2022 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List No. 31

The 30th chapter of the 2022 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List saw the unofficial tallest prospect in San Francisco Giants history get selected, as right-handed pitcher Sean Hjelle was voted as the No. 30 prospect on the farm. It’s a drop of 19 spots for Hjelle, who was No. 11 in last year’s CPL.

Hjelle, a slender 6’11 starting pitcher who will turn 25 in May, has had a bit of an odd prospect trajectory. He was a second-round pick in 2018 — the final draft by the old front office — and, truthfully, has never done all that well in the Minors. He started 2021 in AA, where he had a 3.15 ERA and 4.00 FIP, with 69 strikeouts to 19 walks in 65.2 innings. That was solid enough and earned him a promotion to AAA, where he struggled very mightily, accumulating a 5.74 ERA and a 5.77 FIP, with just 35 strikeouts to 29 walks in 53.1 innings.

The Giants added him to the 40-man roster in November to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, and if he can put up half-decent numbers in Sacramento this year we’ll likely see him make his MLB debut — assuming there’s an MLB season.

Now we move on, and we have some new names to add to the list. Rec the reply in the comments with the player you would like to vote for.

The list so far

1. Marco Luciano
2. Joey Bart
3. Luis Matos
4. Heliot Ramos
5. Kyle Harrison
6. Camilo Doval
7. Jairo Pomares
8. Will Bednar
9. Patrick Bailey
10. Hunter Bishop
11. Ryan Reckley
12. Aeverson Arteaga
13. Ryan Murphy
14. Matt Mikulski
15. Diego Rincones
16. R.J. Dabovich
17. Nick Swiney
18. Will Wilson
19. David Villar
20. Ricardo Genovés
21. Sammy Long
22. Randy Rodriguez
23. Manuel Mercedes
24. Casey Schmitt
25. Ismael Munguia
26. Kervin Castro
27. Adrian Sugastey
28. Brett Auerbach
29. Chris Wright
30. Sean Hjelle

Note: Clicking on the above names will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.

On to No. 31!

No. 31 prospect nominees

Prelander Berroa — 21.10 years, 4.94 FIP in Low-A (98.2 innings)
Seth Corry — 23.3 years, 5.25 FIP in High-A (67.2 innings)
Grant McCray — 21.2 years, 81 wRC+ in Low-A (88 PAs), 127 wRC+ in ACL (65 PAs)
Carson Ragsdale — 23.9 years, 4.12 FIP in Low-A (113.2 innings)
Gregory Santos — 22.6 years, 22.67 FIP in MLB (2 innings), 5.15 FIP in AAA (15.2 innings)
Luis Toribio — 21.5 years, 95 wRC+ in Low-A (408 PAs)

Note: Each player’s first name links to their Baseball-Reference page, and their last name links to their Fangraphs page.