We have reached the final chapter of the 2026 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospects List! Only one additional ballot needs to be submitted, and then we will have successfully ranked the top 44 prospects in the San Francisco Giants organization. And with some free time, might I add!
The penultimate name on our list is someone who opened a lot of eyes this time last year: third baseman Sabin Ceballos, who was voted the system’s No. 43 prospect. This represents a drop of 25 places for Ceballos, who made his CPL debut at No. 18 a year ago.
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It paints a portrait of someone who has had a difficult 2025, but it doesn’t quite do justice to the narrative arc from his perspective. The right-handed hitter was a third-round pick in the 2023 draft by the Atlanta Braves and received a signing bonus consistent with a mid-fourth-round pick. He was playing in the Atlanta system, playing decently but not making much noise: in his first full season, in 2024, he had a .706 OPS and a 117 wRC+ for Atlanta’s High-A affiliate.
Then he was traded to the Giants in the Jorge Soler deal. He remained in High-A, heading straight to the Northwest League to join the Eugene Emeralds. It was a homecoming for the University of Oregon product, and it seemed like the refreshing air of the Pacific Northwest had ignited something in Ceballos. He broke down baseball with the Emeralds, posting a .913 OPS and a 152 wRC+. After hitting just three home runs in 377 plate appearances in High-A at the time of the trade, Ceballos smashed seven dingers in just 140 plate appearances for the rest of the game.
He quickly proved that success wasn’t all about reuniting with Oregon State. Ceballos came over from Minor League camp to fill in for a handful of Cactus League games in 2025, and the results have been fascinating. Ceballos appeared in 15 games for the Giants this time last year and went 9-20 with three extra-base hits, four walks and just three strikeouts, leaving the desert with a 1.633 OPS, a 317 wRC+ and serious prospects.
Those highs were very high, but what followed was not. The Giants assigned Ceballos to AA Richmond, where he spent the entire 2025 season, and the results weren’t very good. It got off to a rough start, barely staying above the Mendoza Line in April, and then things got very ugly.
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In May, Ceballos hit just 12-70 with no home runs, for a .171/.301/.214 line. In June, he went 9-61 with no homers and a slash line of .148/.235/.180. He entered July with a .178 batting average, a .522 OPS and just one home run.
But the good news is that the crisis did not last the whole year and Ceballos did a serious job to turn his season around. You certainly couldn’t have predicted as the calendar rolled into July that Ceballos would finish the year with a triple-digit wRC+, but that’s exactly what he did.
After two straight months well below a .200 average, Ceballos nearly reached .300 in July… and did in August. From July through the end of the year, he went 46-150 with 16 extra-base hits, including five home runs. This brought him to a .670 OPS and a 102 wRC+.
Even though Ceballos finished the year on a good note, the overall numbers still aren’t particularly good. His overall line was driven in large part by his strong 11.2 percent walk rate, which ranked 46th out of 134 Eastern League hitters with at least 200 plate appearances last year. But his .232 batting average ranked 72nd, while his .106 slugging was 91st.
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Despite these poor numbers, Ceballos had no problem making contact in 2025. His strikeout rate was 17.4%, which ranked 24th out of the aforementioned 134 hitters, and his strikeout rate of 7.3% was 16th. He does a wonderful job of making contact…he just has trouble making GOOD contact.
But wait! There is even more optimism. Ceballos is not your prototypical Minor League third baseman, hoping the bat can have a defensive profile with no place to put it, throw it in the corner and hide his glove. No, Ceballos was a real defensive weapon at the hot corner last year. I wouldn’t call him Casey Schmitt or Matt Chapman, but he’s very strong defensively. If the bat can rise to meet the glove, then he will cook and have a Major League career ahead of him.
I presume he will be back in Richmond for a repeat of the level in 2026, although he will share real estate with Parks Harber if that is the case. And given how hot his second half has been in 2025, it probably won’t take too many weeks of swinging the bat well to earn a promotion to AAA where, as they say, you’re just a call away.
Now let’s vote for the final name of our list! As a reminder, voting is now done in the comments section, using the “rec” functionality.
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The list so far
Note: Clicking on the names above will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.
No. 44 potential candidates
Scott Bandura — 24.6-year-old OF — .626 OPS/88 wRC+ in AA (186 PA); .838 OPS/136 wRC+ in High-A (373 PA)
Reggie Crawford — LHP, 25.2 years — did not launch in 2025; 1.04 ERA/4.07 FIP in AAA in 2024 (8.2 IP); 4.66 ERA/4.93 FIP in AA in 2024 (9.2 IP)
Jose Ortiz — 21.7-year-old OF — .803 OPS/134 wRC+ in Low-A (66 PA)
Jean-Carlos Sio — 21.10-year-old INF — .808 OPS/130 wRC+ in High-A (122 PA); .821 OPS/129 wRC+ in Low-A (385 PA)
Charlie Szykowny — 3B/1B aged 25.7 — .816 OPS/122 wRC+ in High-A (549 PA)
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Tyler Vogel — 25.3 RHP — 18.00 ERA/6.47 FIP in AAA (2 IP); 1.13 ERA/2.42 FIP in AA (16 IP); 2.83 ERA/3.86 FIP in High-A (41.1 IP)
Note: Each player’s first name links to their baseball reference page and their last name links to their Fangraphs page. All statistics are from the 2025 season.
