Longtime Scout Believes Giants Have the Next Barry Bonds in Their Pipeline

The San Francisco Giants don't have a strong farm system.

Ranked 24th by Baseball America and 28th by MLB Pipeline, they have been impacted by graduating a few of their young players. But the overall sentiment is that there aren't a lot of future gamechangers for them in the minors.

Bryce Eldridge is the headliner, and while he is projected to become a superstar slugger at some point in his career, the rest of the top 10 are largely in the lower levels of the farm.

However, this story that was put out by Maria Guardado of MLB.com should catch the attention of Giants fans everywhere.

She spoke with longtime scout Paul Faulk and San Francisco's area scout DJ Jauss about Bo Davidson, the previously unknown prospect who went from undrafted in 2023 to being ranked ninth in their pipeline.

Faulk has a bold claim about the 22-year-old that he is not afraid to share.

"Because I kept telling him, he's Barry Bonds. That's who he is. He's Barry Bonds. I'll stake my life on it. He's Barry Bonds Jr."

The "him" that Faulk referenced was senior director of amateur scouting Michael Holmes, whom went to see Davidson in the Coastal Plain League back in 2023.

How confident was Faulk in his assesment?

"I kept telling [Holmes] over and over. I said, 'I want this kid. I want this kid.' I said, 'I'll cut my toes off. I'll cut my middle finger off. Whatever you want me to do. I'll cut my fingers off. I want this kid. I want him bad.'"

That sentiment was not something new.

Faulk told Jauss early on during his scouting of Davidson that he believed he found someone special, telling Jauss to go see Davidson for himself.

"He comped him to Barry Bonds," Jauss said. "I went and saw [Davidson] 48 hours later. I can't let that slide. He proceeded to kind of play like a JUCO Barry Bonds every time I saw him play. It was unbelievable."

The junior college aspect of Davidson likely is why he was so unheralded.

Playing for Caldwell Community College, he repeatedly left both Faulk and Jauss impressed.

Comps are always made in the scouting world as a way to put a ceiling and floor on a prospect to make it easier to envision what they can become when they are developed in a professional setting.

But with a comp like Bonds, that puts a ton of pressure on Davidson to live up to that hype.

How has he done so far?

He owns a career slash line of .316/.415/.566 with 18 homers and 79 RBI in 113 minor league games while performing well in the field with just three total errors in 836 total innings of outfield play, recording 204 putouts with 10 assists.

Davidson becoming the "next Barry Bonds" likely won't happen.

But San Francisco looks like they have a future star on their hands who could potentially become the face of their franchise if he reaches his ceiling.

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