Note: Today is nomination day! Head to the comment section to list the players you would like to nominate for the next chapter of the CPL, and click the "REC" button to vote for names you agreed with.
Christmas may have come and passed but, like Hanukkah, our 2025 Willie McCovey Memorial Community Prospect List is still marching on. We'll continue on our quest to rank the top 44 prospects in the San Francisco Giants organization, which will take us all the way to the start of yet another season of Giants baseball.
The holiday chapter of the CPL brought us yet another exciting pitcher: righty Trevor McDonald, who has been voted as the No. 15 prospect in the system. That's a rise of five spots for McDonald, who was No. 20 in last year's CPL.
2024 was a great year for McDonald, a 6'2 pitcher who will turn 24 during Spring Training. Despite never having pitched above High-A, McDonald was rostered in November of 2023 to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft, setting him up for a big year.
Unfortunately, it started the way that many of his seasons have been defined: with an injury. McDonald, an 11th-round pick in 2019 (though his signing bonus was in line with a Competitive Balance Round B pick between the second and third rounds), missed the opening month of the season. He made his season debut in mid-May with a rehab stint in the ACL, and later had a short stint in High-A, where he started to ramp up to starter innings.
In early July, the Giants moved McDonald to Richmond for his AA debut, and he was so impressive that they promoted him to AAA Sacramento after three starts. Like most pitchers, McDonald learned how hard it is to perform in the Pacific Coast League, where the hitters are a melange of polished prospects, Quad-A veterans, and former MLB players, and the parks all try their hardest to look like Coors Field. In 10 games and eight starts with Sacramento, McDonald amassed a fairly average 4.72 ERA and 4.61 FIP ... marks than ranked 52nd and 37th, respectively, out of 121 PCL pitchers with at least 40 innings thrown.
Most excitedly, however, was that he earned his first MLB cup of coffee, as he was called up for the final game of the season. McDonald pitched the final three innings of San Francisco's finale, and didn't give up any hits or runs, while walking one and striking out one.
In the upper Minors, McDonald struggled to strike out batters, though he also excelled at limiting free passes. Across 61.2 innings in AA and AAA, he racked up just 44 strikeouts ... but only walked 18 batters.
It remains to be seen what his future role will be. The Giants have primarily developed him as a starter, which is understandable given his command and fairly large repertoire of pitches. But given his current inability to find a kill pitch, and his injury history -- since getting drafted in 2019 he's pitched just 312 innings -- there's reason for hesitation about whether he could adeptly handle a Major League starter's workload.
Either way, he figures to be a big part of the team's plans in the upcoming season, since he could work in any role and is already on the 40-man roster. 2024 was a big year for McDonald ... and hopefully 2025 is an even bigger one.
Now let's add to the list, and don't forget that today is nomination day!
Note: Clicking on the above names will link to the CPL where they were voted onto the list.