Your 2026 Giants: The Future Horizon

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.

Your 2026 Giants: Eldridge Update

I have been covering Bryce Eldridge’s breakout this season in a series of posts.  I last covered him in this post, and thought this was a good time to update since he was out for bereavement leave.  

To recap, many fans and media were, and still are, confused about how Eldridge was handled early on.  But as I detailed in my first post, he was immediately started, struck out too much, got took out, presumably to work on things, started again and struck out too much again, resulting in his next break to work on things.  

His next starts was when things changed.  He didn’t start hitting, but the key thing was that he was making good contact, even if he wasn’t hitting, and the Giants didn’t take him out, and soon after, he was hitting great, like a superstar, over 1.000 OPS.  We left off right around the end of that sizzling hot streak.

Your 2026 Giants: the Silver Lining

Dieter Kurtenbach, of the SJ Mercury, wrote a scathing diatribe about the Giants titled, “There’s no silver lining to the most pathetic SF Giants team in a decade.”  (subscription needed).  

Prospect Theory: Using Age Relative to League as Guideposts for Heliot Ramos

A theory, or rule of thumb, that I’ve been noodling on for over two decades is about gauging when a prospect might break through in the majors, after which point, I would give up hope that he will develop.  I was hoping to get it done before the draft, but, alas, I didn’t.  And now my subject has been traded away, but that’s okay.  

One prospect that worked for this idea was Heliot Ramos.  After struggling for two MLB seasons, 2022-23, he broke out in 2024.  Many fans had given up on him, but because he did well in A ball when he was 3-4 years younger than the league, I was waiting for the equivalent in the majors, and 2024 was that season, and he broke out.

But, obviously, that’s just one case, one example.  So I thought I would go through Giants history and see how prior hot prospects did, using this rule, and how the theory fits reality.  But first, I should go over what I did with Heliot Ramos.  This post will review my thoughts as it related to Ramos when he was a prospect, and discuss my theory on prospect analysis. 

Your 2026 Giants: Trade Thoughts

The Giants pulled one their biggest overhaul at the trade deadline by trading away the following players:

• Luis Arraez:  to the Phillies
• Caleb Kilian: to the Phillies
• Tyler Mahle:  to Atlanta
• Robbie Ray: to the Padres
• Heliot Ramos: to the Yankees
• Eric Miller: to Boston
• Carlos Gutierrez (MiLB):  to Boston

Your 2026 Giants: signed 19 of 21 picks

Per the Giants announcement, they have signed 19 of their 21 draft picks from the 2026 Draft.

Your 2026 Giants: Flora Signs!

Per Jim Callis of MLB.com, Flora has signed with the Giants for $7.9975M.  With a bonus slot of $8.9884, the Giants have bonus slot left over of $990,900.

Your 2026 Giants: Drafting Flora and Other Pitchers Plus a Bonds

On the first day of the MLB 2026 draft, the Giants selected the following prospects (per Maria Guardado of MLB, Keith Law of The Athletic, which I’m sharing here, plus his article on the Day One picks):

• Jackson Flora, college RHP (4th overall)
• Carson Bolemon, HS LHP (first round, 29th)
• Kaden Waechter, HS RHP (second round)
• Peyton Bonds, college CF (third round)
• Carlos Martinez, college RHP (fourth round)

Your 2026 Giants: Mock Draft Intel

With the 2026 Draft coming on July 11th, I thought it would be interesting to see what the major baseball content outlets are saying about the Giants draft.  Especially because they have both the 4th pick overall (which was lucky, they were supposed to have the 15th pick, a huge leap) and the 29th pick overall, plus the rest of the normal picks.  Their total bonus slots for the draft is $17.351M, fourth highest behind Pirates, Rays and White Sox. They have the 4th pick, 29th, 55th, 90th, and 118th in the first day, which covers rounds 1 to 4.  

Here are some of the sources I found that I used for this post:

• ESPN
• Baseball America:  early preview (via compilation by SBNation); Top 10
• Perfect Game
• MLB Pipeline
• Fangraphs
• The Athletic (Keith Law)
• MLB (Maria Guardado)
• MLB Pipeline Top Draft Prospects

Your 2026 Giants: League Adjusting to Eldridge

I’ve been tracking Eldridge’s game stats since he started striking out less, and to a low enough strikeout rate that he was hitting great. He went on a long heater, but now he’s in a bad patch.

Your 2026 Giants: Thoughts on Vitello

I see a lot of people who want to fire Vitello.  So I wrote a comment in reply, and now expanded it greatly here.  

Your 2026 Giants: Eldridge’s Progress at 25 Games

Since I’m collecting Bryce Eldridge’s batting game log data, I thought I would give a 25 game update.

Your 2026 Giants: A Giant Among The Giants

Bryce Eldridge just hit a walk off grand slam at age 21, the youngest to do so in MLB history (just beat out Roberto Clemente), so I thought I would write a follow up on how Eldridge is doing in what appears to be his breakout season. 

I have been keeping track of his batting line for this breakout period, where he has mostly started, unlike the early start and stop, which, to me, made sense because he was struggling, and needed to work on cutting his strikeouts (I covered this is a recent post). 

Your 2026 Giants: Eldridge Usage

There has been a lot of talk about mishandling Eldridge after his promotion. I didn’t share that opinion, but didn’t keep detailed track of his usage, so I decided to look into this, see whose impression is correct.

Your 2026 Giants: Rebuilding While Not Officially Rebuilding

A Giants beat writer thinks that the trade of Bailey signals a rebuild, but not a rebuild in a traditional sense.

Your 2026 Giants: Posey Boldly Trades Bailey

The Giants traded Patrick Bailey to Cleveland for a AA pitcher, Matt “Tugboat” Wilkinson and their 29th overall pick in the upcoming draft.  Here is one of NBC’s accounts of the trade and this is MLB’s report.

Your 2026 Giants: Webb vs. Winning Teams

One complaint I’ve seen about Logan Webb over the years is that he’s unable to pitch well against good teams. Which is nonsense, much like what used to be directed at Matt Cain.  And his opening day clobbering at the hands of the Yankees brought that up again.  I thought I would look into it again.

Your 2026 Giants: Rookie Error for Vitello

Obviously, it is a huge deal hiring Tony Vitello as the manager of the San Francisco Giants, and his every move and words are scrutinized minutely.  I like the hiring, but he recently pulled what I would call his first mistake, a rookie mistake.

Your 2026 Giants: Opening Day Roster

The roster has been released: 

• Alex Pavlovic tweet
• Andy Baggarly BlueSky

Your 2026 Giants: Big Six Prospects

As I am wont to do, I sometimes cover the top prospects of the Giants.  I call it the Big Six in honor of Giants great Christy Mathewson, as well as because, as much as I would like every prospect to be stars, there are at most six prospects, generally, who look like they can be regular major leaguers.  

MLB Pipeline has published their Giants Top 30 list, and I will be pulling some interesting quotes from there that supports what I think about each prospect.