Who is the 22nd-best prospect on the Giants farm?
Wednesday has been a huge day for prospects in baseball, as it marked the start of the 2025 international signing period. You can find the list of the players the San Francisco Giants signed here, which is highlighted by the much-expected and highly-anticipated signing of Dominican shortstop Josuar de Jesus González.
But while we welcome the newest class of prospects to the organization, we must continue to rank those who are already there (as well as the new ones, as González is already on our list). Yes, the 2025 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List marches on, and we’re nearly halfway to our goal of ranking the top 44 prospects in the system.
Coming in at No. 21 is right-handed pitcher Carson Seymour, who rises a meager one spot over his placement on last year’s CPL. Funnily enough, while Seymour has been deemed the 21st-best prospect in the system (no small feat!), he ranks as just the third-best pitcher named Carson, as his namesakes Whisenhunt (No. 2) and Ragsdale (No. 19) came in ahead of him.
Seymour spent all of 2024 with AAA Sacramento, his first taste of the highest Minor League level. He showed good durability, making 28 starts (plus one relief appearance) and pitching 134.1 innings; both of those numbers ranked second among Giants Minor Leaguers, behind only John Michael Bertrand.
While Seymour was a reliable starter, his numbers were fairly mediocre, as he sported a 4.82 ERA and a 5.32 FIP. Before you criticize me for calling those numbers “mediocre” instead of “poor,” remember that he was pitching in the Coors Field-esque Pacific Coast League: among the 92 pitchers in the PCL with at least 50 innings thrown, Seymour’s ERA ranked 42nd, his FIP 59th, and his xFIP (4.77) 29th.
Most concerning, however, was that, for the second year running (as large of a trend as we can get with a player who has only pitched three seasons, save for a four-inning debut in 2021), Seymour saw his strikeout rate drop and his walk rate rise. In 2022, splitting time between High-A Eugene and the Low-A and High-A affiliates of the Mets (he came over in the Darin Ruf/J.D. Davis trade), Seymour had 11.0 strikeouts per nine innings, and just 2.5 walks (those numbers look even better if you just isolate his time in the Giants system, where he had 13.2 strikeouts against 3.1 walks per nine innings).
In 2023, which was spent entirely with AA Richmond, those per nine innings moved to 9.1 strikeouts and 3.4 walks. And in 2024 in AAA, they moved further, to 8.8 strikeouts and 4.0 walks.
Some of that, of course, is facing stiffer competition (and in the case of the PCL, a stiffer strike zone). But it’s also a concerning trend, albeit one that, for the second year in a row, Seymour attempted to reverse as the season went on, as Seymour picked up the strikeouts a bit in the closing months.
Seymour, who turned 26 last month and was a sixth-round pick by the Mets in 2021 out of Kansas State, is a two-pitch pitcher, with a mid-90s fastball and an excellent slider. That pitch combo might not have earned him a lot of whiffs, but it did somewhat suppress damaging contact: of those aforementioned 92 PCL pitchers, his groundball rate of 53.5% was 11th-highest, while his home runs per nine innings rate of 1.34 was 59th.
After the season, the Giants showed they believe Seymour will be a part of the team in 2025 by adding him to the 40-man roster as a Rule 5 protection. That should set him up to make an MLB debut in the coming season, though he’ll almost surely begin the year back in Sacramento. And while he’s been developed as a starter, don’t be surprised if his first — and perhaps only — opportunities come in relief.
Now let’s add on!
The list so far
- Bryce Eldridge — 1B
- Carson Whisenhunt — LHP
- James Tibbs III — OF
- Rayner Arias — OF
- Josuar de Jesus González — SS
- Jhonny Level — SS
- Mason Black — RHP
- Dakota Jordan — OF
- Joe Whitman — LHP
- Reggie Crawford — LHP
- Bo Davidson — OF
- Aeverson Arteaga — SS
- Wade Meckler — OF
- Walker Martin — SS
- Trevor McDonald — RHP
- Diego Velasquez — SS/2B
- Lisbel Diaz — OF
- Sabin Ceballos — 3B
- Carson Ragsdale — RHP
- Trent Harris — RHP
- Carson Seymour — RHP
Note: Clicking on the above names will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.
No. 22 prospect nominees
Maui Ahuna — 22.10-year old SS — .636 OPS/84 wRC+ in Low-A (107 PA); 1.063 OPS/158 wRC+ in ACL (42 PA)
Victor Bericoto — 23.1-year old 1B/OF — .693 OPS/99 wRC+ in AA (479 PA)
Josh Bostick — 23.2-year old RHP — 4.78 ERA/4.71 FIP in Low-A (107.1 IP)
Jonah Cox — 23.5-year old CF — .674 OPS/94 wRC+ in High-A (185 PA); .797 OPS/124 wRC+ in Low-A (275 PA)
Robert Hipwell — 21.10-year old 3B — .762 OPS/109 wRC+ in Low-A (136 PA)
Jose Ortiz — 19.11-year old OF — .855 OPS/134 wRC+ in ACL (112 PA)
Note: Each player’s first name links to their Baseball-Reference page, and their last name links to their Fangraphs page. All stats are from the 2024 season.