For the first time, we\u2019re publishing an installment of the 2026 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List that is actually in 2026. And for those of you unfamiliar with how time works, the rest of them will be in 2026, too.<\/p>\n
The last chapter of the CPL was not only the final 2025 installment, but the start of the second half of our list. We\u2019re officially past the halfway mark in our quest to rank the top 44 prospects in the San Francisco Giants organization, a delightfully fun project that I\u2019m sure will not make any of us look stupid in the years to come.<\/p>\n
Taking us into the back half of the list is middle infielder Lorenzo Meola, who ran away with the vote to earn the title of No. 23 prospect in the system in his inaugural CPL. Meola, a right-handed hitter who turned 22 just a few weeks ago, was the team\u2019s fourth-round pick in July\u2019s draft out of Stetson, and signed right at his slot value. He made his professional debut at the end of the season, appearing in 16 games for Low-A San Jose and handling things quite nicely: he hit .273\/.314\/.470 for a .784 OPS and a 109 wRC+, with three home runs in 70 plate appearances and three stolen bases in four attempts.<\/p>\n
Meola is one of the more well-rounded prospects in the Giants system. He has strong contact skills and a good control of the strike zone (in his third and final year at Stetson, he hit .329, and in his final two seasons he drew 67 walks in 536 plate appearances, with just 93 strikeouts); he has a bit more pop than one would expect out of a middle infielder, which opens up additional pathways to the Majors; and he\u2019s a strong defensive player who handles both sides of the bag adeptly, and could\/should presumably slide over to third base seamlessly at some point to enhance his versatility.<\/p>\n
While the question of how a player will perform (especially in their first full season) is always fascinating, the question of where Meola will perform is of almost equal intrigue. Like Meola, Jhonny Level and Gavin Kilen finished 2025 with short stints in San Jose, and both Josuar Gonz\u00e1lez and Luis Hernandez appear headed stateside this coming year. I would certainly expect Meola to return to the Cal League next year \u2014 unlike Kilen, he doesn\u2019t come from a school in a big conference, so is less likely to be thrown into High-A \u2014 but who he calls teammates there will play a decent role in determining what position he\u2019s playing. With Level presumably in San Jose, Meola probably will spend the bulk of his time off of his natural position at shortstop, and if Kilen or Gonz\u00e1lez is also repping a Baby Giants jersey, then we might starting seeing Meola test out his arm at the hot corner.<\/p>\n
Either way, his first full season will be one worth keeping a close eye on.<\/p>\n
Now let\u2019s add to the list! As a reminder, voting now takes place using the \u201crec\u201d feature in the comment section.<\/p>\n
Note: Clicking on the above names will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.<\/p>\n
Will<\/a> Bednar<\/a> \u2014 25.6-year old RHP \u2014 27.00 ERA\/7.57 FIP in AAA (1.2 IP); 4.97 ERA\/3.03 FIP in AA (50.2 IP)<\/p>\n Lisbel<\/a> Diaz<\/a> \u2014 20.5-year old OF \u2014 .725 OPS\/96 wRC+ in Low-A (561 PA)<\/p>\n Trent<\/a> Harris<\/a> \u2014 26.11-year old RHP \u2014 5.44 ERA\/4.69 FIP in AAA (41.1 IP); 1.69 ERA\/1.73 FIP in AA (16 IP)<\/p>\n Yunior<\/a> Marte<\/a> \u2014 22.4-year old RHP \u2014 2.91 ERA\/3.19 FIP in Low-A (102 IP)<\/p>\n Diego<\/a> Velasquez<\/a> \u2014 22.2-year old 2B \u2014 .677 OPS\/107 wRC+ in AA (566 PA)<\/p>\n Joe<\/a> Whitman<\/a> \u2014 24.3-year old LHP \u2014 5.29 ERA\/3.61 FIP in AA (117.1 IP)<\/p>\n Note: Each player\u2019s first name links to their Baseball-Reference page, and their last name links to their Fangraphs page. All stats are from the 2025 season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For the first time, we\u2019re publishing an installment of the 2026 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503077,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,38978,4,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342],"class_list":{"0":"post-503076","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-minor-leagues-prospects","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-san-francisco","13":"tag-san-francisco-giants","14":"tag-sanfrancisco","15":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","16":"tag-sf","17":"tag-sf-giants","18":"tag-sfgiants"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/115827097379609620","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503076"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503076\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}