Who the SF Giants should take with their first 5 picks in 2026 MLB Draft

The MLB Draft begins tomorrow and the SF Giants have some big decisions to make. Who will they take with the No. 4 pick overall? Who will they get with the pick they acquired in the Patrick Bailey trade?

The Giants will pick five players on Saturday and this article is going to be who I think the Giants should pick. This isn’t based off watching hours or film or going out and scouting these players myself so take it with a fraction of a grain of salt.

This is more an exercise in selecting guys who would be fun additions to the Giants based off where they grew up, who they are related to, or where they went to college rather than what the mock drafts of the experts say. The Giants will obviously be taking the best player available to them at these spots but consider this the “fun” version of the draft that an average Giants fan could get behind.

The SF Giants fan’s version of the 2026 MLB Draft 

No. 4: RHP Jackson Flora

The conventional wisdom suggests the Giants will go with a position player here, whether they get lucky and Roch Cholowsky falls to them or if the “big three” all go in the top three then maybe someone like Jacob Lombard or Eric Booth Jr.

But Jackson Flora is the best pitcher in the draft and he grew up in the Bay Area. MLB teams rarely draft for need at the big league level but how nice does it sound to add a local kid who had a 1.06 ERA and 133 strikeouts at UC Santa Barbara this year to the farm system who could be in the rotation in two years?

If the Giants aren’t going to spend money to add pitching then they might as well draft it and maybe by getting Flora they can make up for getting rid of Kyle Harrison, a local kid who grew up rooting for the Giants.

No. 29: RHP Tegan Kuhns

The Giants hired Tony Vitello as manager thanks to what he did at the University of Tennessee and it would be a bit of a shock if the Giants didn’t draft at least one player out of Tennessee.

Tegan Kuhns pitched under Vitello last year and was a bit uneven but this year he was very solid with a 3.56 ERA and 106 strikeouts in 81 innings pitched.

No. 55: SS Tyler Spangler

While Cholowsky would be the dream shortstop with Bay Area ties to land in the draft, Tyler Spangler isn’t a bad backup plan. He went to De La Salle High School in the Bay Area, the same high school Harrison went to, and has drawn comparisons to Cal Ripken Jr. and Corey Seager due to his size.

He’s committed to Stanford but maybe the Giants could convince the 18-year-old to sign with his hometown team.

No. 90: OF Peyton Bonds

The nephew of Barry Bonds, Peyton Bonds is more of a contact hitter than a power bat but those are the kind of hitters the Giants have prioritized as of late. He impressed in the MLB Draft Combine so he’d be an intriguing addition.

No. 118: OF Brayden Dowd

The Giants did pretty well by drafting an outfielder out of Florida State back in 2024. That was when they got James Tibbs but after he was traded to the Boston Red Sox in the Rafael Devers trade and was subsequently traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers he’s impressing in the wrong organization.

Maybe San Francisco can right that wrong by drafting Brayden Dowd, an outfielder out of Florida State who hit .293/.456/.527 last season with 10 home runs and 36 runs batted in. He’s a contact guy as well so he’d fit the organizational mold.

Will the Giants draft any of these guys? Who knows, but if fans were drafting they would probably lean heavy on Bay Area guys and anyone with the last name Bonds. We will just have to see if San Francisco’s front office evaluates any of these guys the same way the draft experts do.

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