- February 19, 2025
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When San Francisco Giants outfielder Grant McCray stepped up to the plate on Aug. 14, his hands were shaking.
It made sense — the Lakewood Ranch High graduate was making his Major League debut, called up from AAA-level Sacramento earlier that morning to start in center field against the Atlanta Braves.
McCray had played in big league stadiums before — a high school showcase at Tropicana Field, an instructional league game at Chase Field, the Arizona Diamondbacks’ stadium — but nothing to this extent.
“The lights just hit differently when there’s 40,000 people in the stands and you can feel the stadium shaking,” McCray said.
McCray, who bats from the left side and throws from the right, went 0-4 in his debut, which the Giants lost 13-2. He said making it to the big leagues was a dream come true, but his first foray into the Major League experience with the bright lights, the media attention, and the crowds, was a lot to take in.
McCray, 24, had been taken by the Giants out of Lakewood Ranch High in the third round of the 2019 MLB Draft.
“I was never the biggest name, so even though I was a higher pick out of high school, I’d never interacted very much with the media,” McCray said. “Once I was called up, though, there was media all around me, asking all kinds of questions. At first, I tried to play it cool, but as more lights and cameras and microphones appeared in front of me, it started to get a little surreal.”
It didn’t take long for McCray to settle in. The next night he notched his first two hits, including a solo home run off Braves’ reliever Jesse Chavez in the bottom of the sixth inning.
“After my first game, I was ready to go,” McCray said. “Honestly, once you get up here, it’s the same game as it is in the minors. For a young player, that’s what you have to learn. It can be a little intimidating because there’s a camera on you and the game is actually on TV, but you get used to it fairly quickly.”
McCray finished the year with the big league club, showing flashes of what had made him the No. 11-ranked prospect in the Giants’ farm system at this time of his call-up per MLB Pipeline.
In 37 games with the Giants, McCray made 35 starts, all at center field. Across 130 plate appearances, he hit .202 with five home runs, 10 RBIs and five stolen bases.
McCray’s high-water mark came on Sep. 7 in the Giants’ 6-3 road win over the San Diego Padres, when he blasted a pair of home runs. The first was a 417-foot shot off Padres' ace Dylan Cease in the second inning and later he added a 425-foot shot off lefty reliever Yuki Matsui in the ninth.
While McCray’s first Major League stint was not perfect, it did position him going into the biggest season of his professional career to date. What McCray proved is that the tools that make him a tantalizing outfield prospect for the Giants are, to some degree, transferable at the Major League level.
At 6-foot-2, 190 pounds, McCray possesses the elite athleticism that scouts drool over. It’s a trait that impacts his game in a variety of ways.
In the field, his arm strength, which ranks in the 99th percentile of outfielders according to Baseball Savant, affords him the ability to play at all three outfield positions. McCray is also listed in the 93rd percentile for sprint speed, which allows him not only to have tremendous range in the outfield, but makes him a threat to steal any time he gets on base.
At the plate, McCray’s athleticism comes in the form of raw power.
In 2022, McCray slugged 23 home runs with the A-level San Jose Giants and High-A level Eugene Emeralds. In 2023, he hit 14 home runs and swiped 52 bags with the Emeralds. In 37 games with the Giants, he posted a 44.1% hard hit rate on batted balls, above the league average of 36.5%.
However, McCray is a free and loose swinger. He struck out in 43.1% of his at-bats at the big league level, almost twice the Major League average. MLB pitchers have been a challenge.
“They’ll attack rookie batters head on and just see what they can do,” said McCray. “They might give you a fastball down the middle in your first at-bat, just to see how you react, and if you don’t swing or put it in play, then they’ll know that you’re looking for something else. They’ll play mind games with you the whole time. (San Diego starter) Joe Musgrove threw me in a blender.”
The Giants outfield is a crowded group. With incumbent starters Heliot Ramos in left, Jung Hoo Lee in center and veteran Mike Yastrzemski in right, McCray could solidify himself as the team’s fourth outfielder with a strong spring.
Another injury, like Lee’s torn labrum last May, or a dip in performance from one of the three starters could see McCray given an opportunity to play every day at some point during the season.
To do so, McCray knows that he will need to capitalize on the parts of his game that make him special — like his speed — and rein in the tendencies that get him into trouble at the plate. He plans to try to put the ball in play as much as possible in Spring Training to get on base any way that he can.
He’s focused heavily on his mental approach at the plate this off-season, trying to strike the delicate balance between over-aggression and passiveness.
“How well can you focus on swinging at the pitch that you want in the spot you want it in?” McCray said. “Everybody throws hard. Everybody has good secondary pitches. If you’re overly aggressive, that means you’re in trouble before you even step foot in the box. Understanding that and sticking to my plan is going to be the biggest tool for me this season.”