San Francisco’s next ace? Giants draft pitcher Jackson Flora with pick No. 4 15%
By John Shea22%
7/11/2026, 4:00:06 AM
BS Summary: This article contains 21 faulty reasoning types, including Halo Effect, Post Hoc (False Cause), and Framing Effect, with Attempt to Sell a Product or Service as the most egregious example at 17.2% saturation with 119 hits. Analysis detected 927 faulty-reasoning hits from 690 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 30.9% and a BS Rank of 15% (18,770 of 21,887 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 85.80% of the article peer group.
San Francisco’s next ace?
Giants draft pitcher Jackson Flora with pick No.
4
The right-hander out of UC Santa Barbara immediately becomes the top pitching prospect in the Giants’ farm system.
Jackson Flora dominated at UC Santa Barbara in his junior season.
| Source: David Buono/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
By John Shea Sports Reporter
Published Jul. 11, 2026 at 11:00am
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With a draft pick the Giants hope will help usher in a new era of winning baseball, they selected UC Santa Barbara’s Jackson Flora with the fourth overall pick on Saturday.
Flora, a 6-foot-5 right-hander, posted a 1.06 ERA and struck out 133 batters in 102 innings.
He graduated from Pleasanton’s Foothill High School, Brandon Crawford’s alma mater.
The Giants, who are 39-55 and one game from last place in the National League West, have holes throughout the roster.
But scouting director Michael Holmes insisted as late as this week that he wouldn’t draft for need but instead select the best player available.
Flora is both of those.
Not just the best available player, but the Giants need pitching throughout their system and especially at the major-league level.
Flora, the best college pitcher in the draft, presumably would have a quick path to Oracle Park.
The White Sox had the first overall pick and selected UCLA shortstop Roch Cholowsky.
The Giants would have loved for Cholowsky to drop to No. 4 and perhaps become the next great shortstop for a team that once drafted Crawford out of UCLA, but it was a long shot.
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The Rays, with the No. 2 pick, took high school shortstop Grady Emerson out of Fort Worth, Texas.
At No. 3, the Twins drafted Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey.
Then came the Giants at No.
4.
Thanks to the Patrick Bailey trade to Cleveland, the Giants also picked up the No. 29 overall pick along with a slot value of $3.27 million, increasing the Giants’ draft bonus pool to $17.35 million.
In their draft history, the Giants have hit and missed with other top five picks.
Last time they had a No. 4, it was 1997, and they selected Jason Grilli.
The pitcher never played for the Giants — he was traded to the Marlins two years later in the deal that brought Liván Hernández to San Francisco — but pitched for 15 seasons and appeared with 10 teams.
Before Saturday, the last top five pick was in 2018, Joey Bart, who never materialized into the catcher the team projected and moved on to the Pirates and Braves.
The Giants had far better luck with Will Clark (second, 1985), Matt Williams (third, 1986), and Buster Posey (fifth, 2008).
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Clark and Williams were on teams that came out of the ruins of the 100-loss season in 1985 — the Giants won their division in 1987 and appeared in the 1989 World Series — and Posey was a common denominator to the three World Series championships in 2010, 2012, and 2014.
Posey’s now the president of baseball operations and was in the draft room at Oracle Park when the Giants made Saturday’s pick.
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