Some fans and media are so bummed out about how bad the Giants season has been, that they are missing the big story of this season: the rise of the farm system. One beat writer wrote that improving the farm system is the only positive development of the 2026 season. Below is my comment, with added content.
ogc thoughts
Massive Farm System Improvement
Many are simply missing the magnitude of the Giants’ improvement. The Giants were ranked near the bottom (28th before the 2025 season) not that long ago. They were in the teens between the seasons. But after the draft and trades, it is now ranked Top 5 (5th by MLB Pipeline; 4th by Baseball America). And a Baseball America analyst stated that he can see the Giants as the #1 farm system next season.
Historically Great Farm System
The height of the Giants farm system, that I can recall, was in the late 80’s when we had Will Clark, Matt Williams and Robby Thompson, and late 00’s when we had, over a short period of time, Cain, Lincecum, and then Bumgarner and Posey. And that latter one I would count as the best, because the farm system also produced Sandoval, Wilson, Romo, Belt and Crawford, but none of them really affected farm system rankings all that much at that time, as Belt wasn’t rated highly for long, flying up the system in one season, then making the majors.
Before Eldridge, the only teenaged hitting prospect I had any good hopes of developing was Matt Williams, and he was touch and go for many seasons before breaking out. Only other young hitter was Jack Clark, but back then, nobody followed the minors that closely. Today, we have Level, Gonzalez, and Hernandez, both Luis and Jonial. Plus Eldridge breaking out this season. And a Baseball America analyst thinks there’s a good chance Gonzalez will be the #1 prospect overall next season. Both Posey and Eldridge never reached that high.
On top of that, we have a number of other intriguing hitters in Davidson, Kilen, Jordan, plus the guys on the 26-man, like Susac, Hill, Bericoto, and Cox, plus Kent, Bonds and Meyer, who was once a Top 15 prospect not that long ago, maybe he can be like Matt Williams and figure it out after a few seasons. That’s more prospects with strong potential to do something in the majors. Overall, the Giants should have a handful of position starters, from okay to maybe stars, to counter the large salaries on the roster.
Pitching Prospect Side Now Parallels Position
Then we can talk about the pitchers. At the start of the season, they had only Bresnahan, Martinez, Cayama, speaking of teenagers on the rise. And Tidwell, Marte, Smith as well. Plus on the IL, Rodriguez and Peguero. But the system was imbalanced, with a lot more position players with potential.
Then they added during the season. There are the trio we got from the draft: Flora, the top rated pitcher in the draft, Bolemon, who was the top rated pitcher before the season started, and Waechter, who has strong MLB bloodlines. Plus the Giants acquired some intriguing pitchers this season: Wilkinson, Marquez, Lalane, Mendez, Gair, Munoz. Marquez was quite the prize, he is ranked 99th in the latest MLB Pipeline Top 100.
While not as many, there’s one starting pitcher for every eight staring players, and failed starting pitchers can be good to great relievers, like Affeldt, Isringhausen, and others. And as I showed in my business plan, as you add quality pitchers, the cream rises, whereas position players can maybe move to 1-2 other positions, and failed position players are maybe a bench player, but few have the impact a good reliever can have on a team’s win/loss record.
Great Set of Prospects
That’s a lot of pitching prospects, who now complement the hitting prospects, led by Bryce Eldridge who is having a superb rookie season, roughly 25 homer pace. This is a huge collection of prospects that no Giants fan has ever seen marinating in the minors, certainly not in the 50+ years I’ve been following the Giants. This is a huge development, not simply the “only positive development” of the 2026 season.
I get that prospects sometimes, oftentimes, don’t do much in the majors. I get being not confident that the Giants are capable of developing all of these prospects. But more importantly, what these people are missing, is that there are more prospects than the Giants have ever collected all at once, and with so many top rated (Gonzalez, Hernandez, Flora, Level, Marquez, Martinez, and Davidson are Top 100 on at least one list: MLB, Baseball America, ESPN, Fangraphs) than ever before (plus Eldridge and Meyer were top teens prospects just recently), there should be a quality team within the next few years. This is a great development of this season, and as disappointing and depressing the MLB season has been, the future looks bright, and hopefully historically great, with Eldridge leading the way.
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