Baseball families are everywhere, and the Giants have leaned into that idea before. Just last week, San Francisco reached back into a familiar surname and their own history to draft Peyton Bonds.
But one of the more intriguing family connections in the organization belongs to a player who has been waiting a long time for his own shot. Will Bednar, the brother of MLB reliever David, was once a headline prospect of his own.
A former College World Series Most Outstanding Player at Mississippi State, he was drafted by the Giants with the 14th overall pick in 2021. Nearly five years later, he still hasn’t made it to Oracle Park.
Bednar is now 26 and no longer sits among San Francisco’s top 30 prospects, according to MLB Pipeline. He’s currently at Double-A Richmond, where he is 4-0 with a 4.03 ERA and 282 strikeouts in 205 innings.
The path here has been bumpy. His first full season in 2022 was cut short after just two months because of a stress lower back injury and related issues, and that setback made it hard for him to regain momentum. Across his minor league career, he is 10-12 with a 4.92 ERA.
Since that injury interrupted his rhythm, Bednar has been trying to get his groove back. A month after his 26th birthday, he’s at a crossroads: once viewed as a high-end arm with a clear future, he’s now fighting to avoid becoming just another name stuck in the minors. And with the clock ticking, the question lingers over whether he’ll ever share an MLB field with his brother.
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