Who is the 21st-best prospect in the system?
Well folks, it’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for: the top 20! Following Wednesday’s chapter of the 2026 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List, we officially have a list of the top 20 San Francisco Giants prospects. And it looks quite different than last year’s! In fact, only seven of the players in last year’s top 20 are in this year’s.
Rounding out our top 20 is the newest member of the Giants prospect crew: catcher Daniel Susac. The right-handed hitting backstop has a whole lot of ties to the Giants and Northern California in general. He was born in Roseville and attended high school at Jesuit in Carmichael. His brother Andrew served as Buster Posey’s backup, and won a championship with the Giants in 2014. He was drafted by the then-Oakland A’s, and stayed with the organization through their move to Sacramento. And now, as of nine days ago, he’s a member of the Giants.
Susac was a first-round pick in 2022 by the A’s, when he was taken 19th overall with a signing bonus of just over $3.5 million (he received, to the dollar, the same signing bonus as was assigned to his draft slot). Drafted for his defense and power, he never developed the way the Athletics envisioned. Susac spent 25 games in Low-A in his draft year, hitting 10% below league average. He hit fairly well in High-A in 2023, and struggled following a late-season promotion to AA. He then spent the entirety of the 2024 season in AA, where he was nearly the definition of a league-average hitter, sporting a 102 wRC+.
That — plus his defense, prospect pedigree, and ticking Rule 5 clock — earned him the nod as the starting catcher for the Las Vegas Aviators in AAA to open up 2025, and that’s where he spent the entirety of the season. Susac’s numbers, in a vacuum, were fantastic on the year, as he hit .275/.349/.483 for an .832 OPS, with 18 home runs in 407 plate appearances. But that came not just in the Pacific Coast League, but for the aforementioned Aviators … who play in an offense-happy park even within the context of the extremely offense-happy league. As a result, Susac’s nice raw stats resulted in just a 94 wRC+, suggesting he was a below-average offensive performer in the league.
While there’s a lot to like with Susac — near-average offense with some power is a perfectly acceptable hitting package for a catcher — there are some fairly notable concerns, namely with his swing-and-miss. His 26.8% strikeout rate was in the 33rd percentile in AAA (with his walk rate just 34th percentile), while his whiff rate was 44th percentile, his zone contact percentage 49th percentile, and his swinging strike rate just 31st percentile. It’s an approach issue more than anything, as Susac’s chase rate was a ghastly 11th percentile. Unfortunately, it’s not a sign of just selling out for power, either, as Susac was middle-of-the-road in power categories such as average exit velocity (35th percentile), maximum exit velocity (57th percentile), and 90th percentile exit velocity (66th percentile).
His defense is also something of a question mark, with opinions ranging from liability to passable. In their ranking of the A’s top prospects a year ago (where Susac came in at No. 22), Fangraphs described the highs and lows of his glove work by saying he “moves around well and is a relatively quiet pitch receiver. His ball-blocking still needs a lot of work and his exit from his crouch is inconsistent and impacts his pop times, which are fine when he has a clean exchange. He’s a flawed third catcher at this point.” That, mixed with the A’s leaving him unprotected in the Rule 5 Draft so that they could keep journeyman Austin Wynns, paints a picture with a lot of pessimism.
But appealing to the Giants’ authority paints a picture with an equal amount of optimism. Despite the Giants having an entrenched starting catcher (Patrick Bailey), and despite trading for a player they’re openly very eager to see catch in the Majors this year (Jesús Rodríguez), they still parted with a decent prospect (17-year old catcher Miguel Caraballo) and signed up for the Rule 5 restrictions to roster Susac, meaning they’re optimistic about his talents. That would seemingly put him in pole position to be Bailey’s backup when Opening Day rolls around, as he’ll be returned to the A’s if he doesn’t make the roster.
Now let’s add to the list! As a reminder, voting now takes place with the “rec” feature in the comment section.
The list so far
- Bryce Eldridge — 1B
- Josuar González — SS
- Jhonny Level — SS
- Bo Davidson — CF
- Dakota Jordan — CF
- Luis Hernandez — SS
- Gavin Kilen — SS
- Carson Whisenhunt — LHP
- Blade Tidwell — RHP
- Keyner Martinez — RHP
- Jacob Bresnahan — LHP
- Trevor McDonald — RHP
- Argenis Cayama — RHP
- Luis De La Torre — LHP
- Trevor Cohen — OF
- Jesús Rodríguez — C
- Parks Harber — OF/3B
- Carlos Gutierrez — OF
- Drew Cavanaugh — C
- Daniel Susac — C
Note: Clicking on the above names will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.
No. 21 prospect nominees
Josh Bostick — 24.1-year old RHP — 3.71 ERA/4.59 FIP in High-A (119 IP)
Trent Harris — 26.10-year old RHP — 5.44 ERA/4.69 FIP in AAA (41.1 IP); 1.69 ERA/1.73 FIP in AA (16 IP)
Gerelmi Maldonado — 21.11-year old RHP — 3.97 ERA/4.65 FIP in Low-A (59 IP)
Lorenzo Meola — 21.11-year old SS/2B — .784 OPS/109 wRC+ in Low-A (70 PA)
Joe Whitman — 24.2-year old LHP — 5.29 ERA/3.61 FIP in AA (117.1 IP)
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.
Category: General Sports
