The 2020 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List!

It’s that time of year once again. Time for us all to engage in our favorite holiday tradition — arguing over the exact ranking of the San Francisco Giants slightly — or perhaps significantly — improved farm system! As you may recall from last year, we’ve renamed the list the “Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List”, in memory of the late great Giant (the childhood idol of one of our scribes). The list has always honored McCovey in spirit (and in length), as does the name of this website, and we both felt it was appropriate to make the honor direct and official last year.

The list is being voted on as we speak. Here is the current list:

1. Joey Bart
2. Marco Luciano
3. Heliot Ramos
4. Hunter Bishop
5. Logan Webb
6. Alexander Canario
7. Seth Corry
8. Mauricio Dubon
9. Luis Matos
10. Sean Hjelle
11. Will Wilson
12. Jaylin Davis
13. Luis Toribio
14. Jairo Pomares
15. Gregory Santos
16. Melvin Adon
17. Tristan Beck
18. Kai-Wei Teng
19. Conner Menez
20. Jake Wong + Logan Wyatt
21. (see above)
22. Sandro Fabian
23. Ricardo Genoves
24. Trevor McDonald

So, a quick reminder about how the polls work.

• New polls will be posted at 7 am PST every weekday (with brief pauses for the holiday dates). Votes will be tallied whenever Kevin or Roger see them before posting the next poll.
• Only one vote per user is allowed.
• All players who are still rookie eligible are eligible for this poll. This means batters who have 130 or less at-bats in the Majors, and pitchers who have 50 or less innings pitched in the Majors, or players who have spent fewer 45 days on the active roster (that means pre-September) in previous seasons. This may (if you, the community, so chooses) include minor league free agents the Giants have signed this offseason, as well as whoever tomorrow’s Rule 5 draft may bring on board.
• We will select 44 prospects for the list, honoring the jersey number of our namesake.
• Nominations will be handled as before: When we have just four players** left in a poll, we will call for nominations under the first comment. We may name players, but everyone is invited to name someone. Vote by clicking the ‘rec’ under the comment. You can vote for as many players to be nominated as you wish. The four nominees with the most votes will be added to the poll.
• Ties in voting will be broken by a runoff. If two players tie, the winner of the tiebreaker will get the spot, the loser will get the next spot. If three or more players tie, then only the winner will get a spot on the list, and the losers will be returned to the poll.
• When names are listed for the polls, the First Name will link to the player’s Baseball-Reference page, the Last Name links to the player’s Fangraphs page (if applicable). We also encourage voters to campaign for their favorite choices in the comments. Favoritism by all voters is encouraged, except by Roger and Kevin (which means Tyler Rogers, once again, will NOT be the #1 prospect, but he WILL be on the list somewhere we’re guessing).

We expect good-natured debating and arguing in the comments! There are a lot of opinions, and a lot of ways to grade prospects. Whether it’s Fangraphs FV, Baseball America scouting reports, or just your own personal ancedotal experience, please use the comments to share your thoughts, and get people to vote in your direction!

Happy prospecting, people!