We have reached the final chapter in the 2026 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List! Just one more ballot must be submitted, and then we will have successfully ranked the top 44 prospects in the San Francisco Giants organization. And with time to spare, I might add!
The penultimate name on our list is someone who was opening a lot of eyes this time last year: it’s third baseman Sabin Ceballos, who has been voted as the No. 43 prospect in the system. That’s a drop of 25 spots for Ceballos, who made his CPL debut at No. 18 a year ago.
That paints the picture of someone who had a tough 2025, but that doesn’t quite do justice to the narrative arc of his prospectdom. The right-handed hitter was a third-round pick in the 2023 draft by the Atlanta Braves, and received a signing bonus in line with a mid-fourth round pick. He was coasting along in Atlanta’s system, playing decently but not making a lot of noise: during 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 the Giants in the Jorge Soler deal. He stayed in High-A, heading straight to the Northwest League to join the Eugene Emeralds. That was a homecoming for the University of Oregon product, and it seemed that the refreshing Pacific Northwest air ignited something in Ceballos. He hit the cover off the 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 the rest of the way.
He quickly proved that the success wasn’t just due to a reunion with the state of Oregon. Ceballos popped over from Minor League camp to fill in for a handful of Cactus League games in 2025, and the results were mesmerizing. He appeared in 15 games for the Giants this time last year, and hit 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 some serious prospect shine.
Those highs were very high, but what followed was not. The Giants assigned Ceballos to AA Richmond, where he spent the entirety of the 2025 season, and the results were not very good. He had a rough debut, barely staying above the Mendoza Line in April, and then things got very ugly.
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 home runs, 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 slump did not last all year, and Ceballos put in some serious work turning around his season. You certainly would not have been able to predict, as the calendar turned to July, that Ceballos would end the year with a triple-digit wRC+, but he did exactly that.
After two straight months well below a .200 average, Ceballos nearly hit .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. That brought him all the way up to a .670 OPS and a 102 wRC+. Those numbers look even better when you account for age: Ceballos turned 23 towards the end of the season, making him roughly 1.5 years younger than his average peers.
While Ceballos ended the year on a tear, the overall numbers are still not particularly good. His overall line was carried in large part by his strong walk rate of 11.2%, which ranked 46th out of 134 Eastern League hitters who had at least 200 plate appearances last year. But his batting average of .232 ranked 72nd, while his isolated slugging of .106 was 91st.
Despite those poor numbers, Ceballos had little issue making contact in 2025. His strikeout rate was a very tidy 17.4%, which ranked 24th out of those aforementioned 134 hitters, and his swinging strike rate of 7.3% was 16th. He does a tremendous job of making contact … he just struggles to make good contact.
But wait! There’s even more optimism. Ceballos is not your prototypical Minor League third baseman, hoping that the bat can carry a no-place-to-put-him-throw-him-in-a-corner-and-hide-his-glove defensive profile. No, Ceballos was a bonafide defensive weapon at the hot corner last year. I’d stop short of calling him Casey Schmitt or Matt Chapman out there, but he’s very strong defensively. If the bat can rise to meet the glove, then he’ll be cooking, and have a Major League career ahead of him.
I would presume that he’ll be back in Richmond for a repeat of the level in 2026, though he’ll be sharing real estate with Parks Harber if that’s the case. And given how hot his second half was in 2025, it probably won’t take too many weeks of swinging the bat well to get a promotion to AAA where, as they say, you’re only one call away.
Now let’s vote on the final name for our list! As a reminder, voting now takes place in the comment section, using the “rec” feature.
The list so far
- Bryce Eldridge — 1B
- Josuar González — SS
- Jhonny Level — SS
- Bo Davidson — CF
- Dakota Jordan — CF
- Luis Hernández — 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
- Gerelmi Maldonado — RHP
- Josh Bostick — RHP
- Lorenzo Meola — SS/2B
- Will Bednar — RHP
- Yunior Marte — RHP
- Joe Whitman — LHP
- Joel Peguero — RHP
- Alberto Laroche — RHP
- Trent Harris — RHP
- Carlos De La Rosa — LHP
- Diego Velasquez — 2B
- Lisbel Diaz — OF
- Maui Ahuna — SS
- Cam Maldonado — OF
- Victor Bericoto — OF/1B
- Reid Worley — RHP
- Jack Choate — LHP
- Rayner Arias — OF
- Nate Furman — 2B
- Jakob Christian — OF
- Juan Sánchez — LHP
- Jancel Villarroel — C
- Sabin Ceballos — 3B
Note: Clicking on the above names will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.
No. 44 prospect nominees
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 — 25.2-year old LHP — 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)
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 — 25.7-year old 3B/1B — .816 OPS/122 wRC+ in High-A (549 PA)
Tyler Vogel — 25.3-year old 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 stats are from the 2025 season.