San Francisco Giants: 5 Players Most Under the Microscope Entering Spring
The Giants’ best hitting prospect (and 89th-best prospect in baseball), Christian Arroyo, is a non-roster invitee in camp for the second straight year, and he’s inching closer to making his big league debut. Arroyo would have to enjoy an otherworldly, Bonds-like Spring to make the roster out of camp, but at some point in 2017, it seems likely he’ll see a diamond in San Francisco.
But first, he has to bounce back from a down year at Double-A in 2016. The Eastern League, in which the Richmond Flying Squirrels play, is known as a pitcher’s league, but his numbers were pretty well down from his previous years. His .274 average and .689 OPS in 2016 were both his worst over a full minor league season so far, and he hit just three home runs in 517 plate appearances.
He did hit 36 doubles, the third-most in the league, and had a 13.9 percent strikeout rate, both of which are very promising numbers. Arroyo is likely headed to Triple-A to start next season, and that will give him an opportunity to prove that his 2016 struggles were more because of the environment than the player.
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First, he’ll head to Spring Training with the big league team and try to open eyes, as he did last season. In Arizona in 2016, Arroyo collected 10 hits in 18 at-bats over 13 games, including a pair of home runs. One of those longballs came off an established big league pitcher, the late Yordano Ventura.
Another Spring performance like that will certainly turn heads, and could speed up the process leading to his big league debut.