I can\u2019t help but try to get into the psychology of the poll respondents with these SB Nation Reacts surveys, and since these are supposed to be strictly Giants fans polled, I am fixating on the 1% who graded their 2026 amateur draft a \u201cD.\u201d<\/p>\n
As Brady posted yesterday, Baseball American has ranked the Giants as a Top 5 farm system<\/a>, a stunning development I just figured I\u2019d never live to see. They\u2019re barely a top 5 team in their division these days, and so seeing them in the upper echelon of anything other than being a staggering embarrassment of historic proportion with a mostly hopeless future guaranteed is not just a welcome surprise but a perspective-altering development.<\/p>\n Could the Giants actually be on their way to opening a competitive window thanks to their f-f-f-farm system? Buster Posey\u2019s (currently) tanked legacy is counting on it. A plausible worst record in franchise history<\/a> to cement their worst 5-year stretch ever<\/a> isn\u2019t something he\u2019ll be able to come back from, reputationally, without some sort of extended run of success or an outright World Series win within the next few years \u2014 but then again, he\u2019s been graded on a curve, hasn\u2019t he?<\/p>\n Still, for as much as Buster Posey comes off as a dilettante in press gaggles and profiles<\/a> (with an on-field result to match), this player development success is undeniable. It\u2019s not just broken clock luck where the team has gotten things right because of high draft standings or someone falling into their lap. They\u2019ve managed to bring their international scouting and signings up from afterthought to competitive with the typical frontrunners. They seem to have joined the pack leading the change from Three True Outcome type draft profiles to contact suddenly being important again.<\/p>\n About a month before the draft, I was agog at how much the farm system had risen<\/a>. Just like the SB Nation Reacts polling, there\u2019s a decent amount of vibes baked into things like farm system rankings and prospect scouting. That makes sense since it\u2019s betting on an uncertain future with only personal experiences and some player comps to go on. The Giants\u2019 draft felt right. Their minor league win-loss record looks right. The players are performing in the way you\u2019d hope to see actually developing players perform.<\/p>\n With Bryce Eldridge\u2019s graduation (formerly, a 55 Future Value player, per FanGraphs), the Giants still have six 50+ FV players, with Jackson Flora rated the #2 overall prospect. 4 of their 33 players with a projected floor of a minimum 40 Future Value (bench player) were drafted this year, 1 came from an international signing (Luis Hernandez) this season, and 1 from their trade with the Paadres (Joniel Hernandez).<\/p>\n So, the data is overwhelmingly in support of the opinion that the Giants had a great draft on top of a good trade deadline. Their farm system is in very good shape. Maybe still missing upper level pitching and that one true prospect who is far and away the best like Eldridge was\u2026 but I\u2019m still stuck on that 1%. Automatic f*** the Giants voting<\/a>? I can respect that. Maybe Bolemon & Waechter don\u2019t do it for some. Reasonable.<\/p>\n I\u2019m not going to let it bother me anymore, actually. The Giants are finally doing what needs to be done in order to become a competitive franchise again: prioritizing player development. The dream of the championship era was that the operation had been modernized and would be able to produce a steady-ish supply of position players and pitchers. That didn\u2019t wind up being the case and was pretty far from the truth, in fact, as one of Farhan Zaidi\u2019s first tasks upon taking over the front office was revamping player development to bring it in line with 21st century practices. The franchise also committed many millions of dollars to building a new training facility in Arizona. The fruits of that labor seem to be blossoming, finally. Can Buster Posey & Zack Minasian actually deliver on the promise of farm to table baseball?<\/p>\n That\u2019s a question for a separate poll. For now, it\u2019s enough to enjoy this fantastic success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"I can\u2019t help but try to get into the psychology of the poll respondents with these SB Nation…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":432454,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,112796,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-432453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-giants-analysis","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=432453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/432453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/432454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=432453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=432453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=432453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}