With the 13th pick in the 2024 MLB Draft, the San Francisco Giants selected James Tibbs III, a left-handed outfielder from Florida State. Here’s a quick and easy way to describe his hitting approach: Tibbs played in 66 games this season, and he had six multi-homer games and six multi-strikeout games. He finished the season with 28 homers and 37 strikeouts.
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Any time a hitter gets close to a 1:1 ratio with strikeouts and home runs, it’s a good thing.
The Giants used their first-round pick on a player who doesn’t chase, waits for his pitch and does damage on mistakes in the middle of the strike zone. The organization isn’t trying to reinvent baseball with Tibbs; they’re hoping to find success with a very familiar formula.
It’s a long way from the MLB Draft to San Francisco, much less Cooperstown, so let’s look at why the idea of Tibbs in the Giants’ system should excite you, as well as some of the concerns that are already present.
Why you should be excited about Tibbs
Doesn’t swing at pitches outside of the strike zone. Swings at pitches inside the strike zone. Hits the ball hard when he does swing. Scouting and draft evaluation is hard, except when it isn’t. “See strike, hit strike” combined with “see ball, take ball” is the peanut butter and jelly of hitter profiles.
The Giants could have gone after someone with more impressive raw strength or speed, hoping to polish them into a productive major leaguer, but the organization doesn’t have the greatest history of polishing toolsy prospects. Take the most successful example from the last decade, Heliot Ramos. It took him eight seasons to establish himself, and the Giants are thrilled that he’s arrived, but he’s more of an exception than the rule. There are uncertain early returns from other toolsy prospects, from the high-profile (Marco Luciano), to the medium-profile (Grant McCray) to the under-the-radar (Donovan McIntyre). Vaun Brown was talked about as someone with a chance to make the majors in 2023, but he’s currently having one of the roughest seasons in all of the minor leagues. Tools are fun, but the Giants don’t have a great track record there.
Tibbs isn’t a tools monster, but he comes with the organizational software preloaded onto his operating system. It’s a profile that should move quickly, and that’s not a small consideration lately. Both Wade Meckler and Hayden Birdsong were among the first draftees from their class to make the majors, and it’s not hard to see Tibbs starting in Low-A San Jose next season and getting a cup of iced coffee in Triple-A Sacramento by the end of the year.
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If you’re looking for a comparable player, LaMonte Wade, Jr. is something of an higher-percentile outcome. Power, but not enough to make Barry Bonds sweat. A keen eye, but one that’s combined with a willingness to be aggressive on pitches in the zone.
Another higher-percentile comparison might be Michael Conforto when he was with the Mets. He was an All-Star who had a run of excellent seasons before getting hurt, and any draftee would love to have that kind of peak.
What Tibbs also offers is a lower-percentile chance at being similar to Conforto with the Giants. That is, someone who has the floor of a moderately helpful player. It doesn’t sound exciting, but you shouldn’t get excited about floors. That’s why they’re floors. Tibbs’ plate discipline and bat control gives him a higher floor than most first-rounders. It would be a shock if he didn’t make the majors at some point, with some team.
The last time the Giants drafted at No. 13, they selected Patrick Bailey. The last time they used their first pick on a player out of Florida State, they drafted Buster Posey. Draft picks are likelier to have underwhelming careers than superlative careers, and that doesn’t change because of biographical coincidences. But you should also remember that sometimes first-round picks work out juuuuust fine.
Also, you should be excited that Tibbs has power to all fields. (Ignore the Tomahawk Chop. They did it for Buster too, I’m afraid.)
It’s a sweet swing with exit velocities to match major-league sluggers. He should move quickly. What’s there to be worried about?
Why you should have concerns about Tibbs
Tibbs was undrafted out of high school, and he wasn’t in the first round in preseason mock drafts this year. To go from undrafted to FSU cornerstone is impressive, and it speaks to an ability to learn, adapt and improve. But it’s also a sign that he’s not all tooled up like a typical first-round outfielder. He isn’t 6-foot-5 and doesn’t run the 40 in 2.3 seconds. It’s hard for a first-round pick to be unathletic, but Tibbs is an average-sized player with mostly sub-60 tools. That’s also true of a lot of the players in Texas for the All-Star Game, so don’t read too much into it. Still, it’s how a player with his kind of bat control lasts until the 13th pick in the first place.
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The tools are a bigger focus when it comes to his defensive profile. From Keith Law’s evaluation of Tibbs before the draft:
He has excellent bat speed and hasn’t had trouble with velocity. Tibbs is limited to an outfield corner, though, so he has to rake
That’s the issue with corner outfielders (or first baseman). They have to rake. There’s no other path to a starting job in the majors. It’s rake or bust. Look at Spencer Torkelson with the Tigers and Andrew Vaughn with the White Sox. Both of them were can’t-miss offensive dynamos when they were drafted, and it was easier to wave off the rake-or-bust labels for them. It’s harder to wave them off now, and they both had much stronger pre-draft evaluations than Tibbs.
To paraphrase Mike Tyson, “Everyone has a plan until they see one (1) changeup from Tarik Skubal.” The major leagues are hard, man.
Tibbs isn’t ready to limit himself to a bat-first player, saying that he sees a lot of Gold Glover Kole Calhoun in his game, and he mentioned several times on a post-draft conference call that he takes pride in his defense. But if he plays a corner in the majors, he has to rake.
There’s also the matter of his ability to hit left-handed pitching, which is still in question. Of Tibbs’ 37 strikeouts this season, 17 of them were against left-handers, most of whom aren’t likely to be drafted in the next couple days. He had three strikeouts against Wake Forest’s Josh Hartle, though, who is likely to be drafted and is more representative of the kind of pitcher Tibbs will face as a professional. It’s possible to thrive as a left-handed batter with platoon splits. It’s harder to be a star, though.
Conclusion
Tibbs will move quickly, unless he doesn’t. He’ll be a superstar, unless he’s more of an average starter, unless he’s more of a bench guy, unless he doesn’t do much in the majors at all. He’ll be responsible for some of the best memories you have of Giants baseball over the next couple decades, unless he’s responsible for none of them, unless he’s somewhere in between.
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It’s the draft. Expect nothing, hope for everything.
The main takeaway, though, is that the Giants got a hitter with an idea of the strike zone. Wait for pitches that you can do damage on, then do damage on them. It’s not complicated, and it’s certainly not outdated. The Giants are going to try something that’s worked before and will work again. It’s hard to be cynical about that approach.
(Photo: Gary McCullough / Associated Press)