Josiah Kemp is 18, plays center field, and comes with a last name that means something in Los Angeles. His uncle Matt Kemp spent 15 seasons in the big leagues, made 3 All-Star teams (all with the Dodgers), won 2 Gold Gloves and 2 Silver Sluggers, and put up a career line of .284/.337/.484 with 287 homers. So when word broke that the younger Kemp was signing pro, plenty of people assumed it'd be with Los Angeles. It's not.
12th-rder Josiah Kemp signs w/@SFGiants for $400k ($250k will count vs bonus pool). Oklahoma prep OF, raw tools include solid power potential, plus speed & CF defense. Nephew of three-time All-Star Matt Kemp, @OU_Baseball recruit. @MLBDraft
Instead it's the Giants who landed him, taking Kemp in the 12th round out of Choctaw High School in Oklahoma and buying him out for $400,000 — with $250,000 of that counting against San Francisco's bonus pool. That's well over slot money for a pick that late, the clearest signal the Giants actually believe in the tools: plus speed, a chance for real power down the line, and the kind of center-field instincts that don't show up on a stat sheet.
The wrinkle here is that Kemp wasn't just some uncommitted prep bat. He'd already pledged to play college ball at Oklahoma, so San Francisco had to convince an 18-year-old to walk away from a Big 12 roster spot for pro ball straight out of high school. A bonus that size for a 12th-rounder is exactly the kind of overslot deal teams use to pry a kid loose from a strong college commitment.
For the Giants, this is classic late-round lottery-ticket behavior — spend real money in a round where most picks are org filler, bet on the ceiling, and let player development sort out whether the tools translate. San Francisco's farm system has leaned on this kind of value-hunting in recent drafts, and a toolsy, athletic outfielder with a bloodline pedigree is about as intriguing a dart throw as it gets in round 12.
There's also the rival-fanbase angle that makes this fun. Matt Kemp's whole legacy is tied to Dodger blue — three All-Star nods, an MVP runner-up finish in 2011, a return engagement in 2018 — and now his nephew's first stop as a pro is with the team the Dodgers spend every summer trying to beat out of the NL West. Nothing against Oklahoma or a straightforward bonus-pool math problem, but symbolically, that's a fun one for Giants fans to needle their rivals with.
None of this means Josiah Kemp is a future big leaguer — 12th-round preps with tools and no track record are exactly the profile that can go either way in a farm system. But the bonus, the buyout of a Power 4 commitment, and the family name all but guarantee he'll be a name Giants fans track through the low minors for the next few years.