Note: Today is nomination day! Head to the comment section to nominate the next group of Giants prospects.
Spring Training is less than a month away, and the smell of baseball is almost in the air. To prepare ourselves, we’re continuing with the Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List, which will see us work together to rank the top 44 prospects in the San Francisco Giants organization. And we almost have a top 30!
The last chapter was a very close one, and it narrowly featured a winner who we might see in the Major Leagues this year: right-handed reliever Trent Harris, who has been voted as the No. 29 prospect in the system. That’s a drop of nine spots for Harris, who was No. 20 a year ago, and that speaks more to the improved strength of the system than his talent.
2025 was a tale of two stories for Harris. It was just his second full season of Minor League Baseball, as he joined the organization in the summer of 2023 as an undrafted free agent (remarkably, the Giants have three UDFAs in their top 30). Harris, who is 6’2 and well built, began the year with AA Richmond, where he was utterly dynamic. He posted a 1.69 ERA and a 1.73 FIP in 13 relief appearances, while striking out 25 batters in just 16 innings … and only walking four. Everything was going brilliantly, and he received an early promotion to AAA Sacramento.
That’s where the struggles began, as they do for so many pitchers entering the Pacific Coast League. Harris struggled mightily out of the gates, and never really covered over his few months with the River Cats. In all, he made 30 appearances in AAA, and finished with a 5.44 ERA and a 4.69 FIP. The strikeout stuff came down dramatically (8.71 per nine innings), though he did a good job of limiting walks (3.27 per nine).
On a recent podcast with Roger Munter, Harris attributed some of his struggles to shelving his curveball — largely viewed as his best pitch — after it got shellacked in the early going by more advanced hitters. And indeed, the numbers bore that out: Harris’ most used pitch in AAA was his cutter, which he threw nearly half the time, with quite poor results: a .313 expected batting average, a .492 expected slugging percentage, and an 18.4% whiff rate. His curve (which he threw 16.4% of the time), despite those early struggles, had an xBA of .242, an xSLG of .392, and a whiff rate of 30.3%, while his sweeper, which he threw roughly a third of the time, carried a .216 xBA, a .288 xSLG, and a 33.0% whiff rate. He also has a splitter, which was statistically speaking his best pitch, though in part because he so rarely used it.
So it would seem that the goal for Harris would be to get his pitch mix sorted a little better … and perhaps he can turn to teammate Trevor McDonald for some inspiration and optimism. McDonald put up poor numbers in AAA last year, but with a defensive savant calling his games and a talented infield defense behind him, wowed during his 2025 MLB stint. That could help Harris, as could adding a little velo to his heater, which averaged just 94.1 mph in Sacramento.
Needless to say, 2026 will be a critical year for Harris, in part because he’s no spring chicken (by prospect standards, at least) — he turns 27 next week. He’ll certainly be a non-roster invitee when pitchers and catchers report to Scottsdale in mid-February, and don’t be surprised if he’s coming out of the bullpen and taking the ball from Tony Vitello at some point this year.
Now let’s add to the list, and don’t forget that it’s nomination day. Nominations and prospect voting both take place in the comment section now.
The list so far
Note: Clicking on the above names will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.
No. 30 prospect nominees
Rayner Arias — 19.8-year old OF — .173 OPS/-42 wRC+ in Low-A (30 PA); .699 OPS/87 wRC+ in ACL (178 PA)
Carlos De La Rosa — 18.1-year old LHP — 4.73 ERA/2.30 FIP in DSL (32.1 IP)
Lisbel Diaz — 20.5-year old OF — .725 OPS/96 wRC+ in Low-A (561 PA)
Diego Velasquez — 22.3-year old 2B — .677 OPS/107 wRC+ in AA (566 PA)
Note: Each player’s first name links to their Baseball-Reference page, and their last name links to their Fangraphs page. All stats are from the 2025 season.
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