San Francisco Giants Outfielder Heliot Ramos' Breakout Is Real

The former top prospect finally got consistent playing time and he has taken full advantage of it.

Jun 2, 2024; San Francisco, California, USA; San Francisco Giants left fielder Heliot Ramos (17) drops his bat while running to first base after hitting a home run against the New York Yankees during the third inning at Oracle Park. / Darren Yamashita-USA TODAY Sports

The San Francisco Giants selected Heliot Ramos with the 19th overall pick in the 2017 draft. For the next few seasons, he would consistently slot in as one of their five or six best prospects in the system. The outfielder was selected to three different Futures Games and was a two time organizational All-Star.

It looked as if he was going to be a future conerstone piece in the outfield, and while it took some time, he's proving that was a good assumption.

Ramos made his big league debut in 2022, but in his nine games, things did not go well. He had just two hits in 20 at-bats that were spread across four different months. He was hitting just .227 in Triple-A, but the Giants still thought he was ready. It just hadn't panned out in the majors.

The 2023 season came with more of the same for Ramos with the Giants; inconsistent playing time. He made nine appearances in April and hit .192, leading to his option back to Triple-A. Upon his arrival in Sacramento, he crushed the ball. In 62 games, he had an OPS of .928 and hit 14 home runs.

The Giants called him back up in August, but he still had trouble adjusting to big league pitching and hit just .167, but he did get his first big league homer.

With offseason signings and a crowded outfield, it looked as if the trend would continue for Ramos. However, he was re-called on May 8 when Jorge Soler went down with a shoulder injury. The 24-year-old drove in a run in his first game and hasn't looked back since.

With Soler on the shelf and Michael Conforto, Austin Slater and Jung Hoo Lee soon to go down, Ramos was ready to take over a full-time starting role in the outfield and has flourished.

Ramos has played 25 games in his new role and has done nothing but hit. He is currently hitting .304 with a .913 OPS and five home runs. He has already made his way to fifth on the team in bWAR with 1.3 going into Wednesday's action, and at the time of writing leads the team in slugging percentage (.511) and OPS+ (147) with LaMonte Wade Jr. (168 OPS+) on the IL.

His numbers are great, but when you look under the hood at his Statcast numbers, things just get better.

While he is not yet qualified, his average exit velocity of 93.1 mph would rank in the top 15 in all of baseball. Not to mention, his hard hit percentage (55.4) would be in the top ten and barrel percentage (14.3) would be top 25.

Another encouraging sign is that he has improved on his fly ball percentage from 19.4 percent in 2023 to 26.8 percent in 2024, while also lowering his groundball percentage from 52.8 to 46.4 percent.

All of this to say: he has turned into one of the better hitters in baseball in this stretch and all of those numbers have improved upon his performance from last season. Ramos has quickly become one of the best hitters in the lineup.

It took some time, but Heliot Ramos is finally showing what all prospect evaluators saw, the reason he was thought of so highly in the Giants system and even a top 100 prospect in all of baseball. With consistent MLB at-bats comes a better ability for young hitters to adjust to the level of pitching, and Ramos is proving that with every at-bat.

While both he and Luis Matos both started off hot, Ramos has kept his performance up and Matos was shipped back to Triple-A. The new everyday left fielder for the Giants has been the breakout star for the team and now has a tight grip on his new job.