SF Giants: Prospects stock up and stock down through first month

SF Giants Prospects Early MiLB Season Stock Up Part 2

Chris Wright

Chris Wright’s numbers are extremely eye-popping. Among all Giants pitchers in the farm system (not just qualified pitchers), Wright’s 61.5% strikeout rate leads the group by quite a bit and his FIP is the lowest as well. What made it more impressive is that he is doing all of this while having a BABIP that is one of the ten highest in the organization (with interesting names like Kyle Harrison and Seth Corry in the mix).

The secret to Wright’s high strikeout rate is his ability to pitch north to south with his mid-90s fastball that has at least 19″ of vertical break and his curveball that closely mimics the spin direction of his fastball and generates 17″ of vertical break. That’s three feet of separation between his two best pitches and it comes out of the same over-the-top tunnel consistently. Outside of Corry and Harrison, in my opinion, Wright is the best left-handed pitching prospect in the organization and I would definitely consider adding him in my mid-season Top 30.

Diego Rincones

Diego Rincones is more known for being a consistent hitter throughout a minor league season so his very hot start to the season has been a surprising but welcome sight to see. In fact, it earned him a spot on the Venezuelan national team for the Olympic qualifiers. By the way, he’s already hit a walk-off homer at qualifiers.

Among qualified hitters, Rincones is inside the top three in traditional triple slash numbers and his ISO and wRC+ are the highest. His great success has been largely fueled by his 37.2% line drive rate, again the highest among qualified Giants hitters.  Compared to his 2019 season, his groundball rate is still similar. However, he converted his flyballs to line drives, posting the lowest flyball rate of his career. It certainly boosts his case as a potential Top 30 prospect at the end of the season if he can continue his hot start into the dog days of summer.

Will Wilson

The other hitter who is off to a hot start alongside Rincones is his Emeralds teammate, Will Wilson. Wilson is comfortably inside the top 10 in most offensive categories among qualified hitters, and the eye test matches what the stats tell.

While there is not a significant change in terms of his spray chart, there is a shift towards putting the ball in the air when looking at his batted ball data. His flyball rate went up considerably with his groundball rate seeing a sizeable reduction, something he talked to Marc about last year. The change in his batted ball approach resulted in a drastic spike in his ISO, culminated by already matching his home run mark from Rookie Ball in 2019 with the Angels.

Wilson is also seeing more pitches per plate appearance this season, resulting in a 67% increase in his walk rate while keeping his strikeout rate and BABIP at a healthy rate. Wilson is squaring the ball up consistently, and he’s going to be promoted to Double-A very soon if he keeps this up in June.