The San Francisco Giants had just one Minor League Baseball affiliate in action this weekend. And now that the weekend is over, they have no affiliates in action. So here’s the final Minor League roundup of the 2026 season!
Link to the 2025 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)
All listed positions in the roundup are the positions played in that particular game.
AAA Sacramento (77-73)
Friday: Sacramento River Cats lost to the Round Rock Express (Rangers) 5-2 [box score] Saturday: Sacramento River Cats beat the Round Rock Express 4-2
[box score] Sunday: Sacramento River Cats lost to the Round Rock Express 4-2 [box score]
And with that, Sacramento’s season comes to an end. It wasn’t a great one by any stretch of the imagination, especially given the limited number of players they sent to San Francisco (to make no mention of the limited success those players did have), but it was still a quality year, and marked their second consecutive winning campaign after a few brutal seasons.
It was a largely disappointing year that preceded what will be a critical offseason for right fielder Luis Matos, but he ended the year on a high note, with a nice final weekend of the season, hitting 5-11 with 2 doubles, 2 sacrifice flies, and a strikeout.
Matos had to have been disappointed to get optioned when Jerar Encarnación returned, especially after the team suggested that he would get a good bit of run following the Mike Yastrzemski trade (and he took advantage of that with a great August). But he channeled that disappointment well, hitting 9-16 after getting optioned. But despite the hot ending, and despite the flashes he showed in the Majors this year, Matos will enter 2026 unproven and out of options, which is a scary place to be in, both for the player and for the team.
Center fielder/designated hitter Wade Meckler (No. 13 CPL) also ended the year on a high note, hitting 3-5 with a double, 4 walks, and a strikeout. The 25-year old ended the year on a 5-game hitting streak, going 10-21 with 4 doubles, 4 walks, and just 2 strikeouts during that time. That brought his line up to a .759 OPS and a 109 wRC+, and a much-more-Mecklerian .287 batting average and .390 on-base percentage. He has the bat-to-ball skills that the Buster Posey front office openly covets, and it’s easy to see him bouncing around on the Sacramento Shuttle next year.
A pair of other 40-man players with disappointing seasons tried to end their years on high notes, with mixed success. Center fielder/first baseman/second baseman Tyler Fitzgerald hit 2-11 with a double, a walk, a hit by pitch, and 5 strikeouts, as he approaches a critical offseason. Fitzgerald, who turned 28 last week, opened the year as the Giants starting second baseman, and ended it as a utility player with a .700 OPS and an 85 wRC+ in AAA. He still has so much to offer the Giants: he can play almost anywhere on the diamond, he’s lightning fast, and he can run into a bunch of homers in a hurry. And, critically, he still has an option year remaining after this tough campaign. So he figures to be an important part of the plan in 2026, though he’s going to have to do a whole lot this offseason and in the spring to get back to where he once was.
And left fielder Marco Luciano finally got some hits on Friday, collecting a pair of singles, though he went just 2-12 with 7 strikeouts and an outfield assist over the entirety of the weekend. Luciano ended the year — and likely his organizational tenure — on the slump to end all slumps, which was kind of heartbreaking to see. That pair of hits that Luciano had on Friday were his only hits in his final 11 games of the year, if you’ll believe it. During that time he went 2-45 with 2 walks and 28 strikeouts. There are slumps and then there’s “clearly something is going on” slumps, and this seems pretty firmly to be in the latter category. Yips? Giving up after a disappointing season? Injury? Who knows, but it’s rough to see, and I’m holding out hope for Luciano to come to camp and blow everyone away, as completely unlikely as that feels.
On the mound, LHP Carson Whisenhunt (No. 2 CPL) made a second rehab appearance on Sunday. It went much better than the first one did, though he’s still not fully stretched out. The southpaw, who made his MLB debut recently, pitched 3 innings and threw 46 pitches, 30 of which were strikes. He gave up 2 hits, 2 walks, and 1 run, while striking out 2 batters. With the Giants rapidly approaching elimination, I’d expect Whisenhunt to head back to the Majors to make one final start before the year ends. All the seasoning he can get helps!
The other pair of starts when to players who recently arrived in Sacramento: LHPs Seth Lonsway and Nick Zwack. Lonsway started on Friday and struggled to get through the lineup, needing 86 pitches to get through 4 innings. He didn’t walk any batters, which was great, but he did allow 5 hits (including a home run), 1 hit batter, 4 runs, and 3 earned runs, while only striking out 3. The 2021 6th-round pick, who turns 27 in a few weeks, ends the year with a 4.29 ERA and a 4.78 FIP in 9 AAA starts, after a 3.52 ERA and a 4.15 FIP in 19 starts for AA Richmond. A very solid year for him.
Zwack wasn’t the sharpest either, but he was quite a bit more efficient, throwing 77 pitches to get through 5 innings, in which he gave up 5 hits (including a home run), 2 walks, and 2 runs, while only striking out 3. That’s still a quality outing in the PCL though and, most importantly, it helps get him acclimated to the level he’ll start next year. Zwack, who posted a 4.26 ERA and a 5.40 FIP across 4 levels this year, was really in a “get healthy and shake off the rust while preparing for 2026” season, as he missed a chunk of the 2023 season and all of 2024. Great to see him healthy.
In the bullpen, RHP Will Bednar (No. 43 CPL) made his second appearance since a late season promotion and, like the first one, it didn’t go well. That’s to be expected with pitchers entering the PCL! Bednar threw an inning on Sunday, and gave up 3 hits, 1 walk, and 2 run, which put him at 5 earned runs with just 5 outs recorded during his oh-so-brief stint in AAA. More notably, after recording 84 strikeouts in 50.2 innings with Richmond, the 2021 1st-round pick had struck out none of the 12 batters he faced with Sacramento. None of this is meant as a criticism of Bednar, who had a breakout year in which he emerged as a big time relief prospect. Just a reminder that moving up to the PCL is very difficult, especially for pitchers. I’m expecting big things out of Bednar in 2026.
A pair of fellow exciting bullpen arms, who have had a little more seasoning at the level, pitched well. RHP Braxton Roxby retired all 4 batters he faced on Friday, with 2 strikeouts, while RHP Trent Harris (No. 20 CPL) pitched a scoreless frame on Saturday, with a hit allowed. Roxby had a 5.91 ERA and a 5.75 FIP with Sacramento, which came after posting a 1.20 ERA and a 1.92 FIP with Richmond in the first half of the season. Harris’ performance was similar: after a 1.69 ERA and a 1.73 FIP in AA, he was promoted to AAA where he posted a 5.44 ERA and a 4.69 FIP. Again: the PCL is hard! And a difficult transition! It will be fun to see all three of those ultra-talented relievers in AAA next year, and I wouldn’t be surprised if any of them turned into critical parts of the Major League bullpen in 2026. Bednar and Roxby are Rule 5 eligible this winter, while Harris is not.
RHP Cole Waites (No. 32 CPL) is finally healthy, and pitched twice over the weekend. On Friday he allowed 2 baserunners but no runs in 0.2 innings, and on Sunday pitched a perfect frame, while striking out 1 batter in each outing. Waites missed all of the 2024 season with Tommy John surgery, and his return this year hit quite a bump in the road, but great to see him end the year on a high note.
And with that, another season of Giants Minor League Baseball comes to a close. Thanks everyone who read and commented throughout the year … stay tuned for some light coverage of the Arizona Fall League, followed by the time-honored tradition of the next iteration of the Community Prospect List, which we’ll start up sometime in November.
