Who is the 31st-best prospect on the Giants farm?
The 30th chapter of the 2022 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List saw the unofficial tallest prospect in San Francisco Giants history get selected, as right-handed pitcher Sean Hjelle was voted as the No. 30 prospect on the farm. It’s a drop of 19 spots for Hjelle, who was No. 11 in last year’s CPL.
Hjelle, a slender 6’11 starting pitcher who will turn 25 in May, has had a bit of an odd prospect trajectory. He was a second-round pick in 2018 — the final draft by the old front office — and, truthfully, has never done all that well in the Minors. He started 2021 in AA, where he had a 3.15 ERA and 4.00 FIP, with 69 strikeouts to 19 walks in 65.2 innings. That was solid enough and earned him a promotion to AAA, where he struggled very mightily, accumulating a 5.74 ERA and a 5.77 FIP, with just 35 strikeouts to 29 walks in 53.1 innings.
The Giants added him to the 40-man roster in November to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, and if he can put up half-decent numbers in Sacramento this year we’ll likely see him make his MLB debut — assuming there’s an MLB season.
Now we move on, and we have some new names to add to the list. Rec the reply in the comments with the player you would like to vote for.
The list so far
- Marco Luciano
- Joey Bart
- Luis Matos
- Heliot Ramos
- Kyle Harrison
- Camilo Doval
- Jairo Pomares
- Will Bednar
- Patrick Bailey
- Hunter Bishop
- Ryan Reckley
- Aeverson Arteaga
- Ryan Murphy
- Matt Mikulski
- Diego Rincones
- R.J. Dabovich
- Nick Swiney
- Will Wilson
- David Villar
- Ricardo Genovés
- Sammy Long
- Randy Rodriguez
- Manuel Mercedes
- Casey Schmitt
- Ismael Munguia
- Kervin Castro
- Adrian Sugastey
- Brett Auerbach
- Chris Wright
- Sean Hjelle
Note: Clicking on the above names will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.
On to No. 31!
No. 31 prospect nominees
Prelander Berroa — 21.10 years, 4.94 FIP in Low-A (98.2 innings)
Seth Corry — 23.3 years, 5.25 FIP in High-A (67.2 innings)
Grant McCray — 21.2 years, 81 wRC+ in Low-A (88 PAs), 127 wRC+ in ACL (65 PAs)
Carson Ragsdale — 23.9 years, 4.12 FIP in Low-A (113.2 innings)
Gregory Santos — 22.6 years, 22.67 FIP in MLB (2 innings), 5.15 FIP in AAA (15.2 innings)
Luis Toribio — 21.5 years, 95 wRC+ in Low-A (408 PAs)
Note: Each player’s first name links to their Baseball-Reference page, and their last name links to their Fangraphs page.