San Francisco Giants Emerging Pitcher Receives Spot on MLB All-Under-25 Team

A young San Francisco Giants pitcher is held in high regard entering the season.

Aug 19, 2024; San Francisco, California, USA; San Francisco Giants pitcher Kyle Harrison (45) throws a pitch during the first inning against the Chicago White Sox at Oracle Park. / Sergio Estrada-Imagn Images

Beyond their reliable ace, Logan Webb, the San Francisco Giants’ pitching staff has many question marks.

Former Cy Young Award winners Justin Verlander and Robbie Ray will fill in behind Webb.

Dominant when at the top of their games, how much does Verlander have left at 42 years old and can Ray regain his form after a tough 2024 following Tommy John surgery?

Those three are locked into spots, leaving Kyle Harrison, Hayden Birdsong, Jordan Hicks and Keaton Winn, amongst some other non-roster invitees, battling it out for the final two spots.

The player who possess the most upside out of that group is Harrison, a third-round pick in the 2020 MLB draft out of De La Salle High School in Concord, California.

For three years, before exhausting his prospect eligibility in 2024, he was one of the top 100 prospects in the game. He reached as high as No. 18, flashing legitimate ace potential as he moved through the minor league system.

In 31 Major League starts, Harrison has not yet lived up to the expectations that his prospect ranked carried.

He has thrown 159 innings with 153 strikeouts and a 4.47 ERA. The low strikeout numbers are especially shocking given the number he produced in the minors, blowing away hitters with a K/9 of 14.6.

The upside for Harrison is certainly there to become more than a back-end-of-the-rotation innings eater for Giants.

That is partly why Stephen J. Nesbitt of The Athletic (subscription required) selected the talented lefty for the MLB All-Under-25 Team.

Harrison is the No. 5 starter on the future stars team, rounding things out behind Paul Skenes of the Pittsburgh Pirates, Spencer Schwellenbach of the Atlanta Braves, Skenes’s teammate Jared Jones and Taj Bradley of the Tampa Bay Rays.

Only 23 years old with 279.1 innings of work between his high school career ending and being in the Major Leagues, no one should be writing Harrison off yet.

His work while moving through the minor league system was too impressive to ignore. San Francisco moved him aggressively, but he more than held his own at every stop along the way.

Improvements have already been made in several aspects of his game, as his home run percentage, line drive percentage, ground ball percentage and fly ball percentage all headed in the right direction in his first full season with the Giants.

If he can get his strikeout stuff going again, he will quickly become a household name around the league.

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