Giants get one prospect on Baseball America’s top-100 list

There are more players named Wander on Baseball America’s top-100 list than Giants prospects. Hello, and welcome to the state of the Giants’ farm.

Heliot Ramos was the only Giants prospect to make both the Baseball America top-100 list and Keith Law’s list over at ESPN. He’s 79th over at Baseball America and 95th at ESPN. While the optimistic part of me knows that if Ramos puts up good numbers in full-season ball, he’ll shoot up these charts, it’s a sobering reminder that the Giants’ top prospect really isn’t that special compared to prospects from around the league. The Padres have four prospects in the top 32 of BA’s list. The Dodgers have three in the top 40. Then there are the Giants, who have exactly one player in the top 100.

The Diamondbacks don’t have any, so there. Take that.

This isn’t anything new for the Giants, who also got a single prospect in last year’s BA top-100. That would be Tyler Beede, who ranked 89th. So in a way, this is progress! Also note that Beede ranked right about Aaron Judge, so it’s not as if these rankings are infallible. They are fun, though, and they sure do give us a snapshot of the system. I’m not sure if Christian Arroyo would rank if he still qualified (guessing he wouldn’t), so it’s pretty remarkable that the Giants were capable of building a team that currently projects to win the second wild card with a) just one top-100 prospect and b) not having to give him up.

Here’s the recent history of Giants top-100 prospects according to Baseball America:

2017 (1) - Tyler Beede, 89
2016 (1) - Christian Arroyo, 62
2015 (1) - Andrew Susac, 88
2014 (2) - Kyle Crick, 33; Edwin Escobar, 56
2013 (1) - Kyle Crick, 66
2012 (1) - Gary Brown, 38
2011 (2) - Brandon Belt, 23; Zack Wheeler, 55
2010 (4) - Buster Posey, 7; Madison Bumgarner, 14; Zack Wheeler, 49; Thomas Neal, 96
2009 (4) - Madison Bumgarner, 9; Buster Posey, 14; Angel Villalona, 44; Tim Alderson, 45

In retrospect, it’s possible that having just one top-100 prospect for the last few years was a great way to suffer an organizational decline, but that’s just me speculating.

Based on recent history, it sure doesn’t seem like we should order our Tyler Beede shirseys just yet. The Giants are awfully fond of using their top-100 prospects in trades. It hasn’t burned them since Francisco Liriano, so you can understand why, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t a little scary.

Ramos really is the most promising and toolsy prospect they’ve had in years, so there’s room to feel a teensy bit better than in previous years, and it’s almost guaranteed that they’ll use the second-overall pick on a player who will rank highly on this list next year. The system should be trending upward, I would hope. Still, you knew the Giants didn’t have a good farm system. Here’s more evidence.

You didn’t want more evidence.

But, here, take it. Get it away from me. Just take it.