San Francisco Giants: The Next Big Call-Up

With so many teams calling up top prospects in the last month of the season, we look at who could be the next big call-up for the San Francisco Giants.

The San Francisco Giants have already called up a lot of their top prospects this season, and I don’t expect any more to make their debut in 2018. There really isn’t a point to call anyone else up right now with so many young guys already on the roster who need to get playing time.

Chris Shaw and Tyler Beede were the Giants top two prospects at the end of the 2017 season, and both made their major league debuts in 2018.

Austin Slater, Steven Duggar, Aramis Garcia, and Andrew Suarez were also in the top 10 last year and have since been called up to the big leagues.

Right now the Giants top 10 prospects, according to MLB.com, is Joey Bart, Heliot Ramos, Shaun Anderson, Chris Shaw, Marco Luciano, Sean Hjelle, Tyler Beede, Sandro Fabian, Jacob Gonzalez, and Heath Quinn.

We already mentioned that Shaw and Beede have made their debuts, so who’s next?

More from Around the Foghorn

• SF Giants: José Quintana acquired in waiver claim from Angels
• SF Giants place Johnny Cueto and Alex Wood on COVID IL
• SF Giants: The Tyler Chatwood era likely over
• Former SF Giants catcher breaks up minor league brawl
• SF Giants sign former Diamondbacks infielder to minor league deal

Again, I don’t think anyone else in that top 10 makes their debut this year, so we’re looking at 2019.

Depending on Posey’s healthy and Bart’s performance to start next season, I wouldn’t be surprised if he make his debut in 2019, but that’s doubtful.

Ramos, Luciano, Gonzalez, Fabian, and Quinn seem like long shots for next year. Quinn is the only one in that group that had what I would consider a good season. I would not be surprised if he moves through the system quickly in 2019.

Being a mature college arm, Hjelle has the potential to move quickly, but his first 21.1 big league innings didn’t go well.

That leaves us with a pretty obvious answer in Shaun Anderson.

We acquired the right-handed pitcher from the Boston Red Sox in exchange for Eduardo Nunez — another example of why we should trade any assets for young, controllable players with upside.

He started 2018 at Double-A Richmond where he went 6-5 with a 3.45 ERA in 94 innings pitched with 93 strikeouts and a WHIP of 1.22.

Anderson ended the season at Triple-A Sacramento where he was 2-2 with a 4.18 ERA in 47.1 innings pitched with 34 strikeouts and a WHIP of 1.25.

Those certainly aren’t numbers that will jump out at you, but they are solid. At this point, the 23-year-old has very little left to prove at the minor league level.

The battle for the San Francisco Giants starting rotation will be very interesting this offseason. There are already a number of young starters fighting for innings in Suarez, Dereck Rodriguez, and Chris Stratton.

You can never have enough pitching, and I think Anderson will be part of that discussion come spring training.