Are the SF Giants trying to manipulate Kyle Harrison’s service time?

The SF Giants aggressively promoted several top prospects earlier this season but is the CBA leading the team to treat Kyle Harrison differently?

It's no secret that the SF Giants have aggressively promoted their prospects this season. After Alex Cobb landed on the injured list on Sunday, it seems like the Giants have a clear path to call up top pitching prospect Kyle Harrison (Giants #1 preseason prospect). San Francisco has taken advantage of similar situations this season with Casey Schmitt (Giants #3 preseason prospect), Luis Matos (Giants preseason #4 prospect), and Patrick Bailey (Giants #21 preseason prospect).

Yet, after scratching Sean Hjelle (Giants #28 preseason prospect) from his start on Sunday at Triple-A, it seems like Harrison is going to be skipped over once again. Why has the organization seemed to handle Harrison differently than several other top prospects? Perhaps the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) has something to do with it.

SF Giants prospect Kyle Harrison talks on the field before the Futures Game. (2022) / Jayne Kamin-Oncea-USA TODAY Sports

The most obvious difference between Harrison and the other top prospects the Giants have promoted, of course, is that the De La Salle High School alum is a pitcher. San Francisco has been exceedingly cautious with Harrison's workload since they drafted him with their third-round pick in 2020. Harrison completed 98.2 innings in 2021, 113 last season, and will probably be limited to 125-130 innings pitched this year. However, after dealing with tight pitch counts early in the season, Harrison has eclipsed 80 pitches in each of his past two outings.

In fact, Harrison has seemed to go from effectively wild to dominant in the last few weeks. In his five most recent starts, Harrison has recorded a 1.74 ERA with 33 strikeouts in 20.2 innings pitched while issuing just 10 walks. His elite ERA is even more incredible in the context of the Pacific Coast League, where the league ERA is just shy of 6.00 and Harrison is more than six years younger than the average player.

Kyle Harrison was dealing tonight!

The top @SFGiants prospect (MLB No. 15) struck out eight over a season-high five innings for the @RiverCats: pic.twitter.com/NpRhcKIIkT

— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) June 16, 2023

The Giants have other prospect options they have already called upon, like Keaton Winn (Giants preseason #18 prospect), Tristan Beck (Giants preseason #19 prospect), and Hjelle. Veteran Ross Stripling has also begun making rehab appearances as he works to corral his arsenal while on the injured list. However, the Giants had alternatives with Matos, Schmitt, and even Bailey (to a lesser extent).

In those situations, the Giants had more experienced options like Bryce Johnson, Brett Wisely (Giants preseason #22 prospect), and Ricardo Genovés at Triple-A. Neither Schmitt nor Bailey had performed exceptionally at Triple-A. In fact, both had been below-average hitters, according to wRC+. Yet, they still got the call.

Despite their unexceptional offensive performances at Triple-A, Schmitt and Bailey hit the ground running in the majors. While Schmitt is in the middle of an ugly slump at the plate, the team has shown no signs of optioning him in the near future. Nevertheless, after pulling the trigger so quickly on the organization's first two picks in the 2020 MLB Draft, there's reason to wonder if there's another reason the organization is handling the team's third-round pick from the same draft class so differently.

Enter the Prospect Promotion Incentive (PPI), a new system introduced by the 2022 CBA that intended to curtail service time manipulation by incentivizing teams to have top prospects start the season on their Opening Day rosters. Under the PPI rules, any player that appears on at least two of MLB Pipeline, Baseball America, and ESPN's top-100 prospect rankings that has accrued fewer than 60 days of MLB service can earn their organization a draft pick if they begin the season on the Opening Day roster and go on to win the Rookie of the Year award or finish in the top three of Cy Young and/or MVP voting prior to reaching arbitration. The pick is nothing to scoff at either, it comes immediately at the end of the first round.

Harrison was on all three top-100 prospect rankings during the offseason and has only further solidified his status this year. But because he was not on the Giants' Opening Day roster, the organization will not be eligible to receive a pick unless he accrues fewer than 60 days of MLB service time in 2023 and is on their Opening Day roster next year.

It's vital to remember that service time manipulation is a violation of the CBA. MLB teams are not allowed to restrict a player's service (and thus, salary) if they are deserving of a call-up. Moreover, the compensation is explicitly not supposed to reward teams for developing elite talent. It is simply supposed to curtail MLB teams' rules violations.

The MLBPA has always faced an uphill battle stopping service time manipulation because they have to prove that a team has explicitly chosen to delay a prospect's promotion for service time reasons. With so many viable big-leaguers in every organization, it's easy for teams to defend their moves. The already impossible task of proving that case has arguably gotten harder under the new system.

The PPI did not eliminate service time manipulation but changed the practice. Now, teams have incentives pulling them in opposite directions. Teams are encouraged to push an elite prospect onto the Opening Day roster, something that the St. Louis Cardinals seemed to do with Jordan Walker this season. However, once they opt to start an elite prospect's season in the minors, the organization has every incentive to keep them from accruing 60 days of MLB service time.

The Giants could call Harrison up at any point this season, even this week, and still be eligible to receive a PPI if he accrues fewer than 60 days of service time in the majors. Nevertheless, if how the Giants have managed Schmitt, Bailey, and Matos is any sign of their strategy with Harrison, they seem to prefer calling a player up for good.

The Giants came into the season with a glut of veteran starting pitching options. Ace Logan Webb led a group that also included Cobb, Anthony DeSclafani, Alex Wood, Sean Manaea, Ross Stripling, and Jakob Junis. However, Webb, DeSclafani, and Cobb have been their only healthy and consistently effective starters. There is a clear opportunity for Harrison to round out the Giants' rotation.

Still, given Harrison's youth, struggles with walks, and the obvious concerns that come with any pitching prospect, it's far from unjustified for the Giants to lean on their more experienced arms until he puts together a more prolonged stretch of dominance. However, it's worth keeping an eye on the situation.

Will the Giants call up Harrison at some point this season? Barring an injury, the answer seems like a resounding yes. While the Giants have plenty of alternatives in the organization, for now, there's reason to watch Kyle Harrison's service time closely. If he finishes the year with somewhere around 50-59 days on the big-league roster, it's reasonable to wonder if the SF Giants planned to undermine the league's CBA all along.