{"id":708165,"date":"2026-06-01T16:41:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/708165\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T16:41:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T16:41:17","slug":"while-the-san-francisco-giants-struggle-their-top-prospects-are-making-a-statement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/708165\/","title":{"rendered":"While the San Francisco Giants struggle, their top prospects are making a statement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Randy Winn might be the luckiest high-ranking executive in the San Francisco Giants\u2019 front office.<\/p>\n

When you are the future-focused vice president of player development, you don\u2019t have to think so hard about the present. And after dropping two of three over the weekend to the Colorado Rockies at Coors Field, the Giants rival the New York Mets as the biggest disappointment in the National League. They are 23-36 and club president Buster Posey has pushed every conceivable button in an effort to shake up a team that hasn\u2019t done anything consistently well over the first two months of the season.<\/p>\n

The Giants already promoted top hitting prospect Bryce Eldridge<\/a>. They reassigned third-base coach Hector Borg<\/a>. In a move that could be described as bold or desperate, they reached down to Double-A Richmond on Sunday while calling up outfielder Jonah Cox, who was hitting .400 with 27 stolen bases for the Flying Squirrels.<\/p>\n

Cox, whom the Giants acquired from the Athletics for right-hander Ross Stripling, made his major-league debut as a pinch runner in the Giants\u2019 19-6 victory Sunday and collected a hit in his first plate appearance, hitting against Rockies catcher Brett Sullivan. He\u2019s expected to be in the lineup Monday at Milwaukee as the Giants seek to replace Harrison Bader, who is on the injured list for the second time this season (with plantar fasciitis this time).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too much to ask Cox, a 23-year-old rookie, to bring all the mojo from Richmond, where the Flying Squirrels were 34-16 entering Sunday and had won 19 of 24 in their new ballpark. At some point, though, the Giants have to hope they can carry over some of their high-flying minor-league success to the big leagues. Each of their top three affiliates is in first place, and while the standings aren\u2019t the first data point in determining a healthy farm system, it\u2019s been a welcome sight for Winn and farm director Kyle Haines.<\/p>\n

Winn took some time with The Athletic to review the year on the farm thus far:<\/p>\n

A general question to start: So much of player development has changed since you came up through the minors. Now that you\u2019re in Year 2 of leading the department with Kyle Haines, what have you learned about the current state of player development? Has anything surprised you?<\/p>\n

I think the biggest change has also been the biggest surprise, and it\u2019s the number of people that are in and around player development. From an extra coach on every staff to Triple A, where it\u2019s a couple extra guys, and then in player development, you\u2019ve got an analytics staff, biomechanics staff, nutrition, strength and conditioning, physical therapy. It is a very, very large department. So I think that\u2019s been the biggest change.<\/p>\n

And then there\u2019s coordinating all those people and all the information they generate. In biomechanics, they have research projects \u2014 some of them are deep dives \u2014 and it\u2019s figuring out where the information goes, what to do with it, how to filter it. All of that stuff is a topic for me, maybe not on a daily basis, but on a very regular basis.<\/p>\n

How do you measure progress or the overall health of the Giants\u2019 system? As a media ecosystem, we lean so much on the three or four entities that rank prospects and generate lists. But how do you measure progress and how much do you feel has been made?<\/p>\n

I have not paid a lot of attention to the rankings. It comes up where certain guys are and what their number is. Are they top-100? Are they not? Should they be? Obviously, it comes across, let\u2019s call it my desk. I tend not to focus on that. What I have focused on is what I said from Day 1: How are we playing the game? What are we teaching, what do we stand for, how do we want to play? And I think we\u2019ve made great strides in that. Let\u2019s take our San Jose club from last year. They obviously won (the Low-A California League title), they had a lot of talent, but the way that they played was what Buster talked about when he took the job a year-plus ago. He\u2019s seen how championship teams play, whether it\u2019s getting runners in from third, whether it\u2019s bunting, good base running, pitching, pounding the zone, throwing strikes. Very loosely, my job is to take the things Buster believes in and sprinkle them through our minor-league system. To me, that\u2019s been the biggest positive, just watching how our guys are playing.<\/p>\n

I know that\u2019s not maybe how others measure success. I do not think it\u2019s wins and losses (but) I do think it\u2019s important. You need to learn how to win in the minor leagues, and playing to the scoreboard.\u00a0 That\u2019s how you develop your character as a team.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about those records. Triple-A Sacramento is 32-22 and in first place. Double-A Richmond is 34-16 and in first place. They\u2019re 19-5 in their new ballpark, too. High-A Eugene is flat-out ridiculous: 37-14 with a 10 1\/2-game lead over the second-place club. Low-A San Jose is the only full-season affiliate that isn\u2019t in first place, but the club is 28-22, has the best run differential in the Cal League and has Jhonny Level, who is probably your organizational player of the year right now<\/a>. What do you chalk all this winning up to?<\/p>\n

I know I said I don\u2019t look at wins and losses, but that\u2019s very nice to hear. The easiest thing to say, and what I\u2019ll keep saying, is all the things we\u2019ve preached and all the things we\u2019ve hammered in the last year-plus, watching our guys go out and do it and have success on a team and individual level has been very gratifying. Guys are understanding, \u201cOK, if I play this way, if I hustle, if I\u2019m a good teammate, I see how that benefits the guy behind me.\u201d It\u2019s been exciting to watch the guys sort of eat it up and have success.<\/p>\n

\"Jhonny<\/p>\n

\n Jhonny Level is batting .325 with 10 home runs and 11 stolen bases for Low-A San Jose. (Shelly Valenzuela \/ San Jose Giants)<\/p>\n

There\u2019s been such an industry-wide movement toward developing skills, developing bat speed, developing exit velocity. On the pitching front, so much of development is about pure velocity and measurable pitch characteristics. How important is that to you, and how would you assess the current organizational infrastructure in terms of helping players to develop those skills?<\/p>\n

Obviously, all that\u2019s important. But I do think in general, very general, the industry has gone really far towards individual skill acquisition and not some of the stuff that we\u2019ve talked about. I think it\u2019s a balance between the two. We want our guys to throw hard, we want our guys to have great stuff, but we also want them to be in the zone, and we don\u2019t want them to get injured. So how do you balance out all those things? Yes, we are trying to acquire new skills \u2014 we have drills and all sorts of stuff for all these things that you mentioned \u2014 but that\u2019s not the focus. It\u2019s, \u201cHow hard can you hit the ball and still be under control?\u201d Or, \u201cHow hard can you swing but still make contact?\u201d If you\u2019re a hitter and you\u2019re swinging so hard that you have no balance or no adjustability, then you start to have diminishing returns. It\u2019s marrying the two.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve drafted a lot of contact-oriented hitters in the past two years. Is there an organizational hitting philosophy that\u2019s built around contact?<\/p>\n

Sounds silly, but every great power hitter makes contact. Right? I do think that power is one of the last things to come. There are a few examples like Bryce Eldridge, who\u2019s big and strong. But if I reflect back on my career, my development, watching the players around me, there were lots of players that were good line-drive hitters, good contact hitters, and as they progressed, they figured out how to hit the ball out of the park. There\u2019s a lot more examples of those hitters than power guys who learn how to make more contact. We did trend towards contact guys in the draft, but we\u2019ve got some guys that can hit the ball out of the park, too.<\/p>\n

You mentioned Eldridge. Now that he\u2019s graduated to the big leagues, is he out of your purview? Or do you keep an eye on how players continue to develop in the big leagues?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not on the major-league staff. I\u2019m not the manager. That\u2019s Tony (Vitello) and his job. If he ever wanted to ask me anything, he could. We do have a lot of communication around the 40-man (roster) guys, their strengths and weaknesses, what they\u2019re working on. It is a shared job to develop players who are at that level.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s talk about some players. What should we make of Jonah Cox\u2019s hot start for Richmond?\u00a0<\/p>\n

Really good. Jonah\u2019s always had great speed, been a great base runner, great base stealer, and a tremendous defender. Now this year we\u2019re seeing more contact. You would see flashes of him able to drive the ball or causing havoc with the speed, or the ability to drive the ball in the right-center gap. But he worked hard this spring and was in a really good spot coming out of spring training. He made some adjustments and we\u2019re seeing a really consistent, short swing with a middle-of-the-field approach, and it\u2019s paying dividends. He\u2019s a great athlete, great hand-eye. It\u2019s been very impressive.<\/p>\n

\"Jonah<\/p>\n

\n Jonah Cox pinch ran for Casey Schmitt in the eight inning and scored on a single by Rafael Devers in Sunday\u2019s 19-6 win. (Dustin Bradford \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n

Parks Harber got a late start because of his hamstring injury in the spring, but it looks like he\u2019s gotten in a power-hitting groove quickly for Richmond.<\/p>\n

He was having a tremendous spring and now he\u2019s back and swinging the bat really well, playing third, playing first, playing a little bit of left field. He did that for us last year, so it\u2019s the same plan: playing corner infield and corner outfield.<\/p>\n

Dakota Jordan?<\/p>\n

I would say he\u2019s played well without having his best stuff. That was a conversation that we were having just last week. It\u2019s a good learning lesson when you don\u2019t feel right or your timing\u2019s off. You need to figure out how to compete and get hits, and that\u2019s what he\u2019s done. He hasn\u2019t hit for a ton of power yet. I\u2019m assuming that\u2019s coming. But he\u2019s still driving in a ton of runs, playing great defense, he\u2019s stealing bases. He\u2019s very, very talented. I would say he is playing well without really getting on that hot streak. He\u2019s missed a bunch of pitches he felt he should\u2019ve hit. I had to tell him, \u201cIt\u2019s fine.\u201d You can have a terrible month and still have a great season.<\/p>\n

How much is Eugene\u2019s record a reflection of the Emeralds\u2019 manager? Jacob Heyward has a lot of fans in the organization and he\u2019s certainly getting results in his first experience managing a full-season club.<\/p>\n

Jacob\u2019s been great. He did a great job with the Arizona complex team last year. He\u2019s not the loudest guy, but he commands respect, holds the players accountable. Tremendous worker. He\u2019s done a really nice job.<\/p>\n

Outfielder Scott Bandura just got promoted to Triple A. What can you say about his progress?<\/p>\n

Scott had a very good year last year and didn\u2019t play quite as well at Double A. But he really worked hard in the offseason. Got a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger. He has really good bat-to-ball skills. He has a unique ability to, when he\u2019s off-balance, still put the ball in play. I really like that about him, even if that\u2019s not something you want to do all the time. He\u2019s got speed, plays corner outfield really well, and the ball is traveling for him now that he\u2019s stronger. He hit a ball early in the season \u2014 caught a fastball deep for a line drive \u2014 and the left fielder just stood there. Went out of the park. Kind of like Jonah: He\u2019s a guy who can impact the game in a lot of ways.<\/p>\n

Obviously, the system is tilted toward position players, but on the pitching side, does Joe Whitman stand out for you this season?<\/p>\n

He has pitched great. His May has been phenomenal. We didn\u2019t add any pitches. It\u2019s just been consistency, throwing fastball to both sides of the plate, throwing slider for strikes and then expanding off. It sounds very basic, but he wasn\u2019t doing that consistently last year. Yeah, his fastball has played up a little this year (touching 95 mph), but I don\u2019t think that\u2019s the main reason he\u2019s having success. He\u2019s a bit funky, so even at 93, he can get his fastball on top of guys. It\u2019s really the consistency and command of his pitches.<\/p>\n

Jacob Bresnahan started the season late. How\u2019s he looking now?<\/p>\n

I just saw him in Eugene. He was up to 97 at one point. For him, it\u2019s about consistency of secondary pitches to go along with an explosive fastball. We landed on some grips and shapes he liked last season. Watching him last week, it was uncomfortable for hitters. They were taking some funky swings and funky takes. His fastball gets on top of guys.<\/p>\n

Out of Keyner Martinez and Argenis Cayama, who\u2019s further along?<\/p>\n

That\u2019s tough, but I\u2019ll say Cayama. He got fatigued (at the end of last year) and it wasn\u2019t a good showing. But he was really good in Arizona. Both of them have been really good. Cayama is throwing four-seam and two-seam fastballs and has a really good feel for his slider. He\u2019s back to throwing as hard as he did last year. Keyner is up to 97, has a good feel for the slider, still getting a feel for the changeup. When Keyner went up (to San Jose) last year, he looked like he\u2019d been there before. He\u2019s not afraid to go after hitters.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t seem like you have another fast-rising prospect like Ryan Walker was a couple years ago who could impact the big-league bullpen this season. But Tyler Vogel impressed when he made some Cactus League appearances. He\u2019s also walked 17 in 20 innings while closing for Richmond. If he throws more strikes, could he move quickly?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think he\u2019s put himself on that map yet. But his peripheral numbers are very good. He does need to throw the ball over the plate more. He\u2019s got four really good pitches. If he\u2019s in the strike zone more, he could put himself in that position. Marques Johnson is another guy who had a really good spring, and when he\u2019s in the strike zone, it\u2019s been really good.<\/p>\n

Is Level the ultra-rare switch hitter who doesn\u2019t have a weak side? How do you not get too excited about a player like that?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve said this about Jhonny: If I could go back and do it all over again as a switch hitter, I would take his swings. They\u2019re simple. They\u2019re repeatable. It\u2019s the right move. His ability to handle in-zone stuff, he just doesn\u2019t swing and miss. Now this year, he\u2019s not chasing as much. He has confidence that if you throw something over the plate, he\u2019ll do damage.<\/p>\n

When you see a box score that says \u201cGiants 23, Dodgers 2,\u201d<\/a> does it matter that it happens in the Arizona Complex League?<\/p>\n

Oh, I was there. I watched it live. I mean, beating the Dodgers is always nice, right? The two guys that get the most hype down there had tremendous days.<\/p>\n

Josuar Gonzalez scored six runs and Luis Hern\u00e1ndez drove in nine. That qualifies as tremendous.<\/p>\n

Tremendous days. You watch them, and you dream on it, and you hope they\u2019re doing that up here against the big Dodgers. Josuar is a very electric player. His ability to influence the game from multiple spots on the field, whether it\u2019s making a great defensive play, hitting the ball in the gap, hitting the ball over the fence, base running, base stealing, he puts a lot of pressure on the opposing team. That\u2019s what makes him so exciting. You have to account for him. They talk about that in football: You have to account for a guy when he\u2019s on the field. Josuar is that type of player. You have to account for him. He\u2019s a very exciting, explosive player.<\/p>\n

\"Josuar<\/p>\n

\n The Athletic\u2019s Keith Law ranked Josuar Gonzalez as the No. 7 prospect in baseball on May 28. (Courtesy of the San Francisco Giants)<\/p>\n

And Luis is very polished. He has an incredibly short, direct swing for a kid at that age. You go to a Perfect Game event or a tryout camp and you see guys swinging hard and throwing hard. His swing is very under control. You can tell he has a very good understanding of the strike zone and how to hit. It\u2019s very impressive for a kid at his age. I happen to know the person he worked out with (in Venezuela). I played with Carlos Guill\u00e9n in Seattle. I watched Carlos take ground balls and how fundamentally sound he was. Just catch it, quick shuffle and throw. Watching Luis do that at age 17 is very impressive. And then he\u2019ll make a throw and remind you that he\u2019s got a great arm, too.<\/p>\n

What is your development plan for those two, especially in light of the pitching issues teams are having in the ACL? Are they alternating between middle-infield positions?<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll play both short and second. Luis will probably play some third as well. We don\u2019t feel like that\u2019s going to hurt or slow down their development. I really think you can learn aspects of a position by playing another position. You\u2019re understanding how to help your teammate out when you see the game from another angle.<\/p>\n

Do you hope to keep them on the same level as they move up?<\/p>\n

Hope is too strong a word. Ultimately, you let the player tell you where they should go and how soon they should move. We\u2019re just gonna let this play out, hopefully sit back and enjoy it. If one of them takes off, then that player could move a little bit faster. We don\u2019t have anything, like, mapped out yet. We\u2019re just going to kind of sit back and see what they do.<\/p>\n

How soon do you plan to challenge them with a promotion to San Jose?<\/p>\n

I would like them to. Jhonny was able to go up to San Jose at the end of last year and I think that really helped him to get a taste of it and be a little humbled by it. You really understand the monster you\u2019re chasing. It would be nice for that to happen to the other two, but developmentally, you have to just see how it plays out.<\/p>\n

We know that player development is important to Buster Posey, but he\u2019s also been inundated with trying to fix the many issues with the major-league roster. Has he gotten to spend as much time in player development as he\u2019d like to?<\/p>\n

You\u2019d have to ask him. He did go with me to Eugene this year. He\u2019s expressed interest in seeing all the levels. We went to the Dominican last year. As much as he\u2019d like? I assume he\u2019d like to be in all places all the time. He knows his job is about today and it\u2019s also about tomorrow. We\u2019ll talk hitters, what we feel it takes to win, and it\u2019s my job to pass that along.<\/p>\n

Finally, how do you feel about the state of the system from now compared to when you started?<\/p>\n

The way the teams have started, they\u2019ve done everything that we\u2019ve asked them to do in terms of how we would like the game to be played. Has it been perfect? Do we want more? Yes, but I would say I\u2019m happy. Happy but not satisfied.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Randy Winn might be the luckiest high-ranking executive in the San Francisco Giants\u2019 front office. When you are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,512,82],"class_list":["post-708165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708165","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=708165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}