With the fifth overall pick in the 2008 MLB June Amateur Draft, the San Francisco Giants selected a young man by the name of Gerald Dempsey “Buster” Posey III, a catcher out of Florida State University. I don’t have to tell you who he was. You already know. His selection was part of a very successful run of first-round draft picks by the Giants. The year before, they picked Madison Bumgarner. The year before that, they chose Tim Lincecum. And, if you want to go back this far, they drafted Matt Cain in the first round in 2002. But ever since the Giants changed the trajectory of their franchise in the best way possible by taking Posey, they’ve had something of a dry spell in the annual June Amateur Draft. Here’s a look at every first-round pick the Giants have had since that fifth overall pick in 2008.
2008 – 3B Conor Gillaspie (37th overall)
2.2 WAR, -0.1 with Giants
Posey wasn’t the Giants’ only selection in the first round in 2008. They also took Conor Gillaspie, a third baseman born and bred in Omaha who attended Wichita State University. As part of the agreement when the Giants signed him for a $970,000 bonus, Gillaspie made his MLB debut the year he was drafted, albeit only going 1 for 5 and never starting a game. He wasn’t called up again until 2011, when he had brief cameos in June and again in September for a total of 21 MLB plate appearances. He went 5 for 19, including his first career home run: an inside-the-parker against the Rockies. (Side note: it looks very similar to this Joc Pederson hit from 2022, although Pederson’s was ruled a triple and Gillaspie’s a home run.)
Gillaspie was called up again briefly in May 2012 and went 3 for 20 for all his major-league experience that year. Then, during 2013 spring training, he was traded to the Chicago White Sox. The former first-round pick amounted to a 9-for-44 (.205) run over three seasons with the Giants.
Gillaspie spent two and a half seasons in Chicago before being DFA’d and traded to the Los Angeles Angels for cash at the 2015 trade deadline. Across those three seasons with the White Sox and Angels, he put up a 96 OPS+ with 24 home runs in 339 games as their starting third baseman. Not terrible, but also not up to first-round standards.
Gillaspie had a disappointing 75 OPS+ while missing significant time due to injury in 2015 and became a free agent at the end of the year. Who would even want this guy?
How about the San Francisco Giants? In February 2016, they signed Gillaspie to a minor-league deal and gave him a chance to win the backup third baseman job. And win the job he did. He was a perfectly cromulent backup (100 OPS+) to Matt Duffy and then Eduardo Nunez, but the postseason was where he really shined. In the 2016 NL Wild Card game, he broke a scoreless tie in the top of the ninth with a three-run home run off Jeurys Familia. Then, in Game 3 of the NLDS, with the Giants down 3-2 with two on in the bottom of the eighth, Gillaspie took a 102-mph fastball from Aroldis Chapman and hit it into Triples Alley for a, well, triple, that gave the Giants a 4-3 lead and led Matt Vasgersian to say, “They’re already working on the Conor Gillaspie statue right outside the ballpark.” That was the only game the Giants won in that series, but if they had gone deeper in that postseason, who knows what kind of story Gillaspie could have written.
After hitting .163 with the Giants in 2017, Gillaspie retired at age 30. While he had some big moments, a career 92 OPS+ (and 77 OPS+ with the team that drafted him) just isn’t up to first-round standards. It’s not like the 2008 draft was any sort of failure for the Giants, though.
2009 – RHP Zack Wheeler (6th overall)
32.0 WAR, 0 with Giants
A name that haunts some Giants fans to this day, Zack Wheeler was drafted sixth overall out of East Paulding High School in Dallas, Georgia. He only pitched a year and a half in the Giants’ system before being traded to the New York Mets for Carlos Beltran at the 2011 trade deadline. The 2011 Giants were strapped for offense and hoped that Beltran could provide some thump for the reigning World Series champions. He did, but they still missed the playoffs.
Wheeler debuted with the Mets in June 2013 and put up a 3.42 ERA in 17 starts. In 2014, he put up a 3.54 ERA in 32 starts. However, he missed all of 2015 and 2016 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. He wasn’t fully healthy in 2017 and had a 5.21 ERA in only 17 starts. After that, though, he blossomed. Between 2018 and 2019, he had a 3.65 ERA while staying mostly healthy. After the 2019 season, he signed a five-year, $118,000,000 deal with the Philadelphia Phillies. With the Phillies from 2020-23, he has had a 3.00 ERA with his health problems in the rearview mirror. His best season was in 2021, when he had a 2.78 ERA, struck out an NL-leading 247 batters in an MLB-leading 213.1 innings, and finished second in NL Cy Young voting to Corbin Burnes. As of this writing, he leads the National League with a 2.70 ERA in 2024.
Many Giants fans still lament that 2011 trade and say that half a season of Beltran in a failed playoff chase was not worth losing a future Cy Young contender in Wheeler. To that I say hindsight is 20/20, and it’s not guaranteed the Giants would have had as much patience with Wheeler as the Mets did–remember, he was drafted in 2009, got Tommy John prior to the 2015 season, didn’t make 30 starts in a season until 2019, hit free agency, and signed an extension. And, after trading Wheeler, the Giants won two World Series while developing homegrown pitchers such as Bumgarner, Lincecum, and Cain. Wheeler is one of the few names on this list who has had a successful and productive MLB career. He just didn’t do any of it with the Giants.
2010 – CF Gary Brown (24th overall)
0.1 WAR, all with Giants
I was a huge Gary Brown fan a decade or so ago. I don’t know why. I was too early in my baseball fandom to understand what a top prospect even was; I think I just saw his name in the media guide and gravitated toward him for whatever reason. I even got the honor of seeing him play in person–not too many people can say that, considering he only played in 7 games in the majors.
Despite an article that said he could be the next Mike Trout, the Cal State Fullerton kid never hit for much power. His ceiling was supposed to be a speedster whose batting average could hopefully be high enough to make him a good leadoff man (by 2010s standards), but after hitting .336 in High-A in 2011, he never eclipsed .280 in a minor-league season again. Like I said, he only played in 7 MLB games as a September call-up in 2014, but he did hit .429, so stow that away for future Immaculate Grids. He was also on the postseason roster that year (until Michael Morse came back from injury) and even got an at-bat in the 18th inning of NLDS Game 2 (but struck out).
Brown did have eye-popping speed, but it’s impossible for a first-rounder who only played in 7 MLB games to not be considered a bust. The fact that he was taken the year after Wheeler begs the question: does it feel worse to have your top pick fail with your team or succeed with another team?
2011 – 2B Joe Panik (29th overall)
5.4 WAR, 6.8 with Giants
(That’s not a typo. Joe Panik had 5.4 career WAR, comprised of 6.8 with the Giants and -1.4 with all other teams.)
Spoiler alert: Joe Panik is the Giants’ best first-round draft pick in this article. Unless you count time with other teams, in which case it’s Wheeler by a mile.
Anyway, as the reigning World Series champions, the Giants were the second-to-last team (last: Twins; Levi Michael) to pick in the 2011 draft, missing out on too many star players to type here. They selected Panik out of St. John’s University in Queens. Although you probably wouldn’t call Panik a star, he was obviously no slouch.
When Marco Scutaro’s back problems made it so he wouldn’t return as the starting second baseman in 2014, the Giants let Brandon Hicks play through a 14-for-97 stretch before finally calling up Panik on June 21. From that day on, Panik became the Giants’ starting second baseman for years to come, getting an All-Star selection in 2015 and a Gold Glove in 2016. And, of course, he turned that double play in Game 7 of the 2014 World Series, in case you forgot. Even though his production dwindled to low-.600s OPSs in 2018 and 2019, Panik remained a fan favorite, and the Giants broke thousands of hearts when they designated him for assignment on August 6, 2019. He had short stints with his hometown Mets as well as the Toronto Blue Jays and Miami Marlins, retired after the 2021 season, and is currently in the Giants organization as a special assistant in player development.
Again, Panik wasn’t a superstar, but he was definitely a successful first-round pick–maybe the only one on this list. You can’t expect all of your first-round picks to be superstars (as evidenced by this article), but you can expect them to be solid, reliable everyday players. For the last half of the 2010s, Panik was that. His 643 career games at second base for the Giants are the fifth-most in the San Francisco era (behind Robby Thompson, Tito Fuentes, Jeff Kent, and Ray Durham), and he gave the Giants a steadying presence at second base that they hadn’t had since Durham was traded away in 2008. One of the few on this list who would be considered a Good Giant.
2011 – RHP Kyle Crick (49th overall)
1.6 WAR, 0.5 with Giants
Kyle Crick, the pride of Sherman High School in Texas, is a largely forgettable Giant. I always forget that he even played with the big-league club (he did; 3.06 ERA in 30 games in 2017). After that season, he was included in a trade with the Pittsburgh Pirates for Andrew McCutchen. Giants fans still hate that trade–not because it sent Crick away, but because it also sent future All-Star outfielder Bryan Reynolds away. Similar to the Wheeler/Beltran trade, Giants fans still say that half a season of McCutchen on a mid 2018 team wasn’t worth losing an All-Star everyday outfielder in Reynolds. And they’re probably right.
But we’re here to talk about Kyle Crick. After the trade, he carved out a nice career as a middle reliever. Since 2018, he’s had a 3.66 ERA with the Pirates and White Sox. He signed a minor league deal with the Mets last offseason, but hasn’t pitched since 2022 due to injuries.
Crick has carved out a nice big-league career, while half his peers from the 2011 supplemental first round never even made the majors. At the same time, he wouldn’t really have made a difference in the 2018-present Giants if they held onto him. He’s not a bust, but he’s not really a success either.
2012 – RHP Chris Stratton (20th overall)
1.6 WAR, 1.0 with Giants
When I think of the godawful late-2010s Giants, I think of a rotation with Chris Stratton. His role on those teams wasn’t as big as that sentence may lead you to think, but at least to me, he’s synonymous with bad teams.
Stratton, out of Mississippi State, started his career with 7 solid relief outings in mid-2016, most of them coming at the tail end of blowouts. In 2017, he had a larger role, appearing in 13 games (10 starts) to the tune of a 3.68 ERA, almost identical to his 3.60 the year prior.
Stratton started 26 games for the 2018 Giants, and in true 2018 Giants fashion, he had a 5.09 ERA. He was, however, tied for the MLB lead in complete game shutouts with a whopping 1. That 1 shutout, a September 14 two-hitter against the Colorado Rockies (who were a playoff team that year!), snapped an 11-game losing streak that the Giants were .500 at the start of.
Stratton was traded to the Los Angeles Angels during 2019 spring training, ending his Giants career with 48 games including 36 starts and a 4.63 ERA across parts of three seasons. The Angels tried him as a starter, that only lasted five starts, and since then, he has been exclusively a reliever (and a pretty decent one at that) for the Pirates, Cardinals, Rangers (with whom he reunited with Bruce Bochy and won a ring, even pitching in the World Series), and currently the Royals, with whom he has a 4.74 ERA and 4 saves in 37 appearances this year.
Similar to Crick, I wouldn’t call Stratton a bust, but I also don’t lose sleep over him not being on the Giants anymore.
2013 – UT Christian Arroyo (25th overall)
2.0 WAR, -0.4 with Giants
Hey, another Chris!
Christian Arroyo was the first Giants prospect I ever really knew about. He was the first young guy I really kept an eye on during spring training, and the first Giants minor leaguer I knew was “going to be really good.” In other words, he was the first Giants #1 prospect of my fandom, and I don’t have the data to back this up, but it feels like it was that way for years.
I soon learned, however, that Arroyo’s #1 prospect status was more of a reflection on how bad the Giants’ farm system was than on how good Arroyo was. After an .898 OPS in 2013 rookie ball, the Hernando High School (Florida) graduate put up good-not-great numbers in the minors the next few years. Until 2017, when he had a scorching start at Triple-A Sacramento. His 1.153 OPS to start prompted a call-up on April 24, and two days later he hit a cinematic first career home run off Dodgers reliever Sergio Romo.
Arroyo had some memorable moments in 2017, but he was optioned on June 4 and suffered a fractured hand on July 2 that ended his season. In the majors in 2017, he had a 44 OPS+, worse than Ty Blach (65 OPS+), with 3 home runs in 34 games. That was it for his Giants career–the following offseason, he was included in a trade to the Tampa Bay Rays for Evan Longoria.
Unlike previous trades mentioned in this article, Giants fans don’t regret the Longoria trade. Arroyo had a forgettable Rays tenure (94 OPS+ in 36 games from 2018-19), played in one game for Cleveland in 2020, and was claimed off waivers by the Boston Red Sox.
The Red Sox used Arroyo as a super-utility player, even having him play the outfield for the first time in his career. While he spent a lot of time on the injured list, he was reliable for Boston (102 OPS+ in 158 games from 2020-22), but dropped off in 2023 to the tune of a 70 OPS+, was designated for assignment on August 4, and went unclaimed. He signed a minor league contract with the Milwaukee Brewers last offseason, but injuries have continued to hinder him, as he’s only been able to appear in seven sporadic minor-league games this year.
When you only take Arroyo’s Giants tenure into consideration, he is unequivocally a bust. When you take his whole career into consideration, he is arguably a bust. Oft-injured super-utility guy really isn’t what you want from a first-round pick, but at least he made the majors and stayed there for a while–four guys taken ahead of him never reached the big leagues.
2014 – RHP Tyler Beede (14th overall)
-0.7 WAR, -0.1 with Giants
Ah, Tyler Beede. Now that we’re getting into years when I was actually a baseball fan, I’ll refrain from saying things like “I thought this guy was the future,” even though it’s true for basically all of them.
Beede actually has the rare honor of being drafted in the first round twice–the Blue Jays took him out of high school with the 21st overall pick in 2011, but he didn’t sign. He instead went to Vanderbilt, where he was teammates with future big leaguers such as Mike Yastrzemski, Sam Selman, Bryan Reynolds, Tony Kemp, Dansby Swanson, and Walker Buehler across his three years there.
Beede made it to the majors for just two games in 2018, then made 22 starts in 2019. He had a 5.08 ERA, but I will never forget his start on July 19 at home vs. the Mets. Facing off against Jacob deGrom, Beede pitched eight shutout innings, giving up three hits on only 89 pitches. I vividly remember looking up at the pitch count at the end of every inning and thinking, Oh my god, it’s still that low. deGrom, though, who would win his second straight NL Cy Young at the end of the season, fired off seven shutout innings of his own, the game was scoreless into extra innings, and the Giants won on a walk-off error by left fielder Dominic Smith. Those July 2019 Giants, man.
Nine days after COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, Beede underwent Tommy John surgery, so he missed all of the 2020 season, then appeared in one game in 2021.
Beede made the 2022 Opening Day roster, had a 4.66 ERA in six relief outings, and was designated for assignment on May 5. The Pirates picked him up and used him mostly as a reliever. However, one of his five starts was against the Giants at Oracle Park on August 13, and that day he became probably the only starting pitcher in baseball history to face off against a man whose wedding he officiated (Logan Webb). The Giants won that game 2-0, and Beede finished his season a month later with a 5.23 ERA. Unsurprisingly, no MLB teams were intrigued by that, and Beede spent 2023 with the Yomiuri Giants of Japan’s NPB, where he had a 3.99 ERA in 30 games. The Cleveland Guardians jumped on that and signed Beede to a minor league contract the following offseason, and in a cool story, he made the Guardians’ 2024 Opening Day roster. In a much less cool story, he pitched to a 8.36 ERA in 13 games and was designated for assignment on May 3. He’s currently pitching for their Triple-A team.
Beede has a career 5.55 ERA in the major leagues, and it’s not like he’s shown a ton of promise–there was that 2019 game, but his lowest single-season ERA is that 5.08 in 2019. He’s yet another example of a Giants first-round pick who hung around the big leagues for a while, but never established himself in the way you expect/want a first-rounder to.
2015 – RHP Phil Bickford (18th overall)
0.2 WAR, 0 with Giants
Amazingly, Bickford is the second player in this article to be drafted in the first round by the Blue Jays out of high school, not sign, be drafted in the first round by the Giants out of college (Southern Nevada), and sign.
Bickford’s time with the Giants was very short-lived. Just over a year after he was drafted, he was included in a trade to the Milwaukee Brewers for Will Smith at the 2016 deadline despite putting up good numbers in rookie and A-ball as a starter. The Brewers converted him to a reliever, and for them he appeared in one game in 2020 and one game in 2021 before he was designated for assignment. The Dodgers claimed him and he turned into an annoyingly good reliever for them in 2021 (2.50 ERA in 56 games). Still couldn’t win the division, though!
He took a step back in 2022 to the tune of a 4.72 ERA in 60 games (and became the answer to a trivia question after giving up Albert Pujols’ 700th home run). Then, through 36 games in 2023, he had a 5.14 ERA for the Dodgers and was dealt to the Mets, for whom he had a 4.62 ERA in 25 games. The Yankees signed him to a minor-league deal last offseason and made him cut off his beyond-shoulder-length hair only to DFA him after 5 games and a 14.40 ERA in 2024. He’s currently pitching for their Triple-A team.
While Bickford’s success with the Dodgers in 2021 was irritating, that’s really all the success he’s had in the big leagues so far. His career ERA is 4.70, so he’s just another unremarkable Giants first-round pick.
2015 – LF/1B Chris Shaw (31st overall)
-0.9 WAR, all with Giants
Most of the names on here have had some big-league success. Even if it wasn’t with the Giants, they’ve hung around the big leagues for a while. Not so for Chris Shaw.
Shaw always had light-tower power, and after being drafted from Boston College, put up four straight 20-homer seasons in the minors from 2016-19. His first career home run went 468 feet and he also hit a ball in spring training the following year that I still wonder where it landed. His best-case scenario was that power translates to the majors and Shaw becomes the heir to a declining Brandon Belt. But the opposite happened–Shaw barely saw the majors and Belt became one of the best left-handed hitters in all of baseball in 2020-21.
Shaw was a September call-up in 2018 and 2019, and that mammoth first career home run ended up being his only career home run. He went 10 for 54 in 2018 and barely got a look in 2019, appearing in 16 games but only starting 2 while going 1 for 18. For his career, he hit .153 with a 30 OPS+–if I didn’t know better, judging by that I’d think he was a pitcher.
Shaw spent 2020 at whatever the Alternate Training Site was before the Giants designated him for assignment in November. He had a poor 20-game stint in the Orioles’ system in 2021 and an underwhelming 57-game stint in the White Sox’ system in 2023. While nothing is certain, it seems likely that Shaw’s MLB career is over.
At least Gary Brown hit .429.
2017 – OF Heliot Ramos (19th overall)
1.9 WAR, all with Giants
To be completely honest, I wrote most of this article last winter, but wanted to wait to share it until the Draft was relevant again. So, I’m not going to revise what I wrote about Heliot Ramos back then, rather I’ll just provide an update at the end. Got it? Here we go.
The Giants didn’t have a first-round pick in 2016, so with their grand return to the first round in 2017, they took Heliot Ramos, a 17-year-old from Leadership Christian Academy in Puerto Rico. He is the first player in this article who is still with the Giants organization! For years, he has been talked about as the future star of the Giants’ outfield, but as the years go on, that looks less and less likely. He’s only entering his age-24 season, but his big-league time, although limited, hasn’t exactly been promising.
Ramos put up an .850 OPS across High-A and Double-A in 2019, and with no minor-league season in 2020, it gave Giants fans a lot to talk about for a while. That dropped off to .740 in 2021 (Double-A and Triple-A), and dropped off again to .654 in the very hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League (PCL) (Triple-A). Ramos was the worst qualified hitter in the PCL in 2022, but that didn’t stop the Giants from giving him a few looks when they were facing a string of lefties. It didn’t go great–he went 2 for 3 in his debut on April 10 but 0 for 17 the rest of the year.
Ramos got a slightly more extended look in 2023. He hit his first home run on August 12 during his second of three stints in the majors and had a few more eye-popping exit velocities, but his 48 OPS+ in the majors didn’t excite anybody. (His .954 OPS in Triple-A, albeit in an injury-shortened season, was more comforting.)
It’s too early to declare Ramos a bust or success, and he can’t be counted out as part of the Giants’ future outfield equation. It doesn’t look good so far, though.
JULY 2024 UPDATE: Man, am I glad I didn’t definitively declare Ramos a bust. After having a dismal spring training (.329 OPS) for the second year in a row, Ramos was one of the first players sent to minor league camp in 2024 and it really looked like the organization had given up on him. They wrote him off, but he didn’t write back.
Ramos got off to a scorching start in Triple-A to the tune of a .953 OPS and was called up to replace an injured Jorge Soler on May 8. He still wasn’t the Giants’ first choice, though, as Soler’s injury was part of a long string of injuries to Giants regulars. However, fast-forward to the All-Star Break, he didn’t get a single day off since his call-up because he’s hitting .298 with a 155 OPS+. He got a day off during the Home Run Derby, but then he was back on the field during the All-Star Game! If you had told any Giants fan any time between mid-2022 and May 2024 that Heliot Ramos would be an All-Star, you’d immediately be laughed off. But here he is, a reminder that baseball is hard and development is not linear. He’s got a decent shot at 30 home runs and 100 RBI this year, and he was called up on May 8. It’s important to remember that it’s only been 60 games, but Heliot Ramos has completely flipped the narrative surrounding him, and if he keeps it up, he can single-handedly flip the narrative on the Giants’ first-round success. He’s already made me change all of this article’s broad claims about the Giants’ first rounds from “absolutely horrible” to “less than ideal.”
2018 – C Joey Bart (2nd overall)
1.7 WAR, 0.7 with Giants
If Christian Arroyo was the first prospect that I was excited about, then Joey Bart was the first draft pick that I was excited about. Remember when people were mad that Pablo Sandoval ended the 2017 season with a walk-off home run because it cost the Giants the first overall pick, and then that first overall pick turned out to be Casey Mize, who has a career 4.28 ERA in only 55 starts? That’s not totally relevant to this, but I just think it’s funny.
Anyway, Bart was supposed to be the next franchise cornerstone. Buster Posey was on the wrong side of 30 and his production was declining, and the consensus opinion was that Bart would be the heir apparent to Posey, be mentored by Posey as he made the switch to first base, and in time become the franchise catcher. As it turns out, basically none of that stuff happened.
The Georgia Tech star Bart hit well in the minors and ended 2019 in Double-A. He was supposed to begin 2020 in Triple-A, but didn’t for obvious reasons. A month into the Mickey Mouse 2020 season, the Giants decided their highest draft pick since the Reagan administration would be better off developing in the big leagues than at the mysterious Alternate Training Site. In 33 games, he had a 68 OPS+ with 0 home runs and 3 walks to 41 strikeouts. Not great. He played two major-league games in 2021 and 67 Triple-A games (.831 OPS).
When Buster Posey retired after that season, it was supposed to be Bart’s time. He had proven he could hit in Triple-A and knew what the big leagues were like. He never really got any time for Posey to mentor him in the big leagues, but no one really cared about that anymore. And on 2022 Opening Day, he hit a moonshot to left field off Sandy Alcantara (who would win the NL Cy Young that year), his first home run, 596 days after his major-league debut. Then he homered again in Cleveland a week later. Then he homered again against the Nationals two weeks after that. At this point, he had a very respectable .784 OPS on the season. It was finally starting to come together for the Giants’ highest draft pick in over three decades.
After that game vs. the Nationals, however, he went on a dismal 5-for-48 (.104) stretch over the next month in which his only home run was off Albert Pujols. He didn’t even make it two months into the season before being optioned to Triple-A on June 8. He was recalled on July 6 after playing only 7 games in Triple-A and finished out the season with an unimpressive 98 wRC+ in his second major-league stint. He finished with a 92 wRC+ for the whole 2022 season, good for 17th among 37 catchers with at least 250 PA that year. Not terrible, but certainly not up to expectations for a bat-first catcher who was drafted second overall.
In 2023 spring training, the Giants openly held a four-way competition for the starting catcher role between Bart, newly acquired free agent Roberto Perez, incumbent backup Austin Wynns, and Rule 5 pick Blake Sabol. Bart suffered a back strain right when the season started, but Perez suffered a season-ending rotator cuff strain in the home opener, Wynns only played one game for the 2023 Giants, and Sabol, as a Rule 5 pick, was never going to be the primary catcher. Once Bart got back, it was his time to run with the job again.
Well…he had a 64 wRC+ with no homers through May 17, then pulled his groin and went on the 10-day injured list. By the time he was healthy enough to come back, Patrick Bailey had stolen the show (more on that later) and Bart was optioned to Triple-A once again. He was called up for four games in September when Bailey was concussed and went 0 for 9 to close the door on another disappointing big-league season.
Everyone expected Bart to be traded in the 2023-24 offseason, but it took a little longer than that. He was still a Giant during spring training, where he hit .414, and to everyone’s surprise, made the Opening Day roster so the Giants could try to sneak him through waivers. He was DFA’d four games into the season and traded to the Pirates for Austin Strickland two days later. After three home runs in his first seven games, a grand slam against the Giants, and a thumb injury, he has a 120 OPS+ for the Pirates through 30 games as he splits time with Yasmani Grandal behind the plate. He’s 27 now, and it looks to be now or never for Bart to live up to second-overall-pick expectations.
2019 – OF Hunter Bishop (10th overall)
No MLB experience
Yeesh: Hunter Bishop is the first name on this list to not have appeared in the major leagues. It’s not like he’s working his way up through the minors at a normal pace–as weird as it is to think about, 2019 is five years ago now. Bishop is 26 and is just now starting Triple-A. It’s not like he’s been horrible in the minor leagues–the injury bug has just gotten him time and time again.
After three years at Arizona State, Bishop began his pro career with a promising .867 OPS in rookie ball and Low-A in 2019, the year he was drafted. There was no minor-league season in 2020, and injuries limited him to just 16 games across rookie ball, Low-A, and High-A in 2021. He appeared in 86 games in High-A in 2022, only posting a .727 OPS. He then had to get UCL surgery and missed the entire 2023 season. He started 2024 in Double-A and earned a callup to Triple-A after 26 games. However, he currently only has a .708 OPS in the PCL.
The optimist in me continues to root for Bishop because he’s a local kid (Junipero Serra High School in San Mateo) and hopes he can be a Mike Yastrzemski-type story–a guy who spent forever in the minor leagues and still turned into a solid big leaguer. However, it’s definitely not unlikely that he will become the first Giants first-rounder since Tim Alderson and Wendell Fairley from the 2007 draft to never appear in the major leagues.
2020 – C Patrick Bailey (13th overall)
3.5 WAR, all with Giants
Out of all the players in this article, Bailey has done the most to demonstrate that he can be a cornerstone everyday player for even longer than Joe Panik. He immediately endeared himself to Giants fans when they discovered video of a bat flip he did at North Carolina State. Even though they’d have to wait a little while to see him play because, once again, no minor-league season in 2020, he didn’t disappoint. Although always regarded as a defense-first catcher, he put up OPSs north of .760 across all minor-league seasons until his call-up.
A call-up that, in fact, really wasn’t supposed to happen. As you may recall, the four-way catching competition mentioned in Joey Bart’s section didn’t include Bailey. He had ended 2022 in High-A and had only played 14 games in Double-A and 14 in Triple-A when Bart pulled his groin in May 2023. However, Perez was hurt, Wynns was gone, and Sabol was a fresh Rule 5 pick, so the Giants made the surprising decision to call up the relatively inexperienced Bailey on May 19 to begin a series against the Marlins. He appeared in that May 19 game as a defensive substitution but didn’t bat. He started the next game and picked up his first career hit, then started the game after that and hit his first career home run.
That home run was special in a few ways. Obviously, it was special because it was his first career home run in only his second career start and it went 423 feet. But it was also special because he hit it as a righty. Bailey, a switch-hitter, was astronomically better as a left-handed hitter in the minors, to the point that many were saying that all he needed to do to get called up was to stop switch-hitting, a la J.T. Snow. Conversely, he’s turned out to be a perfectly fine switch-hitter at the major league level at a position where good switch hitters are hard to come by.
Anyway, Bailey continued to mash in 2023, to the point that when Bart was healthy again, they sent him on as long of a rehab assignment as possible, and when time ran out for that on June 10, Bailey had an .848 OPS. He had stolen the show. If you need a refresher on what Bart’s 2023 season became, scroll up two sections.
Bailey dropped off in September, but it’s easy to understand why. He caught 945 innings across all levels in 2023 as opposed to 606 in 2022 and 561 in 2021. For reference, Buster Posey caught more than 945 innings in a season only three times. It’s clear that he was just exhausted. He also was a Gold Glove finalist (and in my opinion should have won the award over Gabriel Moreno) and was called the best defender in baseball by Jeff Passan.
In 2024, Bailey just missed out on being an All-Star with his 127 OPS+, 98th percentile framing, and 97th percentile pop time at the break. He’s already equaled his home run total from last year with 7 and is on pace to catch fewer innings than last year, so if the September fall-off is avoided this year, Bailey will have checked every box on the route to future franchise cornerstone.
If you don’t think Joe Panik was a successful first-round pick, then Patrick Bailey has arguably the most potential of anyone in this article to become the saving grace of Giants first-rounders in the last decade and a half. His defense alone makes him extremely valuable, and as the bat continues to develop, he can become a star. Not just a star, a homegrown star. And not just a homegrown star, a homegrown first-round star.
2021 – RHP Will Bednar
No MLB experience
The Giants selected Will Bednar out of Mississippi State four Drafts ago and he has pitched in 36 minor-league games. There’s not much more to say than that.
The younger brother of Pirates All-Star closer David Bednar simply cannot stay on the field. He pitched in 4 games after being drafted in 2021, 14 in 2022, 10 between the Arizona Complex and Fall Leagues in 2023, and finally got back to Low-A as a 24-year-old this year. He’s moved quickly through the minors this year, though–he’s currently pitching for Double-A Richmond, and his strikeout numbers have remained steadily high. His talent hasn’t been called into question yet, he just has to stay healthy.
Also, he was celebrating his 12th birthday the day Matt Cain pitched a perfect game. Do with that information what you will.
2022 – LHP Reggie Crawford
No MLB experience
Originally drafted as a two-way player out of UConn, Reggie Crawford is now committed to being a full-time pitcher. He was recovering from Tommy John when he was drafted, so he didn’t pitch until 2023 and only logged 19 innings in 13 starts between Low-A and High-A as he ramped up. He started 2024 with Double-A Richmond as a reliever and after 7 games got a call-up to Triple-A Sacramento. There, he only gave up 1 earned run in 7 outings but has been hurt and hasn’t pitched since June 5.
Crawford can hit triple digits and was looking like he could be a bullpen option down the stretch this year until he got hurt. The long-term plan for him is to be a starter, but his 19 innings in 2023 are the most he’s ever pitched in a season. Even if he does shoot through the minor leagues, it will be a while until he’s fully ramped up.
2023 – 1B Bryce Eldridge
No MLB experience
Also originally drafted as a two-way player, Bryce Eldridge is now committed to being a full-time first baseman. One of three high school hitters on this list (Arroyo and Ramos), Eldridge committed to the University of Alabama as a high school freshman but signd with the Giants after being drafted in the first round out of James Madison High School in Virginia.
He’s currently playing for High-A Eugene and has an .825 OPS this year between them and Low-A San Jose, but he has the kind of power that you have to see to believe. Watch this home run and try to explain how it got out. You can’t.
I try not to prospect-hug and set crazy high expectations, but when I see power like that, I can’t help but feel like the Giants have a star in the making.
2024 – OF James Tibbs III
No MLB experience
Right off the bat: incredible name. James Tibbs III is a left-handed corner outfielder from Florida State University with big power and great discipline. He hit 28 home runs and posted a .488 OBP in 66 games for the Seminoles in 2024, but is said to have looked pretty feeble against left-handed pitching. Remind you of another Giant who also has a parent with the same name? (That was a weird segue. I’m talking about LaMonte Wade Jr.)
I’m not gonna pretend like I’ve watched more than three innings of college baseball in my life, but I will leave you with this: The Giants took Gerald Posey III, born and raised in Georgia, out of Florida State in the first round in 2008. The Giants took James Tibbs III, born and raised in Georgia, out of Florida State in the first round in 2024.
Note on stats used in this article: OPS+ is OPS averaged out to compare to other players in the league, where 100 is average, 110 is 10% above average, and so on, found on Baseball Reference. wRC+ (Weighted Runs Created plus) can be used interchangeably with OPS+, found on Fangraphs. WAR used in this article is the Baseball Reference version.
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