Eugene Emeralds director of media relations Alex Stimson made a cryptic Twitter post on Tuesday night (Wednesday morning), writing “Too wired to sleep. BIG day tomorrow… err, today. #GoEms.”
The momentary confusion was qualmed when the Emeralds tweeted a hype video at noon on Wednesday, saying “The wait is over, #SFGiants fans. Welcome to High-A ball, Marco Luciano.”
The video showed a montage of tweets from various Giants fans begging for Luciano to be promoted, then the words “The wait is over,” followed by a series of clips of Luciano bashing the ball around the ballpark in San Jose.
It was a much anticipated announcement — Luciano, the 19-year-old shortstop phenom, was on his way to Eugene at last.
The reason for all the excitement? Luciano is considered the consensus No. 1 prospect in the San Francisco Giants’ farm system and is ranked by MLB.com as the No. 11 prospect in all of baseball. After the teenager posted a .930 OPS in 70 games with the Low-A San Jose Giants, it was evidently time for a promotion. This past week at PK Park, Luciano gave Giants and Emeralds fans a live glimpse of the future.
The Giants signed Luciano out of the Dominican Republic in 2018 when he was just 16. He was the No. 2 ranked prospect among that year’s international class and received a signing bonus of $2.6 million.
He made his professional debut in 2019 at age 17 with the Rookie-level AZL Giants Orange. He tore it up in 28 games, hitting .322/.438/.616. That same year, he was promoted to the Low-A Salem-Keizer Volcanoes and hit a less spectacular .212/.316/.333 in nine games.
However, as written in a scouting report by Lukas McKnight and Tom Shafer, he had an impressive 15.8% strikeout rate with the Volcanoes, “proving he wasn’t overmatched.” He posted a 14.8% walk rate between the two levels, showing remarkable maturity for a 17-year-old.
In the scouting report, in which Luciano was compared to Alfonso Soriano and Carlos Correa, McKnight and Shafer wrote, “For such a young player that’s still growing into his body, he’s awfully quiet and relaxed in his setup and load, and he lands softly to put himself in a position to make good swing decisions.
“He’s engaged in his lower half already, and expect him to get even more out of his legs as he gets stronger and better understands how to generate power from his lower half.”
Luciano did just that in his time with San Jose in 2021, bashing 18 homers while slugging .556. He hit one ball with an exit velocity of 113 mph — a feat that, even at the big league level, only one Giant has accomplished.
He joined the Emeralds on Wednesday and made his debut in the starting lineup on Thursday. Fans gathered at PK Park and stared and cheered in awe as the 19-year-old phenom took the field.
After flying out in his first at-bat, he hit a two-run double down the left field line in his second time up to the plate, leading the Emeralds to a 7-4 win. The shortstop looked solid and smooth in the field as well.
In his second game, hitting in the two-hole again, came his most impressive feat in the series. Luciano smashed one all the way onto the shed in right field — an impressive accomplishment for a left-handed hitter, but an even more impressive achievement for a right-handed hitter like Luciano. His bat speed was electric and absolutely flung through the zone. Already, he seemed to be winning the hearts of Giants and Emeralds fans alike.
It wasn’t all smooth sailing, though. After the homer, he went 0-for-11 with nine strikeouts for the remainder of the series. All throughout the four games, he was swinging early and often, which was uncharacteristic given his impressive walk rate in San Jose. Even when he did connect for that double and homer, he was aggressive early in the count and swung freely, sometimes out of his shoes.
In a way, it’s hard to blame Luciano — as a 19-year-old with that kind of hype attached to your name, and an incredible amount of raw talent, it’s only natural to want to swing at anything that looks like a strike. Going forward, it will be interesting to see if he can lay back a little and transfer that patience against a higher level of competition.
Defensively, he didn’t make any errors or egregious mistakes, but none of his plays stood out too much, either. In their scouting report, McKnight and Shafer wrote that his lateral movement and speed are fairly average, while he does possess a strong arm.
With non-flashy range, he may end up at third base in the long term, but as McKnight and Shafer wrote he should have “defensive versatility due to his athleticism.” He is certainly athletic, a skinny but strong kid who stands at 6-foot-2 and weighs about 178 pounds.
The real story for the rest of this season will be Luciano’s bat and how he adjusts. High-A pitchers are likely not going to throw him a lot of strikes and will hunt for his weaknesses. Baseball is all about adjustments, and Luciano’s going to need to find that patience that has brought him such success in his minor league career thus far.
As fans saw on that opposite field bomb, he certainly has the talent to tear apart the High-A West.
