It\u2019s almost hard to believe, but we have a top 40 in the 2026 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List. We only need four more ballots sent out and counted, and then we will have succeeded in once again ranking the top 44 prospects in the San Francisco Giants organization.<\/p>\n
The last chapter of the CPL has brought us someone with a delightful display of power: it\u2019s outfielder Jakob Christian, who has been voted as the No. 40 prospect in the system, falling 10 spots from his debut ranking at No. 30 last year.<\/p>\n
Christian, who was the team\u2019s fifth-round pick in 2024 out of the University of San Diego, was essentially in his debut season last year, after only getting into nine games after being drafted. The right-handed hitter, who turned 23 right as the season was ending, flashed some dynamism in his first full year, but countered it with some red flags as well.<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start with the good stuff, though, because that\u2019s what earned him a spot on our list. Christian spent the bulk of the year with Low-A San Jose, where his line was quite solid: he hit .272\/.355\/.460 with 10 home runs in 70 games, finishing with an .815 OPS and a 119 wRC+. That earned him a late-season promotion to High-A Eugene, which is where he really caught fire and put his skills on display. During his month in the Northwest League, the San Diego native slashed a blistering .304\/.380\/.570 with four home runs in 23 games, for a .950 OPS and a 155 wRC+.<\/p>\n
Those are some green flags! A good average (.279 across the levels), a good walk rate (9.8%), good power (.205 ISO), while getting better late in the year is something to be excited about, and he also added 15 stolen bases while getting caught stealing just twice.<\/p>\n
But there were some concerns under the hood. Namely, there were issues with his contact rates. In Low-A, Christian posted a 28.3% strikeout rate and a 17.7% swinging strike rate, very high rates for a large-school college bat who was nearly a year older than league average. While his overall stats improved greatly in High-A, it was despite the contact rates also moving in the wrong direction: he had a 34.8% strikeout rate and a 19.8% swinging strike rate. Across the two levels, Christian ranked 51st out of 58 Giants Minor Leaguers (minimum: 200 plate appearances) in strikeout rate, and dead last in swinging strike rate. That\u2019s a notable hole that needs significant patching if he\u2019s to have success at higher levels.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also the matter of defense. It\u2019s fairly telling that Christian, an outfielder, spent nearly as many games in 2025 at first base (40) as he did in the grass (51). Some of that was to make space in the outfield for San Jose\u2019s higher-touted prospects, but some of it is also a reflection of his defensive value.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d assume, given the swing-and-miss issues, that Christian will return to Eugene to start the upcoming season. If he can maintain his offensive performance while patching some of the holes in his swing, he could quickly become a very good prospect.<\/p>\n
Now let\u2019s add to the list! As a reminder, voting takes place in the comment section, using the \u201crec\u201d feature.<\/p>\n
Note: Clicking on the above names will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.<\/p>\n
Sabin<\/a> Ceballos<\/a> \u2014 23.5-year old 3B \u2014 .670 OPS\/102 wRC+ in AA (420 PA)<\/p>\n Reggie<\/a> Crawford<\/a> \u2014 25.2-year old LHP \u2014 did not pitch 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)<\/p>\n Juan<\/a> S\u00e1nchez<\/a> \u2014 25.2-year old LHP \u2014 did not pitch in 2025; 3.93 ERA\/5.17 FIP in AAA in 2024 (34.1 IP)<\/p>\n Charlie<\/a> Szykowny<\/a> \u2014 25.7-year old 3B\/1B \u2014 .816 OPS\/122 wRC+ in High-A (549 PA)<\/p>\n Jancel<\/a> Villarroel<\/a> \u2014 21.0-year old C \u2014 .699 OPS\/91 wRC+ in High-A (61 PA); .746 OPS\/123 wRC+ in Low-A (372 PA)<\/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":"It\u2019s almost hard to believe, but we have a top 40 in the 2026 Willie McCovey Memorial Community…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,38978,4,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342],"class_list":{"0":"post-570787","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\/116065048425095232","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570787","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=570787"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570787\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570787"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570787"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570787"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}