It was a busy holiday weekend for the San Francisco Giants Minor League Baseball affiliates. Let’s recap everything that happened from Saturday through Monday!
Link to the 2025 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)
All listed positions in the roundup are the positions played in that particular game.
News
A few small bits of news to cover. Infielder Dayson Croes, a 25-year old from Aruba who was recently signed to a Minor League deal, was promoted from the Arizona Complex League to High-A Eugene. To make space for Croes, first baseman/corner outfielder Guillermo Williamson was placed on the Development List.
AA Richmond outfielder Carter Howell was placed on the 7-Day IL, but fellow Richmond outfielder Turner Hill was activated for the first time this year, after a rehab stint in the Complex League.
And most excitingly, the Giants announced on Tuesday that outfielder/first baseman Jerar Encarnación will restart his rehab tonight with AAA Sacramento. They’re hopeful that he’ll be back with the team very soon.
Rounding out the news is Low-A San Jose LHP Charlie McDaniel, who was named the Pitcher of the Week in the California League, after tossing 5 shutout innings with 6 strikeouts. Nice!
AAA Sacramento (25-26)
Saturday: Sacramento River Cats beat the Oklahoma City Comets (Dodgers) 11-4 [box score]
Sunday: Sacramento River Cats lost to the Oklahoma City Comets 9-6 [box score]
The performance of the weekend belongs to left fielder Marco Luciano, who had a Saturday to remember. Luciano was unstoppable with the bat, hitting 4-5 while crushing not 1, but 2 absolute behemoth home runs, and also drawing a walk, as he’s done so often this year. He had a donut on Sunday, going 0-5, but didn’t strike out.
Luciano’s 2025 has flown a little bit under the radar. There’s some prospect fatigue and some inherent disappointment which, when combined with the positional issues and the lack of options after this year have kept Luciano from being a big story entering the year.
And his performance has justified that a bit, as well. His overall numbers (.766 OPS, 108 wRC+) are not noteworthy, and there are a few pink-to-red flags with his batting average (.222) and strikeout rate (27.0%). But he also has gotten back to his ways of hitting the holy heck out of the baseball. In Saturday’s game he had 3 balls hit in excess of 100 mph, including his 2nd homer, which left the bat at 113.2 mph, a mark only Heliot Ramos and Matt Chapman have surpassed in San Francisco this year. He leads the farm in home runs. The BABIP, which ranks 80th out of 95 PCL hitters with at least 100 plate appearances, suggests that he’s been a little unlucky.
He’s not forcing the issue, but he’s certainly showing some signs of the bat that spent so many years at the top of Giants prospect lists.
It was a fairly mild-mannered weekend other than Luciano’s explosion. First baseman/third baseman Devin Mann had a strong weekend, hitting 4-9 with 2 doubles, 2 walks, and 3 strikeouts, bumping his OPS to .792 and his wRC+ to 121. With David Villar electing free agency after recently getting designated for assignment, Mann is probably sliding into the role of emergency corner infield depth.
On the mound, LHP Carson Whisenhunt (No. 2 CPL) saw his string of brilliant starts come to an end. After speculation by some that he would take Justin Verlander’s spot in the rotation, as he was lined up to pitch on Saturday, Whisenhunt instead had a rough outing in Oklahoma, allowing 4 hits, 5 walks, and 4 runs in 4.2 innings, while only striking out 2 batters.
At the risk of over-analyzing Whisenhunt’s start, it may have shown some of the concerns the Giants have over what has otherwise been a spectacular season for the young southpaw, who has a 3.34 ERA and a 4.13 FIP. He has spent a lot of time living outside of the strike zone this year, but has still managed to keep his walk rate very low, in large part because hitters are helplessly flailing against him. The one concern that raises is whether Major League hitters, with better control of the strike zone, might lay off Whisenhunt’s outside offerings and either draw walks or force him to come into the zone with more hittable pitches.
The Comets have a very MLB-ready lineup, and against Whisenhunt they started 5 players with big league experience, and they weren’t tempted to chase his pitches out of the zone. It’s something to work on for Whisenhunt, who threw just 54 of 88 pitches for strikes. But we’ll still probably see him in San Francisco this year, and that will be oh so exciting.
RHP Trevor McDonald (No. 15 CPL) struggled even worse, getting rocked on Sunday to the tune of 9 hits, 2 walks, and 8 runs in just 4 innings of work, with 3 strikeouts. That’s a game to forget! With a 5.06 ERA and a 5.10 FIP, McDonald isn’t off to the start to the season that he was hoping for, and even his 40-man roster status isn’t enough for him to feel like a depth option in the Majors right now.
AA Richmond (13-32)
Saturday: Richmond Flying Squirrels lost to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies (Mets) 3-2 [box score]
Sunday Game 1: Richmond Flying Squirrels lost to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies 2-1 (7 innings) [box score]
Sunday Game 2: Richmond Flying Squirrels lost to the Binghamton Rumble Ponies 4-2 (7 innings) [box score]
A very quiet weekend for a very quiet team. The Flying Squirrels just really haven’t been able to find any rhythm at any point this season, and they didn’t have any standout performers over the long weekend, either.
Second baseman Diego Velasquez (No. 16 CPL) continues to hit well enough to be exciting, even if he’s not exactly forcing a promotion to AAA (which isn’t a criticism, given that he’s still just 21 years old). He had a solid weekend, hitting 3-9 with a double, 2 walks, a strikeout, and a stolen base. The switch-hitter has a .713 OPS and a 114 wRC+ on the year, and while his overall numbers are down year-over-year, it’s mostly just due to a large drop in BABIP. That drop is responsible for his batting average sitting at “just” .277 (it was .313 at the level in 2024), but Velasquez’s excellent bat skills are still on display. Among the 92 Eastern League hitters with at least 100 plate appearances this year, Velasquez’s 12.8% strikeout rate is the 4th lowest … not bad for a player who is nearly 3 years younger than the average hitter in the league.
No big update for first baseman Bryce Eldridge (No. 1 CPL), as he had a quiet weekend, hitting 2-10 with a double, 3 strikeouts, and an error. Still a strong season for him (.873 OPS, 154 wRC+), but between the defense and the 27.4% strikeout rate, my guess would be that he’s not ticketed for Sacramento any time soon. But he is showing some flash with the leather!
A lot of players have been slumping recently for Richmond, and it’s been a bummer seeing right fielder Jairo Pomares (No. 41 CPL) hit such a rough patch. After a strong start to the year, Pomares — who went 1-9 with 2 strikeouts over the weekend — has gone ice cold. Just look at the splits for the 24-year old lefty:
First 24 games: 23-89, 5 home runs, 6 doubles, 10 walks, 23 strikeouts
Last 19 games: 6-66, 0 extra-base hits, 5 walks, 22 strikeouts
Ouch!
A really nice pitching performance on Saturday from RHP Manuel Mercedes, who got the start and went 5 strong innings, allowing just 3 hits, 2 walks, and 1 run, while striking out 6. Mercedes had been getting rocked lately, so great to see the 22-year old have a nice bounceback performance.
The numbers are still brutal for Mercedes, as he has an 8.13 ERA and a 6.21 FIP, with just 5.5 strikeouts to 6.1 walks per 9 innings. Among the 43 Eastern League pitchers with at least 30 innings thrown this year, those numbers are, respectively, last, last, last, and 2nd to last. Not great.
LHP Jack Choate (No. 29 CPL) was OK in Game 1 of the doubleheader, giving up 7 baserunners and 2 runs in 4.2 innings, while LHP Seth Lonsway got rocked in Game 2 of the doubleheader.
RHP Will Bednar (No. 42 CPL) had a nice outing, which was good to see. A hit batter was the only baserunner he allowed in 1.2 otherwise clean innings, and he struck out 3. The former 1st-round pick has been having a very rough go of it, but it was great to see him avoid walks, even though he only threw 16 of 30 pitches for strikes. Even with this game, Bednar has walked 19 batters this year in just 12 innings of work.
High-A Eugene (23-22)
Saturday: Eugene Emeralds lost to the Vancouver Canadians (Blue Jays) 9-0 [box score]
Sunday: Eugene Emeralds lost to the Vancouver Canadians 9-2 (10 innings) [box score]
Just as we saw the Giants on the winning end of at Wrigley Field a few weeks ago, the Emeralds lost on Sunday due to an extra-innings explosion, as they allowed 7 runs in the top of the 10th to the Canadians.
Pretty poor performances all around, if we’re being honest. Not a lot to highlight. Designated hitter Scott Bandura continued his quietly excellent season: after sitting on Saturday, Bandura hit 1-3 on Sunday, with a walk, a strikeout, and a game-tying solo home run in the 9th inning that sent the Emeralds to their 10th-inning death march.
Bandura, who turns 24 in August, is a little old for the level, but the 2023 7th-round pick is absolutely obliterating pitching, with an .887 OPS and a 150 wRC+. The home run was nice to see, as the lefty isn’t hitting for a lot of power — he has just a .128 isolated slugging. But his batting average (.326), walk rate (14.6%), and strikeout rate (21.1%) are all highly encouraging.
First baseman Jack Payton also only played on Sunday but, like Bandura, he made the most of it, by going 2-4 with a pair of doubles and a strikeout. It hasn’t been a very fruitful season for the 2023 11th-round pick, so nice to see him have a good day.
The pitching was fairly nondescript. RHP Shane Rademacher, who has been one of the best performers in the system this year, got rocked on Saturday, ceding 10 baserunners and 5 runs in just 4.1 innings, while only striking out 1. Just a bad day, and hopefully one he can easily shake off.
A few nice, scoreless relief appearances to highlight: RHP Dylan Hecht gave up 1 hit in 1 inning with 2 strikeouts, lowering his ERA to 2.45 and his FIP to 3.59; RHP Sadrac Franco gave up 2 hits and a walk in 2.2 innings while striking out 3, and now has a 1.17 ERA and a 2.87 FIP; RHP Ian Villers allowed just a walk in 2 no-hit innings, with 2 strikeouts, dipping his ERA to 2.01 and his FIP to 3.05; and RHP Liam Simon tossed a perfect inning, and now has a 6.75 ERA and a 5.89 FIP through 6 appearances after missing the start of the year due to injury.
Low-A San Jose (26-20)
Saturday: San Jose Giants lost to the Fresno Grizzlies (Rockies) 10-4 [box score]
Sunday: San Jose Giants beat the Fresno Grizzlies 2-1 [box score]
Monday: San Jose Giants beat the Inland Empire 66ers (Angels) 11-2 [box score]
Unlike the other A-Ball affiliates, the Baby Giants started their new series on Monday, and will have a Tuesday off-day instead. Not sure if that was to facilitate something else on the schedule, or just to have some Memorial Day baseball.
Some very fun performances for San Jose, especially in the batter’s box. On the holiday, shortstop Walker Martin (No. 14 CPL) continued his surge, blasting a grand slam as part of a 2-hit day.
It wasn’t a great weekend for Martin, who hit 4-15 with 5 strikeouts, but a grand slam makes everything worthwhile. The average (.217) and strikeout rate (30.3%) remain troubling, but Martin now has 7 home runs — and 10 extra-base hits, total — in the last 15 games, though Monday’s 4-run homer ended a streak of 5-straight games without extra bases.
Getting the weekend homers starter was first baseman/left fielder Jakob Christian (No. 30 CPL) who smacked a solo shot on Saturday. He ended the weekend hitting 4-14 with a homer, a double, 5 strikeouts, a stolen base, and an error. Last year’s 5th-round pick is hitting for both average and power, and is now sitting on an .826 OPS and a 117 wRC+. A fairly strong 1st full season for him.
Speaking of strong debut full seasons, right fielder Carlos Gutierrez has been a hit tool over power tool hitter all year, but he flipped the script over the weekend. Gutierrez only hit 2-11, but he smashed a home run and drew 3 walks, while also getting hit by a pitch and stealing a base (and striking out twice). It’s now an .872 OPS and a 144 wRC+ for the 20-year old who played just 3 games in the ACL a year ago. What a story he’s been.
And speaking of players reversing the narratives, center fielder Dakota Jordan (No. 8 CPL) continues to have a hilarious — albeit good — season. It was another small-ball weekend for Jordan (who sat Sunday), as he went 4-10 with 3 strikeouts and 2 stolen bases. Jordan has, I would argue, the biggest power tool in the entire system. But he’s now gone 10 straight games without an extra-base hit, and has an isolated slugging of .099 that ranks 24th out of 36 players in the system (minimum: 100 plate appearances). But his batting average is a delightful .298 (which has led to a .780 OPS and a 117 wRC+), and he has 17 stolen bases in 18 attempts, after just 7 stolen bases in college. What a funny season.
Catcher Drew Cavanaugh continues to get on base, as the 2023 17th-round pick went 1-5 with 4 walks, a hit by pitch, and 2 strikeouts. It’s a clean 1.000 OPS and a 164 wRC+ for the lefty. What an awesome season he’s having.
And as long as we’re talking nice catcher performances, Fernando Gonzalez only played on Monday, but he hit 2-4 with a 2-run home run and a strikeout. Gonzalez was taken in the 20th round of last year’s draft and is in his debut season, but he has a .713 OPS and a 102 wRC+. Not bad for a debuting player at the catcher position!
There were some bad pitching performances over the weekend, but some good ones, too. RHP Gerelmi Maldonado and LHP Tyler Switalski handled Sunday’s win with brilliance, though they took different routes. Maldonado, in his 1st year post-Tommy John, showed off the electricity in his arm with some effective wildness. He started and tossed 3 shutout innings with 5 strikeouts, but allowed 2 hits, 3 walks, and a hit batter. The 21-year old has a 3.66 ERA and a 3.64 FIP, and his triple-digit heater has led to 26 strikeouts in 19.2 innings … but also, 12 walks.
Switalski went the next 6 innings and went the control route, giving up just 3 hits, 1 walk, 1 hit batter, and 1 run, while striking out 5. Last year’s 16th-round pick has a 4.11 ERA and a 4.32 FIP, and while he’s not striking out a lot of batters, he’s not allowing a lot of walks or home runs, either.
Monday’s pitching performance was less dramatic, but equally effective: RHP Hunter Dryden, a 2024 17th-round pick, started and gave up just 2 hits, 1 walk, and 1 run in 5 innings, with 5 strikeouts, and now has a 1.25 ERA and a 3.42 FIP in his debut season; next up was RHP Cole Hillier, a UDFA from 2023, who gave up 3 hits and a run in 3 innings, but issued no walks and struck out 4, giving him a 3.47 ERA and a 4.23 FIP; and closing it out was RHP Evan Gray, last year’s 15th-round pick, who hit a batter in an otherwise clean inning with 1 strikeout, dipping his debut ERA to 1.69, with a 3.54 FIP.
Arizona Complex League (11-7)
Saturday: ACL Giants beat the ACL Royals 9-5 [box score]
Monday: ACL Giants lost to the ACL Rangers 9-8 [box score]
There’s a common refrain when a player is putting up gaudy numbers in the Dominican Summer League that you just don’t know how good of a prospect they are until they’re stateside, competing against better, older, and more physically impressive players. Then you start to get a better feel for them.
So far, so good for shortstop Jhonny Level (No. 6 CPL, 18 years, 2024 IFA). Level smashed his 1st homers of the year in each game over the holiday weekend, going 3-7 with 2 home runs, a walk, a hit by pitch, a stolen base, a strikeout, and 2 errors. The switch-hitter has an .810 OPS and a 108 wRC+, has stolen 5 bases in 6 attempts, and, despite turning 18 less than 2 months ago, has a strikeout rate of just 17.8%. He absolutely looks the part, and he’s a genuine shortstop prospect, so I wouldn’t worry much about the errors.
We’re still waiting to see left fielder Rayner Arias (No. 4 CPL, 19 years, 2023 IFA) settle into how good he can be after injuries in 2023 and 2024. His power just hasn’t returned yet, even though he’s getting on base: over the weekend he hit 3-8 with a hit by pitch and 2 strikeouts. Arias has a .280 batting average and a .373 on-base percentage, but a triple and a double represent his only extra-base hits in 59 plate appearances this season.
It was a rehab weekend for AAA right fielder Victor Bericoto (No. 24 CPL), who should be headed back to Sacramento any day now. He hit 5-10 with a triple, 2 doubles, 3 strikeouts, and a stolen base, and is now 7-12 with 5 extra-base hits during his rehab stint. There’s a reason he graduated from this level a long time ago!
Speaking of rehab, AA LHP Nick Zwack took the mound on Saturday and tossed 2 perfect frames with a strikeout. It was his 2nd rehab appearance of the year, and he’s yet to allow a baserunner, which seems good. Hopefully the southpaw, who came to the Giants in the Darin Ruf/J.D. Davis trade, can head back to Richmond soon after missing all of 2024 due to injury.
But the pitching star came right after Zwack’s start, in the form of LHP Luis De La Torre (21 years, 2023 IFA). De La Torre was utterly sensational, giving up just a walk in 4 no-hit innings, while striking out a whopping 7 batters. It’s the 1st stateside season for De La Torre after 2 campaigns in the DSL, and while the run prevention is still coming around, he’s shown that he has electric strikeout stuff: he has a staggering 28 Ks in just 14.1 innings this year. My goodness!
That seems like an exciting note to end on. I hope everyone enjoyed the long weekend!
Home run tracker
AAA Marco Luciano x2 (9)
High-A Scott Bandura (3)
Low-A Walker Martin (8)
Low-A Jakob Christian (6)
Low-A Carlos Gutierrez (2)
Low-A Fernando Gonzalez (2)
ACL Jhonny Level x2 (2)
Tuesday schedule
Sacramento: vs. El Paso, 6:45 p.m. PT (SP: Carson Seymour)
Richmond: vs. Harrisburg, 3:35 p.m. PT (SP: Joe Whitman)
Eugene: at Tri-City, 6:35 p.m. PT (SP: Josh Bostick)
San Jose: off day
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