The 2025 MLB season will, sadly, be over before you know it. But don’t worry: as soon as the baseball ends, more baseball begins!
October 6 is the start date for the 2025 Arizona Fall League, which runs through November 15. That’s right around the corner! And on Wednesday, the rosters for the six-team league were announced. The AFL is mostly full of less-heralded prospects, many of whom need some extra seasoning after finding playing time sparse due to roster logistics or injuries. Though this year
there are a few more high-profile names than in recent years, including Detroit Tigers shortstop Kevin McGonigle, Texas Rangers shorstop Sebastian Walcott, and Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Josue De Paula, three players you’ll see at the top of any prospect list.
The Giants, who, along with the Tigers, Houston Astros, New York Mets, and Washington Nationals comprise the Scottsdale Scorpions, are sending the standard eight players to the desert, along with Nate Keavy, who is the positions coach for the Low-A San Jose Giants. Here’s a little bit about each player the Giants are sending, in alphabetical order.
Maui Ahuna — SS
Age: 23 years, 5 months
Draft/signing: 2023 fourth round (Tennessee)
2025 level: Complex League, Low-A, and High-A
2025 stats: 63 games, 274 plate appearances, .269/.370/.453, 5 home runs, 124 wRC+, 12 stolen bases
Like most of the players on this list, Ahuna has some time to make up for. Despite being drafted more than two years ago, he has just 423 career plate appearances. Critically, though, a lot of those plate appearances came while rehabbing an arm injury, so he was forced to just be a designated hitter. He’s a true shortstop who is one of the top defensive players in the system, but has spent just 461 innings playing the position so far. His bat has held up well so far, though there are contact concerns, as he sported a 28.2% strikeout rate last year, and a 27.0% rate this season. Getting some reps on both sides of the diamond will be good for him.
Ricardo Estrada — LHP
Age: 23 years, 2 months
Draft/signing: 2021 IFA (Mexico)
2025 level: Complex League and Low-A
2025 stats: 22 games, 3 starts, 73 innings, 2.10 ERA, 4.16 FIP, 74 strikeouts, 27 walks
After four years laboring in the Dominican Summer League, Estrada finally got the chance to play stateside this year, and he ran with it. He was overwhelmingly dominant on the Complex League, where he amassed a 1.53 ERA while striking out 44 batters in 35.1 innings, with just seven walks. It was a bit of a bumpy transition when moving up to A-Ball, where he maintained a low ERA (2.63) but had just 30 strikeouts in 37.2 innings, with 20 walks. Estrada gets a lot of ground balls, so if his command from the ACL can translate at higher levels, he could be very intriguing. The AFL will give him a good opportunity to get more familiar with advanced hitters.
Parks Harber — 3B
Age: 23 years, 11 months
Draft/signing: 2024 UDFA (North Carolina)
2025 level: Low-A and High-A
2025 stats: 79 games, 343 plate appearances, .323/.420/.550, 13 home runs, 173 wRC+, 6 stolen bases
It’s still too early to tell anything, but Harber is sure looking like a steal. The righty came to the Giants recently in the Camilo Doval trade, and was only the third or fourth-most notable name in the deal, with far less name value than Jesús Rodríguez and Trystan Vrieling. But all he’s done is hit … which is all he did in the Yankees system, too. In 25 games with the Emeralds, he sported an outrageous 1.097 OPS and a 195 wRC+. Harber is a little older than league average in High-A, and Giants prospect fans have been burned before by older players dominating A-Ball. But the Giants have also had tremendous success recently with unheralded and undrafted players — most notably Bo Davidson, who was part of the team’s 2024 AFL contingency. Harber will start 2026 in AA, and he’ll get a head start on catching up to that competition come October.
Walker Martin — 3B
Age: 21 years, 6 months
Draft/signing: 2023 second round (Eaton High School)
2025 level: Low-A
2025 stats: 108 games, 482 plate appearances, .234/.353/.384, 12 home runs, 107 wRC+, 13 stolen bases
Martin is the rare case of an AFL player who had a fully healthy season with plenty of reps and just needs some tuning. He came to the Giants with a lot of first-round hype, and fell to the Giants in the second round, where they were stoked to get him. But what has followed has mostly been a disaster. Walker’s hyped athleticism hasn’t much shown itself, as he hasn’t looked like the dynamic athlete he was projected to be pre-draft. He wasn’t able to stay at shortstop and was moved to third base this year, where he hasn’t looked particularly good defensively. And of most concern, he’s had a massive contact hole in his game: in a 25-game sample with San Jose last year, he struck out a terrifying 46.3% of the time. He dramatically improved that number this year, but it was still a very poor 28.4%. Martin has shown flashes though, such as in a stretch this May when he smacked seven home runs in as many games. But over the final 23 games of the year he hit just 14-75 with no extra-base hits and 33 strikeouts. This assignment seems to be a pure “get him around as many coaches and as many new hitters and seeing as many pitches as possible to try to fix some stuff before April” move.
Spencer Miles — RHP
Age: 25 years, 1 month
Draft/signing: 2022 fourth round (Missouri)
2024 level: Complex League
2024 stats: 5 games, 3 starts, 7.1 innings, 4.91 ERA, 2.79 FIP, 10 strikeouts, 2 walks
Miles’ name is a happy sight on the Scorpions’ roster, as we simply haven’t seen much of him, and this suggests that he’s healthy. And this is a clean cut example of someone heading to the AFL simply to recoup some lost reps. Miles has dealt with a back injury for virtually his entire career. He didn’t pitch at all this year or in 2023, with just a brief rehab interlude in 2024. It’s been more than three years since Miles was drafted, and he’s pitched just 14.2 innings, total. There’s a ton of life in his arm, but it doesn’t matter if he can’t stay healthy. Here’s hoping he can get some notable time on the mound this fall.
Ryan Murphy — RHP
Age: 25 years, 11 months
Draft/signing: 2020 fifth round (Le Moyne)
2025 level: Low-A and AA
2025 stats: 7 games, 2 starts, 14.2 innings, 6.75 ERA, 5.88 FIP, 11 strikeouts, 9 walks
Murphy is another player who is in the AFL primarily to find some post-injury rhythm. After a breakout campaign in 2021, he struggled with both injuries and performance in 2022, before a middling 2023. 2024 looked like a great bounce back, but he was injured early in the year and missed over a month. He finally returned to the field recently, but has been struggling to find his rhythm — no surprise. Some time in the AFL could get him back up to speed ahead of the 2026 season.
Jose T. Perez — RHP
Age: 22 years, 1 month
Draft/signing: 2021 IFA (Dominican Republic)
2025 level: Dominican Summer League, Complex League, and Low-A
2025 stats: 10 games, 4 starts, 27 innings, 5.00 ERA, 5.70 FIP, 34 strikeouts, 16 walks
For Perez, this is all about getting up to speed after his first healthy season in … well … ever, really. The 6’2 righty pitched just 3.1 innings in his debut 2021 season, before missing the entirety of the 2022, 2023, and 2024 campaigns. He finally returned to the DSL this year where, after one spectacular game, the Giants decided it was time for him to pitch in the states. He had the usual learning curve bumps upon arriving in Papago (and later San Jose), but continued to show excellent strikeout stuff. With some extended run facing advanced hitters in Arizona, he should be able to hit the ground running in San Jose next year.
Juan Sánchez — LHP
Age: 24 years, 9 months
Draft/signing: 2017 IFA (Venezuela)
2024 level: AAA
2024 stats: 23 games, 34.1 innings, 3.93 ERA, 5.17 FIP, 35 strikeouts, 28 walks
Sánchez is the player I’m most excited about seeing on the roster, as he is finally returning from injury. The three-pitch southpaw, who has a delightful changeup, looked primed to be in the Majors by now, before an injury sidetracked his career. He had a breakout 2023 in AA, which earned him some run in AAA, where he performed well while still being in just his age-22 season. He excelled in Spring Training last year, and appeared to be in serious contention to make the Opening Day roster. Instead, he began the year in AAA where, after a decent start, the command fell apart. A trip to the IL with elbow soreness followed, and it was easy to put two and two together. Sanchéz underwent Tommy John surgery over the summer, and his 2025 season ended at the same time that his 2024 one did. The Giants have a lot of retooling to do in the Major League bullpen next year, with Camilo Doval and Tyler Rogers traded, and Randy Rodríguez out for the year. Sánchez has a chance to be part of the solution, and he’ll get started working towards that come October 6.
You can add and subtract players to the AFL roster as the year goes on, so we may see some new names, especially if some of these injury-prone players end up limited. The Giants usually end up sending a catcher to Arizona to help absorb innings, and don’t be surprised if Adrián Sugastey, Onil Perez, or Drew Cavanaugh end up there at some point, as the Scorpions have just a pair of backstops on their roster.
While Sánchez is the most notable name on the roster in my eyes, a player in a similar situation is the most notable omission: left-handed pitcher Reggie Crawford. Like Sánchez, Crawford was in AAA and near an MLB debut last year when he was shut down due to injury, and hasn’t pitched at all this year. The videos posted on his social media page, as well as the timeline for his shoulder labrum repair, suggest that he should be healthy in time to pitch in the AFL, where he played as a hitter two years ago. Crawford not being on the roster could mean that the Giants are leaning towards leaving him unprotected in the upcoming Rule 5 Draft, and want to avoid giving scouts an opportunity to see how he looks post-surgery. Or, of course, it could be any other number of reasons.
So there’s your AFL roster, folks. I’ll try to provide frequent updates of each player’s performance once the season gets underway.
