Giants Talk: San Francisco selects Jackson Flora with No. 4 pick in MLB Draft
"Giants Talk" hosts Cole Kuiper and Alex Pavlovic analyze San Francisco selecting RHP Jackson Flora with the No. 4 pick in the 2026 MLB Draft.
Giants Talk: San Francisco selects Jackson Flora with No. 4 pick in MLB Draft originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
I can't remember being this dialed in and excited about a draft in a long time.
A lot of that having to do with Giants being so har- high in the draft order and the players available.
But they, they did it.
They got the guy that it didn't feel like the rumors had them interested in.
But Jackson Flora, new official prospect of the Giants Talk podcast.
You and I have joked about this for months.
And just because I try I, I am, I think, generally extremely unbiased in what I do, but I'm not gonna hide my bias here.
There's not a lot of professional athletes from UC Santa Barbara.
Um- Right cool to see a guy who went there.
I mean, we were We always pay attention to guys like Shane Bieber and other guys around the league- Mm-hmm who went there.
So that's very cool.
And then I also just think, and this is a conversation I had with a lot of Giants people in recent weeks, and they have very good poker faces because, you know, we'd be talking about the draft and say, "You know, there's a great fit from, the fine University of UC Santa Barbara."
And very good poker faces.
Nobody gave it away.
But I, I would always kind of have this conversation in a way that I'd be like, "Look, I, I'd love if you had a Gaucho at the top of your rotation."
But he actually is a perfect fit, too.
Yeah.
So it's not just the fact that he went to UC Santa Barbara.
If he went to UCLA, I'd say the same thing.
He is a perfect fit, and I talked to Logan Webb about this, before the draft and then aga- again after they picked him.
And he kind of pointed out something that I've been thinking about recently, which is you look at, like, a Paul Skenes who gets Skenes is one of one, right?
But, like- Yes Skenes is up the next May.
Burns in Cincinnati, he is up 11 months after the draft.
Trey Savage last year, we were talking about him in the postseason.
It's a year after he was drafted.
Cade Anderson last year taken third overall.
He's in Double-A already.
He's knocking on the door of the big leagues a year after the draft, and that's become kind of the norm for these big guys.
And, and Logan looked at a lot, of Jackson Flora tape before the draft.
He, he wanted to see who this guy would be.
He told me he made it clear to some higher-ups, like, "I think that's our guy."
and he, he said he's just looking at the mechanics.
He's like, "You see somebody who is very similar to a lot of guys recently who have been ab- able to move quickly and then reach the big leagues and just kind of, you know, hit the ground running."
That, to me, is also a really important part of this.
And we have Michael Holmes coming up later, and, and he will say multiple times, "You take the best player available."
But I also think in this current situation, like, Logan has two and a half years left on his deal.
This is a lineup that is built.
You know, it's not gonna win this year.
But these guys, most of them will be back next year.
Most of them are, are signed for the year after that.
So they have this core here.
They're certainly not gonna tear it all down.
And this is someone who could be part of this as soon as, you know, late next season in some respect.
Yeah.
And really, I think should be part of this if, if all goes according to plan in 2028.
So you never know with pitchers.
I, You know, you look at the Giants the last 10, 12 years.
There's Tyler Beede.
There's Phil Bickford, Will Benatar, these first-round guys.
A lot can happen, but a lot can happen also on the other side of this.
And he could be someone who moves quickly.
And for an organization that has a ton of hitting talent coming through the pipeline, he right away becomes their best pitching prospect pretty easily.
And I think also is gonna leapfrog a lot of these guys.
We'll see if he pitches this year.
I think some people in the organization would like to see him get out there and throw a little bit later this year.
But early next year, he's gonna leapfrog a lot of guys, on the pitching depth chart.
And I, I think pretty quickly be an option if, if he hits the ground running like he's capable of.
