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The future of baseball is unclear, but Farhan Zaidi sounds pretty excited about the future of the Giants.
There are a few faces that have emerged as possible contributors to the next great Giants team, including Joey Bart and Heliot Ramos. The catcher and center fielder, respectively, have gone through the system together, hitting Double-A Richmond last season, and impressed to varying levels in spring training, as Bart spent much of camp with the major league club and Ramos made a couple cameos.
Bart was sizzling, slashing .438/.526/.875 in 19 plate appearances, while Ramos launched his first home run in his second game before being removed due to a mild oblique strain. Zaidi wants to see them again soon.
“It was really great seeing what Bart and Ramos were able to do,” Zaidi said on KNBR’s “Tolbert, Krueger & Brooks” on Thursday. “… Our hope is that when we get going here, that the minor leagues are going concurrently and those guys still have the ability to play in the big leagues at some point in 2020. There’s even more ifs to that equation than there were a couple weeks ago.”
Starting Major League Baseball if and when the coronavirus pandemic is halted will be a large hurdle to clear. Starting minor league baseball, which spreads wider, dotting so many towns and cities across the country in a league that makes far less money, will be much more difficult.
If the minors are able to get up and running at some point, Zaidi said the duo needs a bit of finishing before getting called up — but not much.
“I think those guys have shown that they have a little bit of development left but not a lot. I think we’re going to see them real soon. [Marco] Luciano same thing,” the president of baseball operations said about the 18-year-old shortstop. “He’s a guy that is maybe a year behind those other two guys, but had a chance to jump multiple levels this year.
“With all those guys it’s obviously really important that we stay connected with them, that they’re working out safely and at home, but continue to try to stay sharp so that when we get going, they can really hit the ground running.”