Well friends, I come bearing good news: this is the last week without baseball for a very, very long time. For the San Francisco Giants, pitchers and catchers will report to Scottsdale next Tuesday, and then we’re off to the races.
Speaking of races, we’re nearing the end of this one. We have fewer than 10 names that we need to add to the 2026 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List before we will have successfully ranked the top 44 prospects in the organization once more!
Our next name is a prospect who was somewhat forgotten about, but could play a key role in 2026: it’s outfielder and first baseman Victor Bericoto, who has been voted in as the No. 35 prospect in the system. That’s a drop of 11 spots for Bericoto, who was our No. 24 prospect in last year’s CPL.
There’s a little bit of prospect fatigue for Bericoto, a right-handed hitter and fielder, and for a while there was the matter of whether or not he actually had a future (or present) with the organization. He was signed all the way back in 2018 out of Venezuela, and entered Minor League free agency this winter. But he re-signed with the Giants, and now he’ll look to find his way onto the Major League roster.
Bericoto has some of the best power in the system, as evidenced by his breakout 2023 campaign in which he hit 27 home runs between High-A Eugene and AA Richmond, while sporting a .239 isolated slugging … despite being in just his age-21 season. But things stalled out for him in 2024, when he spent the entire season in AA and only hit 11 home runs, matching his total at the level from the year prior, in well over twice as many plate appearances. He was the epitome of an average hitter in the Eastern League, with a wRC+ of exactly 100. Given that he derives virtually all of his value as a hitter, that knocked a lot of the shine off of his prospect pedigree.
2025 was a much more encouraging season, but it was a roller-coaster as well, all the way up to the aforementioned free agency and re-signing. Bericoto returned to Richmond for a third year, and he didn’t stay long. He played just 13 games, collected multiple hits in four of those games, and hit .319/.439/.596 — staggering numbers for the offensively-challenged Eastern League. That earned him the ultra-early mid-April promotion to AAA Sacramento, where he was a step away from the bigs for the first time in his life.
That’s when the dip in the roller coaster came and, unlike with actual roller coasters, dips are not the fun part for athletes. Bericoto played just 11 games for the River Cats, hitting .196/.196/.283 for a .478 OPS and a 16 wRC+, before hitting the shelves for a few weeks with an injury. When he returned to health (after six rehab games in the Complex League in which he hit 11-23 with seven extra-base hits), top prospect Bryce Eldridge had supplanted him on the first base bag in Sacramento. With the AAA roster positively overflowing with outfielders, Bericoto was, disappointingly, returned to Richmond for another run in AA.
The results were initially quite poor. Perhaps it was just a slump, perhaps it was the injury lingering, or perhaps it was the disappointment of a fourth stint in AA (it did feel a little bit like Marco Luciano’s end to the season, when the writing was on the wall and his performance followed), but Bericoto couldn’t hit a lick upon his re-arrival in Richmond. He returned on June 3 and failed to find the Mendoza Line in both June and July, hitting just 29-155 with 12 extra-base hits, 16 walks, and 44 strikeouts (a very high number for someone who historically had fairly decent strikeout numbers).
But as the calendar — and, it seemed, his time with the organization — neared a close, Bericoto found his swing once again. He surpassed his June and July hit total in August alone, and from the start of the month until the end of the season, he hit a sensational 48-142 with 11 extra-base hits, 17 walks, and 40 strikeouts (admittedly still a high strikeout total). Despite the awful midseason slump, he finished the year with a .784 OPS and a 130 wRC+ in AA, and showed there’s nothing left for him to learn — or prove — at that level.
And now there’s a spot for him in AAA. The outfield, instead of overflowing, is thin: Marco Luciano is gone, as is Wade Meckler and, presumably, Hunter Bishop. Luis Matos and Jerar Encarnación are out of options, so they are highly unlikely to be manning Sacramento’s grass. The outfielders the Giants added in the offseason are already gone. And with Eldridge a favorite to crack San Francisco’s Opening Day roster, there’s even a likely opening at first base.
While Bericoto is a bat-first player, he’s no slouch with the glove. He’s perfectly competent at first base, and I’d go so far as to call him decent in the outfield. He doesn’t need to light the world on fire in the batter’s box to be a valuable Major Leaguer … if he can hit above league average, he can help the Giants, and it wouldn’t be a shock if he finds his way onto the big league roster sometime this summer.
And, despite having been signed during the Bobby Evans regime, Bericoto isn’t exactly pushing time on the age scale, either: he only turned 24 in December, putting him in the same age category as plenty of the Giants selections from the 2023 draft.
He’s always shown a lot of promise. Maybe this year we see it on the largest stage.
Now let’s add to the list! As a reminder, voting now takes place in the comment section using the “rec” feature.
The list so far
Note: Clicking on the above names will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.
No. 36 prospect nominees
Rayner Arias — 19.9-year old OF — .173 OPS/-42 wRC+ in Low-A (30 PA); .699 OPS/87 wRC+ in ACL (178 PA)
Sabin Ceballos — 23.5-year old 3B — .670 OPS/102 wRC+ in AA (420 PA)
Jack Choate — 24.9-year old LHP — 3.51 ERA/4.17 FIP in AA (102.2 IP)
Jakob Christian — 23.4-year old OF/1B — .950 OPS/155 wRC+ in High-A (92 PA); .815 OPS/119 wRC+ in Low-A (318 PA)
Reggie Crawford — 25.1-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)
Reid Worley — 19.6-year old RHP — yet to debut
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.
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