Yesterday’s action on the farm.
Minor League Baseball fans, rejoice! Today is the last day for many, many months where only one San Francisco Giants affiliate is in-season. Starting on Friday, the AA Richmond Flying Squirrels, High-A Eugene Emeralds, and Low-A San Jose Giants will join the AAA Sacramento River Cats by starting their respective seasons. You can find their rosters here. Furthermore, the Arizona Complex League season — which should feature some extremely exciting Giants prospects like Rayner Arias and Jhonny Level — starts in exactly a month. It’s the most wonderful time of the year!
Link to the 2025 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)
All listed positions in the roundup are the positions played in that particular game.
AAA Sacramento (2-3)
Sacramento River Cats lost to the Las Vegas Aviators (A’s) 6-3
Box score
It wasn’t a great game for the River Cats, but two players who recently looked like they might be core parts of the Giants plans started their 2025 season with triumph.
On offense, it was third baseman David Villar. After a spring in which the writing was firmly on the wall, Villar was designated for assignment, but cleared waivers. He was outrighted to Sacramento, and made his season debut on Wednesday.
It went swimmingly, with the righty going 2-4 with a gorgeous opposite-field home run. Perhaps with the stress of trying to keep his spot on the 40-man roster behind him, Villar can find the swing that led to 36 home runs in 2022 between AAA and the Majors … a number that fell to 22 the next year, and 17 last season. There certainly should be ample opportunity for Villar in Sacramento, at least for as long as the Giants continue to carry a pair of backup infielders in the Majors.
The other player with a much-needed feel-good day was RHP Mason Black (No. 7 CPL). It’s been tough going for Black, ever since he had a dominant 2024 Spring Training, began the year virtually unhittable in AAA, and was called up for his MLB debut. Since then he struggled in the Majors, was optioned, struggled in AAA, struggled again in the Majors, struggled in Spring Training, and was in the first group of camp cuts.
But the future is still bright for the 25-year old former 3rd-round pick, who still has another option year after this year. And despite the camp struggles, his 2025 is off to a hot start.
With Sacramento having an embarrassment of riches with starting pitcher prospects, Black was forced into a piggybacking starter role. He entered to start the 5th inning, and pitched the final 4 frames. Pitched them dominantly, I might add, as he allowed neither a hit nor a run, ceding just 2 baserunners (1 on a walk, and 1 a hit batter), while striking out 7.
Perhaps more importantly, he looked good. To my (extremely amateur) eye, Black looked slimmer and twitchier than last year, and had a more prominent leg whip. The result — again, to my very amateur eye — was that Black’s pitches seemed to be moving with much more vigor than we’ve grown accustomed to. He still doesn’t have overpowering velocity, but my goodness did all of his pitches dance around for 60 feet, before usually finding Logan Porter’s glove.
The lack of velocity might by why the Giants continue to develop Black as a starter, and seem fairly hesitant to throw him in the bullpen. One look at the players they did (and, crucially, didn’t) put in the MLB bullpen on Opening Day makes it pretty clear that they’re joining the “velocity is king” wave, and understandably so. But as Logan Webb continues to prove, movement and control and craftiness can do wonders to turn a lineup over twice or thrice, and hopefully this was a step towards emulating that.
Unfortunately, things didn’t go well for the pair of pitchers in front of him, who are also trying to get back to the Majors. RHP Keaton Winn was given the starting assignment, and unfortunately he made it 2 straight clunkers by the River Cats’ rotation, after a brilliant weekend of starts. Winn struggled to find the strike zone, throwing just 30 of 57 pitches for strikes, and making it through just 2 innings. That lack of control made for a lot of free batters — 2 walks and 1 hitter plunked — and also led to some ugly counts, which produced get-it-in meatballs, with predictable results. In all, he got tagged for 3 hits — including a home run by A’s top prospect and the No. 4 pick in the 2024 draft, Nick Kurtz — and 4 runs, 3 of which were earned. Hopefully there are better results next week!
RHP Sean Hjelle will be hoping for the same. After a fantastic season debut over the weekend, arguably the most surprising omission from the Opening Day roster had a rough go of it on Wednesday, giving up 4 hits and 2 runs in 2 innings of work, with 2 strikeouts. He just wasn’t fooling a lot of hitters and, like Black, he doesn’t have overwhelming velocity, which is a difficult reality for a player who is now firmly a reliever.
The struggles were also on the offensive side. Second baseman Osleivis Basabe hit 2-4 with a double and a strikeout, but other than him and Villar, no River Cat reached base multiple times. The top of the order — populated by 40-man guys trying to earn chances — particularly struggled, with center fielder Grant McCray going 1-4 with a strikeout, shortstop Brett Wisely hitting 0-4 with 2 strikeouts and an error, and left fielder Marco Luciano going 0-3 with a walk, a strikeout, and a misplayed double.
All 3 are having tough seasons: McCray has a .659 OPS and a 91 wRC+, Wisely a .611 OPS and a 75 wRC+, and Luciano a .563 OPS and a 48 wRC+, though I’ve been pretty impressed by his at-bats, honestly (and unlike McCray and Wisely, Luciano has done a good job suppressing strikeouts).
Hopefully the bats wake up soon!
Thursday schedule
Sacramento: @ Las Vegas, 6:35 p.m. PT (SP: Carson Seymour)
Richmond: Season starts Friday
Eugene: Season starts Friday
San Jose: Season starts Friday