SF Giants OF Heliot Ramos is closer to a breakout than you think
The SF Giants were excited to activate veteran outfielders Austin Slater and Mitch Haniger from the injured list over the weekend. With those proven bats back in the lineup, young outfielder Heliot Ramos (Giants #17 prospect) was optioned back to Triple-A Sacramento. Ramos hit .192/.222/.269 with a pair of doubles, a walk, and eight strikeouts in 27 plate appearances during his stint with the big-league club. But do not let those underwhelming numbers fool you, there were quietly several reasons for optimism in Ramos' performance.
SF Giants outfielder Heliot Ramos jogs toward the dugout between innings. (2022)
Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports
The Giants hitting coaches were clearly focused on helping Ramos hit the ball in the air more consistently during his time with the team. Ramos was one of a few young players who was taking batting practice with coaches before nearly every game, and there was clearly an added focus on Ramos' swing mechanics from the staff.
Even in his limited time with the Giants, Ramos quietly was significantly closer to productivity than he was against MLB pitching in 2022. His average launch angle skyrocketed from 1.7 to 12.7 degrees, right in line with league averages (12.5 degrees).
Statcast classifies a batted ball with a launch angle between eight and 32 degrees as in the "sweet spot," which most consistently generates extra-base hits. Ramos doubled his rate of sweet spot contact from his stint with the Giants in 2022 to 2023 from 21.4% to 44.4% (33.0% is league average).
The improved elevation did nothing to Ramos' already solid exit-velocity numbers. In fact, both his average exit velocity (87.4 mph to 89.5 mph) and max exit velocity (107.4 mph to 110.9 mph) were higher in his 2023 stint than they were in 2022.
A "barrel" is the ideal contact for a hitter. To record a barrel, a batted ball must both be hard hit and in the sweet spot. Ramos recorded a barrel in two of his 27 plate appearances (7.6%), a rate which would rank tied with Nelson Cruz and Anthony Rizzo for 76th of 266 qualified MLB hitters so far this season.
Capping off Ramos' development compared to last season, he nearly cut his whiff rate in half against fastballs, breaking balls, and offspeed pitches.
Yes, these improvements occurred during a small sample, but all the pieces were suddenly there for Ramos to be a legit contributor. Yet, despite all that progress, Statcast's expected slugging percentage (xSLG) for Ramos was still only .398, a modest jump from his .366 xSLG with the Giants last season. He was hitting the ball harder, getting the ball in the air more, and making more contact, so why were his numbers still lagging so far behind? The answer is simple. Even with the improvements, Ramos still hit the ball on the ground a lot, and that's where most of his hard contact was going.
Ramos' groundball rate dropped from 64.3% in 2022 with the Giants to 55.6% this go around, but that remained significantly higher than the 44.8% MLB average. Moreover, while he had exceptional hard-hit rates, he also had a massive spike in weak contact. A lot of that weak contact came on soft line drives or pop ups to infielders. Those type of hits rarely lead to positive outcomes for hitters, but it was also a sign of incremental improvement for Ramos.
A former first-round pick and consensus top-100 prospect in the minors, Ramos turned heads as a teenager in 2019, hitting .306/.385/.500 with the Giants High-A affiliate. While his production dipped after a promotion to Double-A, many expected him to adjust quickly.
Instead, Ramos hit a middling .237/.323/.432 at Double-A in 2021 and has hit just .246/.313/.366 at Triple-A since he reached the highest level of the minors. In the incredibly hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, Ramos was the least productive hitter in the league last season.
It was clear from Giants manager Gabe Kapler's conversations with media during Ramos' stint that the organization called upon the 2017 first-round pick out of necessity not performance. While he was hitting .333 early in the season at Triple-A, he had shown virtually zero power and was not knocking the door down for a promotion.
Casual fans can easily grow frustrated with prospects, particularly ones like Ramos who have received prominent media coverage for several years. But multiple things can be true. A prospect can be a future big-league contributor and ill-equipped in the present moment to succeed against MLB competition. Ramos was clearly overmatched since his promotion, but there were several positive signs that his development is back on a positive trajectory.
Most adjustments take time, even for the best athletes in the world. Ramos was such an advanced hitter for his age that he was able to perform well in spite of bad habits in the lower minors.
Ramos may not have put the pieces together in his brief time with the Giants, but for the first time in his career, he was showing all of the puzzle pieces more consistently. Now, back facing Triple-A pitching that should be far less overwhelming, he has a chance to put them all together.
In his first game back at Triple-A on Tuesday, Ramos led the River Cats offense in a 5-4 loss to Oklahoma City with a pair of extra-base hits. Leading off the game, Ramos hit a double to left field that traveled 337' in the air and had an exit velocity of 95.9 mph. In his next trip to the plate, Ramos crushed a 3-2 pitch more than 380' down the left-field line for his first home run of the season with a 106.0 mph exit velocity.
Ramos struck out in his three other trips to the plate, and that's something to watch. Hitting the ball in the air more consistently usually requires a player to make one of two major adjustments, either trying to swing earlier to make contact further in front of the plate or by reworking their swing entirely to have a more significant uppercut. Both of those shifts make a hitter more prone to swing and miss.
Still, that's a trade-off the Giants would love to see Ramos make. The former first-round pick made it even easier to stomach a potential spike in his strikeouts after he posted the lowest strikeout rate of his career last season at Triple-A (23.6%).
Injuries pushed the Giants to give Ramos some big-league opportunities early this season. While his overall performance was lacking, the 23-year-old prospect was beginning to flash some necessary improvements. Back in the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League, Heliot Ramos will look to finally put all the pieces together and mash his way back into the SF Giants' long-term plans.
