately on the field, in part because of his stature, but also because he’s the Adam Rosales of his generation when it comes to hustle. Anyone can run out the lost causes, but this is the guy who motors his way to first after a walk. That effort level extends elsewhere, with sources noting that he’s a diligent worker before games and away from the field.

Szykowny is a decent mover for his size and has plus raw power and arm strength (he threw a handful of three true outcome-laden innings in college). He doesn’t get to the power all that often in games, however. He has a grooved uphill cut and the book is out on him, as he sees precious few pitches in his wheelhouse down around the knees. He’s a pretty good contact hitter anyway (78% at Double-A this year, 84% in zone) and doesn’t have a hole in his swing so much as a limited part of the zone where he has good barrel feel. Thus far, he’s been able to muscle his way to enough doubles and homers to post around a 120 wRC+ at both High- and Double-A anyway, though I’m skeptical he’ll do enough damage to start in the big leagues. Defensively, he’s seen time at both corners. He doesn’t have a ton of range at third, but he has the hands and arm to stand there. That versatility gives him a path to a regular bench role.

Ceballos hails from Puerto Rico and his amateur career, which included stops at San Jacinto CC in Texas and the University of Oregon, spanned the country. Drafted in 2023 by Atlanta, he was traded from the Braves to San Francisco while he was still at High-A, which meant he had the pleasure of playing in Eugene as both a collegian and a pro; the UW grad writing this will try not to hold that against him too much.

Many teams have a template that lets scouts check a few boxes to help describe a swing, a fruitless exercise in Ceballos’ case. Sometimes he leaks the hip early, sometimes he’s connected; sometimes he gets off the A swing, sometimes he looks stiff and defensive. Often he’s looking to pull, but occasionally he’ll stay on a pitch and line it to right. An amorphous swing seeps into other elements of his game, as Ceballos’ offensive profile has no defining trait. He hits for some power, but not a lot. He’ll take some walks, but not a ton of them. He strikes out a little less than average, but not so much that you’ll notice. Guys who mostly keep the line moving in Double-A generally aren’t impact bats, and Ceballos likely won’t be one either.

Ceballos’ glove is quite good. While not especially fleet, he has a good first step, and both his hands and arm are big league quality. Watching him at third, a couple of things stand out. He’s got great balance and can make accurate throws on the run and without setting his feet. It’s hard to gauge fully on video, but it looks like he’s got pretty good instincts out there too. In one recent play, a bad hop caught him completely flat footed and on his heels, and instead of trying to reset his feet, he got the ball out quick and one-hopped an accurate throw to first. Ultimately, there’s enough here on both sides to keep Ceballos on the radar, though “corner defender without big pop” tends to be a tricky roster fit.

The oft-injured Smith made the inevitable transition to relief last year and, despite more time on the shelf with a shoulder strain, dominated the upper levels enough to earn his first cup of coffee with the Tigers. He was a casualty of Detroit’s roster crunch at the end of this spring and was purchased by San Francisco at the end of March.

Smith has experienced a velo bump in relief. He’ll have some days where he’s 93-95, which is a tick up from where he was in the rotation, and others where he’s 95-96 and bumping 98, and looks pretty nasty. He has good feel for his sweeping breaking ball, a pitch he can work to both sides of the plate while adding and subtracting velo and movement. Less frequently, he’ll mix in the splitter and curve.

Smith has a few paths forward. Even when he has his good stuff, he has tended to work with the cadence and effort level of a starter — might he sit 95-97 more often if he really let it go? Then there are the other secondaries. On any given day, he’ll show you an above-average 11-5 hook to go with the sweeper, and his best splits are at least average as well. The rotation isn’t in the cards at this point, but a hybrid role might be, and Smith has the arsenal depth to keep lefties honest regardless of where he ends up. He isn’t a budding star, and his inability to miss bats in the majors (four strikeouts in 13.2 innings) highlights the importance of getting to the top of his velo band more often. Still, Smith has a couple routes to being useful, which should keep him on someone’s 40-man for a while.

Bandura has long been an interesting flier, a tall and large-framed outfielder with speed, a little barrel skill, and a chance to grow into power. He looked stronger year over year on the backfields this spring, and a source with the team highlighted a more intense regimen in the weight room — he was finishing his degree at Princeton in previous offseasons — as a factor in his physical development. He’s always hit for enough contact and damage to monitor, and his power is up this year, enough so that I’ve elevated him onto the main section of the list. Defensively, he’s solid-average in a corner and can stand in center. Even though he’s nearly 25 and is struggling in his first exposure to Triple-A, this is the kind of profile to stay patient with. Bandura has the look of a late-blooming fourth outfielder.

The Giants love their high-slot arms and Mazza is no exception. That and a drop-and-drive delivery give him a carrying fastball that sits in the mid-90s and touches 97. He pairs that with a plus, tight and sweeping slider. Mazza has five pitches, but he’s narrowed his usage significantly in 2026, and is now throwing his fastball and slider about 90% of the time. Of the rest of the mix, the curve in particular seems promising enough to keep around, but his deployment of it may decrease naturally as he slides into shorter stints. He’s been developed as a multi-inning arm thus far in his career, but he has a head whack at finish and an inconsistent release point, both markers of a future reliever. The stuff should be quite good in short stints, though, and the only real concern I have about it is that he’s lowering his slot noticeably on the slider. Concerns about that and his command are enough to round him down into this value tier, though on stuff alone, he has a clear path to a middle relief role.

The ultra-lanky Ramos is a funkadelic, low-slot reliever. He sits in the low-to-mid-90s with both fastballs and gets divergent movement on them, even though both have significant tail. His slurvy slider is long, and he likes to add and subtract in a way that lengthens it further. The slow version looks like a meatball at times but hey, he threw one past William Contreras in his debut; pitching is just disrupting timing and all that. While Ramos has made strides as a strike-thrower in recent years, his command is crude enough to still project him as a lower-leverage arm.

Johnson’s game is straightforward. He alternates his low-to-mid-90s cutting fastball with a low-to-mid-80s sweeper, and that’s it. He gets a lot of break on the cutter considering how fast it is, and the unusual movement profile is one key to his success. He has good feel for spin, above-average extension, and perhaps a little deception out of a relatively low release angle. Johnson has never thrown a ton of strikes, and he’s strayed from the zone even more than usual thus far in Sacramento. Still, the profile is funky enough to value him in this tier, even though there’s a risk he winds up topping out as Triple-A filler if he can’t find the box a little more often.

Martin pitched at Sewanee for three years before transferring to Kentucky, where his arm strength and changeup enticed the Royals in the 2023 draft; he was traded to the Giants for Mason Black over the offseason. Martin repeats his rock-and-fire delivery pretty well and generates average velocity with ease. His back stab feeds into an overhand slot and a clean finish without any of the landing characteristics that correlate with wildness. Still, even though he’s thrown strikes and worked as a starter up to this point, Martin is probably destined for the bullpen eventually, as he hasn’t yet found the caliber of breaking ball that will allow him to turn over a lineup multiple times. Right now, he’s working with what looks like a gyro slider; I liked the harder, cutterish breaking ball he had last year a little more. He projects as a reliever who can flex between single- and multi-inning outings and perhaps has a tick of upside if he can really breathe fire in short stints or finds a better spinner than I have projected here.

Delvecchio had a tough junior year at UCLA, but the Giants snapped him up in the 12th round anyway, betting that his outlier fastball traits would play better in a pro environment. He averaged 21 inches of vertical break in college and has actually generated even more at times in the Cal League. Between that, the velo (he’s up a tick or two, regularly getting to 95-96 and touching higher) and a low release, it’s playing like a good invisiball thus far this year. He’s not always pinpoint with it, but his mechanics are clean enough to think that’ll get better. As an undersized righty with average natural spin and a decent but developing change, Delvecchio’s ceiling is limited. He already has the fastball to succeed in a big league bullpen, though, and if he can find an average or better slider to go with it, he’ll climb into the 40-FV tier on future lists.

Arteaga signed for a million bucks in the final international class before the pandemic. He performed well at the lower levels and held serve through High-A before undergoing surgery for thoracic outlet syndrome at the end of the 2023 season. Two moribund years with the bat followed, and it was only this April that signs of life at the plate earned him a call-up to Sacramento. As he filled out, Arteaga never grew into the kind of pop that scouts once thought possible, and he has remained a flawed singles and doubles hitter with a long swing and a propensity to chase. Defensively, Arteaga has quick and reliable hands and a plus hose with the kind of gorgeous arm action that makes you wonder if he can throw a slider. We’ll save that conversation for another year. For now, he projects as an up-down middle infielder with little to offer on offense.

Ahuna is one of those proverbial “stands out when he gets off the bus” guys, a great athlete with the frame to both play shortstop and hit for power. In the field, he has good hands and enough range to project as an above-average defender. Unfortunately, as he has ascended to the upper minors, it increasingly seems like Ahuna can’t hit. He has a stiff, inside-out swing and doesn’t seem to pick up spin well. His contact rates have gone from “problematic but perhaps playable” to “Spencer Jones without the power” in Richmond. There’s time left for him to sand down the roughest edges of his game at the plate, and he has a utility ceiling if he can. The median projection, though, is as an up-down guy at this point.

While sources were divided on the standout arm on the ACL complex this season, the plurality chose Fuentes. He’s a big guy with power stuff, and he’s throwing harder year over year. Strangely, he’s been growing into games this summer, often sitting 92-94 early before ramping up a couple ticks and touching 98 later in the contest. He has the outlines of a two-plane slider and a fading change, and while there’s a little stiffness to the delivery, neither the effort level nor the arm stroke are particularly scary. He looks like the kind of pitcher to develop as a starter in case everything clicks, though he’s likely a reliever in the end.

Simon was an arm-strength flier in the 2022 draft. He’s a large, tightly wound pitcher with a simple, if stiff, delivery. He can touch triple digits without breaking a sweat, however, and the ease with which he generates that velo seems to lull hitters to sleep. The former Golden Domer had Tommy John surgery in 2023 and hasn’t found the strike zone consistently since his return. After a very wild 2025, he’s been a little better this year, registering 29 strikeouts but also 15 walks in 16 innings at High-A. Interestingly, he’s dramatically adjusted his usage rates this year: After throwing 80% fastballs in 2025, he’s now throwing 60% sliders in 2026. Perhaps that’s in an effort to develop a better one — the break on his slider is fine, but with 12-15 or so ticks of velo separation, it’s too distinct from the fastball — or maybe it’s part of a plan to get him in the zone more often. Regardless, he remains a lotto ticket reliever with big stuff and very limited feel for it.

Maldonado’s game is to throw gas and mix in an occasional north-south slider to keep hitters guessing. It’s a powerful heater, upwards of 100 mph at times, and when he misses up and out of the zone, you can almost feel his catcher’s wrist snapping back as he gloves the ball. Maldonado was a poor strike-thrower in San Jose’s rotation last year (and in prior seasons), but he’s really lost track of the barn this year at Eugene. He’s walked 30.8% of the hitters he’s faced in 2026, 20 total in 12.1 innings so far, all in relief. He swivels toward the plate on a wobbly back leg in a way that isn’t conducive to precision, but his delivery isn’t especially violent otherwise; there’s a chance his feel improves over time. He’s got an A-ball floor if the strikes never come back, but with triple-digit heat and decent feel for spin, this is a guy to stay patient with.

Laroche had a dominant sophomore season in the DSL in 2025, where he posted a 2.11 ERA with a 22.2% strikeout rate and a 3.9% walk rate. He’s a smooth operator on the mound. He touches the mid-90s with very little effort, and he has a projectable frame ripe for additional strength. His arm path is a little long, so while the shape on his change is good, he’ll have to work hard to disguise it out of the hand. He gets his slider into the mid-80s, though it isn’t especially sharp yet. This is an intriguing sleeper of a starting pitching prospect, one we’ll unfortunately have to wait out a bit before we learn more. He’s been on the shelf with a shoulder injury all year and reportedly isn’t back on the mound yet.

Undrafted out of Division II Pittsburgh-Johnstown, Roxby was recruited by Reds dev personnel via a post-draft Zoom meeting in which they explained how to better use his pitches (you can read more in David Laurila’s interview with Roxby detailing the signing). His four-seamer lives in the mid-90s with uphill angle and tail. A funky lower slot creates these characteristics, and also facilitates an east-west game with his slider, cutter, and two-seamer; he’ll also mix in an occasional changeup. It’s the stuff of a pretty standard middle reliever, though his command likely puts him in more of an up/down role.

Narvaez cracked last year’s list as a dev flier, a guy with a projectable body, a carrying fastball, and a history of throwing strikes. All of that has held true as the righty debuts stateside (he spent three years on the Dominican complex), where he’s been throwing mostly in multi-inning relief stints. He’s still not throwing very hard and his secondaries lag, but scouts on the complex still think he could be a late bloomer, and he has traits to monitor.