SF Giants prospects: Heliot Ramos wins PCL Player of the Week Award
Many SF Giants fans may have given up on former top prospect Heliot Ramos, but the 2017 first-round pick has arguably had the best stretch of his career since he began a minor-league rehab assignment in the last week of June. His standout performance last week was honored with the Pacific Coast League Player of the Week Award. Ramos posted an incredible .483/.500/1.103 triple-slash in seven games against the Salt Lake Bees last week with four doubles, a triple, four home runs, and just four strikeouts in 30 plate appearances.
Since returning to the field, Ramos is hitting .435/.469/1.022 with seven doubles, a triple, and six home runs in 49 plate appearances between Single-A and Triple-A. He also has struck out just nine times. While there are obvious reasons to be skeptical of this small sample in the minor leagues, it's notable because of how consistently Ramos has struggled since reaching the upper minors.
Despite making his big-league debut last season, Ramos has not had an exceptional offensive stretch in the minors (before this one) since prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. It was his combination of youth alongside stretches of holding his own against far older competition that created hope that he would eventually break through.
In fact, while he hit just .192/.222/.269 with a pair of doubles, a walk, and eight strikeouts in 27 plate appearances in the majors this season, Ramos was showing signs that he was on the cusp of a major breakthrough. Perhaps, all of the pieces have finally fallen into place.
The Giants drafted Ramos in the first round of the 2017 MLB Draft out of Leadership Christian Academy, a high school in Puerto Rico. Still 17 at the time he was drafted, Ramos hit the ground running in the Arizona Rookie League and quickly emerged as a consensus top-100 prospect. After a down year in his first taste of full-season ball the following year, Ramos delivered a breakout 2019 campaign.
As a 19-year-old, Ramos reached Double-A and even turned in a slightly above-average .242/.321/.421 line in his first upper minors experience. Ramos spent the 2020 campaign at the Giants' alternate site in place of the minor-league season, which was canceled in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Since minor league baseball resumed in 2021, Ramos' prospect stock has collapsed. While Ramos made his big-league debut in 2022, he did so in spite of an underwhelming .227/.305/.349 triple-slash at Triple-A.
Expectations for Heliot Ramos have steadily declined over the past few years. Despite his struggles, the former SF Giants first-round pick remains just 23 years old with nearly 1,200 plate appearances in the upper minors. The team will hope to use his minor-league rehab assignment to help him take another step forward at the plate.
