Giants former first-round pick suffers injury setback

SAN FRANCISCO -- The Giants had high hopes for Hunter Bishop when they selected him with the 10th overall pick of the 2019 MLB Draft, but he’s struggled to live up to those expectations due to a string of bad injury luck.

Bishop recently suffered another significant setback, announcing in a since-deleted Instagram post that he will miss the entire 2023 season after undergoing surgery to repair a torn ulnar collateral ligament in his elbow.

The 24-year-old outfielder has yet to play above High-A Eugene and has appeared in only 134 Minor League games since becoming the first player drafted by the Farhan Zaidi regime, causing him to fall out of MLB Pipeline’s list of Top 30 Giants prospects.

Bishop, a San Carlos, Calif., native, lost a season of development to the pandemic in 2020, when he was also sidelined by a positive COVID-19 test that delayed his arrival to the Giants’ alternate training site in Sacramento. A right shoulder strain limited him to only 16 games in 2021, and he lost more needed at-bats to an oblique injury last year, batting .235 with a .726 OPS, 13 home runs and 20 stolen bases in 85 games with High-A Eugene.

Bishop's bat speed, strength and the loft in his left-handed swing produce well above-average raw power that plays to any part of the ballpark, but he has yet to show that he can make enough contact or stay healthy enough to take advantage of his pop.

The Giants will hope he’ll come back stronger once he completes his rehab, but he has a long way to go to reestablish himself as a top prospect and prove that he can still be part of the club’s next core of homegrown players.

Here is a look at how things are going with the Giants other top Minor Leaguers early this season:

Triple-A Sacramento
Joey Bart caught six innings and went 2-for-3 in his first rehab game with Triple-A Sacramento on Saturday. Fellow backstop Gary Sanchez, who joined the Giants on a Minor League deal last month, also went 1-for-4 while serving as the River Cats’ designated hitter.

Infielder Casey Schmitt, the 2023 Barney Nugent Award winner, continues to swing a hot bat with the River Cats, entering Sunday batting .314 with a .771 OPS through his first eight games with the River Cats.

Double-A Richmond
Left-hander Nick Swack, who was acquired from the Mets as part of the Darin Ruf trade last year, struck out nine over four scoreless innings in his Double-A debut on Saturday.

Outfielder Luis Matos enjoyed a hot start with Double-A Richmond, going 3-for-4 with a home run in the Flying Squirrels’ 4-3 win over Reading.