The Road to The Show™: Heliot Ramos

Each week, MiLB.com profiles an elite prospect by chronicling the steps he's taken to reach the brink of realizing his Major League dream. Here's a look at San Francisco Giants outfielder Heliot Ramos. For more player journeys on The Road to The Show, click here.

The Giants haven't gotten much out of the Draft in the last decade -- 2011 selection Joe Panik was the most recent first-round pick to produce more than 0.1 bWAR for the club. He's only 21 and has yet to play above Double-A, but San Francisco No. 3 prospect Heliot Ramos, a first-rounder out of Puerto Rico in 2017, is ready to turn the tide.

Selected 19th overall that year, Ramos earned a $3.1 million bonus for a rare combination of speed and power that took the Arizona Rookie League by storm in the summer of 2017. The 17-year-old hit .348/.404/.645 with six homers, six triples, 10 stolen bases and 27 RBIs in just 35 AZL games. While he struck out nearly 32% of the time, every other aspect of his offensive profile was almost too good to be true.

In some ways, it was. Ramos took a step back at Augusta in the Class A South Atlantic League in 2018, which saw his OPS drop 340 points to .709 in his first full season. While his .245/.313/.396 line with the GreenJackets wasn't pretty, it was roughly league-average for an 18-year-old kid who was nearly three and a half years younger than the Sally League average.

Ramos gutted out the campaign, playing in 124 games and hitting 11 homers as the youngest regular in the league and earned the first of two invitations to the All-Star Futures Game. And if the Giants were disappointed by his 2018 performance, it didn't show: they promoted him to San Jose in the California League to open 2019.

It was in San Jose that Ramos first teamed up with Giants 2018 first-round pick Joey Bart, who was already considered the heir apparent to Buster Posey behind the plate in San Francisco. Ramos and Bart slotted in as San Jose's three and four hitters, respectively, until both were sidelined by injuries later in April -- Bart with a broken hand after being hit by a pitch and Ramos with a sprained left knee. Ramos returned after a month and Bart missed about six weeks. By the time both prospects were promoted to Double-A Richmond on Aug. 8, they'd both made a mark in the Cal League. Ramos rebounded from his lackluster 2018 by hitting .306/.385/.500 with 13 homers in 77 games, outpacing Bart's .265/.315/.479 line.

"Heliot did an excellent job of swinging at pitches he could do damage with," Giants director of player development Kyle Haines told MiLB.com in 2019. "He's got power to all fields and considering his age and relative inexperience, that speaks volumes. Defensively, he's played a strong center field and you can see his overall game coming together nicely. He's young, but we feel like we've given him what he can handle and he's passed each test so far."

When Ramos arrived in Richmond at age 19, he was five full years younger than the average Eastern Leaguer. He again held his own against much more experienced pitchers, but his strikeout rate jumped over 31% in his brief 25-game stint with the Flying Squirrels. Ramos also looked overmatched in the Arizona Fall League following the 2019 regular season, hitting just .185/.250/.262 in 17 games with Scottsdale.

Despite the Giants' history of aggressively promoting Ramos, they did not offer him a non-roster invitation to Major League Spring Training in 2020.

Bart told MLB.com that he felt Ramos' absence when he reported to Scottsdale Stadium in February.

"He's really good," Bart said. "I wish he was here. That kid is very special, and I wouldn't say that about a lot of guys."

He played in two Cactus League games anyway, going 2-for-5 with a homer before being sidelined by an oblique strain.

Ramos participated in both the Giants' alternate site workouts in Sacramento this summer and their instructional league in Arizona in the fall, and appears poised to resume his climb to San Francisco as MLB.com's No. 60 prospect.

Ramos will need to answer two questions to get the most out of his potential: Can he keep his strikeouts in check? And can he legitimately play center field in the Majors?

He's shown an ability to adapt at the plate, and with lightning-quick hands and power to all fields, could develop into a .270 hitter with 25-plus homers annually, according to MLB Pipeline. Remaining in center may be more difficult as he continues to fill out his 6-foot frame. Scouts now rate his speed as merely average, which may ultimately lead to a shift to a corner outfield role. The 2021 season will be a big one for the 21-year-old slugger.