SF Giants will carry four top prospects on their taxi squad

The SF Giants are set to carry four of their top prospects on their 2020 taxi squad.

The SF Giants are set to see a number of their top prospects in Oracle Park much sooner than most would have likely anticipated.

The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has hit the sports world hard and perhaps no sport has been affected more than baseball. In particular, baseball’s minor leagues have been essentially wiped out due to the current state of the world.

With the 2020 MiLB season canceled, MLB teams will be allowed to carry a taxi squad of players for the upcoming 60-game season. And the Giants are reportedly prepared to add four of their top prospects to the list of players on the squad.

As reported by NBC Sports’ Alex Pavlovic, the likes of Joey Bart, Heliot Ramos, Marco Luciano, and Hunter Bishop will all be a part of the Giants’ tax squad when the team convenes this summer.

How will this affect the SF Giants’ four prospects?

Bart and Ramos were already on the brink of a major-league breakthrough and were both expected to be mid-to-late-season call-ups this year. If the pandemic didn’t happen, it’s likely they would have each been in the majors by September at the latest.

For Luciano and Bishop, however, this is a pretty significant jump. Luciano is just 18-years-old and has played in just 47 professional games. 2019 was Luciano’s first professional season and he played all but nine of those games in the rookie-level Arizona League.

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Bishop, on the other hand, was the Giants’ 2019 first-round pick meaning that he has barely been in the organization for a full year at this point. The promising young outfielder also split last season between the Arizona League and Class-A Short Season.

However, now they’ll get the chance to mix it up with some big-leaguers this summer.

Of course, none are expected to be in the mix to make the Opening Day roster. But this opportunity should provide them with valuable experience as they continue their development.

After all, the hope was that Luciano and Bishop could even make their way up to Double-A by the end of the season. But working out with major-leaguers is certainly a greater opportunity, even if it isn’t an ideal situation.

Simply put, the entire state of baseball’s minor-league system is in flux right now. But this is likely a best-case scenario for the team’s young prospects given circumstances.

Giants fans will certainly be looking forward to seeing these four mix it up with some major-leaguers, even if they aren’t on the Opening Day roster.