By admin 
SAN FRANCISCO Jackson Flora grew up a Giants fan. A graduate of Foothill High School in Pleasanton – the same high school that Brandon Crawford attended – Flora watched the likes of Tim Lincecum, Matt Cain and Madison Bumgarner lead the team to three championships in five years.
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Now, the Bay Area kid will have an opportunity to follow in their footsteps, selected by San Francisco with the fourth overall pick in the 2026 MLB draft.
Flora, 21, was the highest-rated pitcher in this year’s draft, posting a 1.06 ERA with a program-record 133 strikeouts over 102 innings for UC Santa Barbara. The 6-foot-5 righty features a fastball that sits in the mid-to-high 90s that can touch triple digits, as well as a slider, sweeper and changeup.
San Francisco’s brass said leading up to Saturday that they would take the best player available, opposed to drafting for need. In Flora, the Giants checked both boxes.
Flora is the Giants’ first top-five selection since Joey Bart (No. 2) in 2018, as well as the sixth top-five pick in franchise history. Of those five selections, three of them – Will Clark (No. 2 in 1985), Matt Williams (No. 3 in 1986) and Buster Posey (No. 5 in 2008) – became pillars of the franchise.
The 21-year-old Flora joins a farm system currently headlined by a plethora of position players, a list that includes shortstops Josuar Gonzalez, Luis Hernandez, Jhonny Level and Gavin Kilen and outfielders Bo Davidson and Dakota Jordan.
The organization doesn’t boast the same depth on the pitching side, with their three highest-rated pitching prospects being lefty Jacob Bresnahan and righties Keyner Martinez and Argenis Cayama. Flora, in all likelihood, will become the organization’s top pitching prospect.
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Given Flora’s collegiate pedigree, it’s possible that he follows the trajectory of recent pitchers selected in the top 10 and flies through San Francisco’s farm system.
Along with Flora, the Giants added more pitching by using the 29th pick (from the Patrick Bailey trade) to select left-hander Carson Bolemon out of Southside Christian School in South Carolina.
The 6-foot-5 Bolemon was South Carolina’s back-to-back Gatorade Player of the Year and is considered to be the best high school pitcher in this year’s class. Bolemon, a Wake Forrest commit, posted a 0.17 ERA as a senior after not allowing a single run as a junior.
Roch Cholowsky, the UCLA shortstop who was born in Vallejo and grew up a fan of Brandon Crawford, was selected by the Chicago White Sox with the first overall pick. The Tampa Bay Rays selected prep shortstop Grady Emerson with the second pick, while the Minnesota Twins selected Georgia Tech catcher Vahn Lackey with the third overall pick.
Flora’s brother, Hudson, is currently committed to UC Santa Barbara.
The Giants have a bonus pool of $17,350,600, the third-highest in the draft. The fourth pick has a slot value of $8,988,400.
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