I can’t remember the last time I saw a piece of news like this right before bed, news so good that it would also serve as an excellent distraction from waking up in the middle of the night to pee or check on a noise; and, it’s certainly something that would be great to read first thing in the morning. Susan Slusser has broken the news tonight on sfchronicle.com that the San Francisco Giants will be calling up their top prospect, the man, the myth, the masher, the left-hander, the one they once called “the American Ohtani” (because he was a two-way player), Bryce Eldridge for one last spark in the final 13 games of this season.
The star of the daily minor league reports was penciled in as a callup at some point this season, but up until Friday, it looked like that might not be the case. Eldridge’s 28-30% strikeout rate on the season is enough to make you think that it’s worth giving a player a little more time in the minors, especially since he doesn’t need to be added to the 40-man roster in the offseason. But the calculus has changed!
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As the weekend demonstrated, the Giants are years away from being half as good as their former archrival the Los Angeles Dodgers, but Eldridge is, theoretically, one giant leap in that direction. And it works for this season, too, as some sort of course correction needed to be made immediately after dropping 2 out of 3 in embarrassing fashion. There’s still a faint glimmer of hope that the 2025 squadron can sneak into the postseason as the 3rd Wild Card, and even if that’s just wishful thinking by only the most fanatical, at the end of the day, a middling team calling up the #13 prospect in all of baseball for the final two weeks of the season is not outlandish. The Giants are still playing for… something… and finishing strong is better demonstrated by the team fielding its best roster rather than hope for turnarounds.
The 6’7” Virginian has 25 home runs in the minors this season — 18 of them with the River Cats — and for the past month and a half he’s basically been an .840+ OPS hitter. With Dominic Smith’s injury likely taking him out for the regular season, calling up a left-handed first baseman with power upside feels like the right move, even if his defense will almost certainly be a downgrade. As Slusser notes, “Eldridge is still learning to play first.”
This isn’t quite “trading Bengie Molina away mid-flight so that Buster Posey could become the starting catcher,” but there’s something about the news breaking late at night that makes it just as exciting. Eldridge in Arizona feels like a really wise move, too, because so many prospects train there, and the Diamondbacks have one of the lower strikeout rates against left-handed hitters this season (23rd in MLB — 20.2%). Turning the narrative from “Welp, the Dodgers caved in our heads” to “Wow, Bryce Eldridge! Let’s see how the kid does in a cup of coffee!” is also really smart, and in terms of the memory-making business, Buster Posey has found Will Smith’s memory zapper from Men In Black and deploying it to great effect.
Logically, we shouldn’t expect a whole lot from a 20-year old making his major league debut. In other words, don’t expect him to win the World Series for the Giants in 2025. But 10 home runs over these next two weeks and a key figure in the lineup as the Giants reach the NLCS? Totally reasonable.
