The Giants’ top 30 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline

MLB.com’s MLB Pipeline just released the Giants’ preseason prospect rankings, and it should come as no surprise that Joey Bart is the team’s #1 overall dude. Pipeline’s top 5 is exactly as our community ranked the Giants farm system, in fact, which means that Jim Callis & co. either cribbed from us (unlikely) or our community is really smart (likely) or the Giants’ farm system is not mysterious (most likely?).

So, it’s:

1. Joey Bart - C
2. Heliot Ramos - OF
3. Marco Luciano - SS
4. Shaun Anderson - RHP
5. Logan Webb - RHP

And that certainly is an exciting bunch. A little more top heavy than you might like to see in a top five — Bart and possibly Ramos could perhaps become superstars, Luciano an All-Star, and Anderson and Webb reliable bullpen or back of the rotation arms — but not terrible. Well, maybe not terrible for a typical Giants system. MLB Pipeline, of course, looks at every team’s farm system, so Jim Callis knows what he’s talking about when he says

The immediate future doesn’t look bright for the Giants.

Oh, Jim. We know.

We know.

You can read the full list here, but I’ll just skip around to some of the article’s spotlights.

• Tyler Beede was Pipeline’s #4 Giants prospect before last season and #1 the year before, but now finds himself at #24. The Giants tinkered a lot with Beede last season and it wound up sinking his prospects. This past Sunday, he looked really sharp in his spring debut with two scoreless innings and a strikeout and hit 95+ consistently. He might not be an ace pitcher in the making, but he might be one of this year’s surprises.
• Rule 5 pick Travis Bergen is ranked at #30 and if you read the full scouting report, it’s difficult not to get overly excited. I got hot and bothered mid-way through at this part:

Bergen lacks overpowering stuff, but hitters from both sides of the plate rarely manage to barrel his pitches. His low-90s fastball play much better than its velocity because his crossfire delivery gives it run, sink and deception.

• Ray Black at #14 still has the best fastball in the system.
• Heliot Ramos is the top runner, but only rates out at a 55 on the 20-80 scale.
• #18 Blake Rivera (whom I hope the Giants just turn into a reliever/closer) has a 60 curveball, tied with #21 Garrett Williams and #26 Seth Corry).
• Abiatal Avelino and Juan de Paula, both acquired in the Andrew McCutchen trade, are on the list at #17 and #19, respectively. Thanks, Bobby Evans.

There’s a lot of possibly good talent a long ways away, which is definitely the gist of Jim Callis’ write-up. If you remove the context of the system from consideration, it’s easy to see that there’s a lot of interesting talent in the top 30, if very little that might qualify as exciting.