SF Giants prospects position preview chat: Outfielders

Around the Foghorn contributor, Wrenzie Regodon and co-site expert Marc Delucchi are beginning the season with some discussions about the SF Giants minor-league depth at each position. They’ve discussed the organizations catching, middle infield, and corner infield already and now are looking at the team’s outfield prospects.

SF Giants prospects position preview chat: Outfield Part 1

Marc Delucchi: So this is the deepest part of the organization to you, right?

Wrenzie Regodon: *chuckles* It sure is the deepest part of the organization. There are 4 players inside the top 10 of my most recent top 30 ranking, and as I went deeper down the outfield rabbit hole, I still found potential big leaguers throughout the rest of my top 30. Even outside of that, there were a lot of outfielders that deserve plenty of love.

MD: I do my rankings more through positional needs, so since I divide the players between the 3 outfield positions, I still view catcher as the strongest overall. But it’s right there. Obviously, Heliot Ramos, Luis Matos, and Hunter Bishop are three of those top prospects you’re talking about. How do you differentiate them?

WR: I do not really divide outfielders anymore since we see players we once did not consider center fielders begin playing up the middle more often.

As for Ramos, Bishop, and Matos, they sure are the top 3 outfield prospects in the organization at the moment. Matos has the best hit tool out of the three, Bishop has the best athleticism but biggest risk, and Heliot is kind of in the middle. I do not know if you’ll agree with me but Matos’ hit tool is a potential plus. There are only a few prospects that I can think of that have Matos’ trunk rotation when swinging. Couple that with his innate bat-to-ball ability and he can be a pretty special hitter.

Bishop as well all know has loud three-true-outcomes traits in his offensive profile but he has the range and athletic ability to play center field. However, we have not really seen him very much in his top form.

To be honest, I was so close to putting Matos ahead of Heliot when I did my rankings because of Ramos’ oblique issue last year. However, his strong spring reminded me of how good he can be. The maturity in all the facets of his game is incredible considering he is the same age as a college junior.