© Rick Scuteri | 2021 Mar 2
There’s been a lot of talk about Giants prospects Joey Bart, Heliot Ramos and Marco Luciano of late, but there’s another top 100 prospect that has fallen out of the discussion. That’s Hunter Bishop, the Giants’ first-round pick in 2019. Like so many minor leaguers, Bishop, 22 missed out on a 2020 season, but turned heads in 2019, posting an OPS of .867 in 32 combined games in low A and rookie ball.
Bishop hasn’t done much in spring training this year, only one hit in seven at bats, but he’s the 75th ranked prospect (Baseball Prospectus) in all of baseball for a reason, as former Giant and now minor-league hitting coach Pat Burrell explained when he joined “Murph & Mac” on Tuesday morning.
“Nobody hits the ball like this kid,” Burrell said. “He’s young, he hasn’t played a lot in our system unfortunately because of COVID. Last year would’ve been a great year of development for him. When you walk out onto the field and he steps into the cage, it’s a different deal. He’s so powerful and dynamic.
“You look at Chipper Jones, and go ‘that’s a baseball player,’ and this is what Hunter represents too. He’s got a lot to learn and you don’t want to get ahead of yourself because there’s so much development that has to take place, but I was trying to think back to some of the guys who hit the ball that hard, and it’s hard to come up with a handful of guys that I’ve seen that generate that much torque, that much speed.
“It’s pretty impressive, it’s really is.”
Bishop was a masher at Arizona State, posting a slash line of .342/.479/.748 and 22 home runs in 57 games during his junior season. It’s been forever since the Giants have drafted and developed a true power hitting outfielder, and Bishop might have the make-up to finally fill that void.
Listen to the full interview below.