Giants fans have spent much of the season wondering whether slugging top prospect Bryce Eldridge might make his MLB debut at some point this summer. Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote earlier in the week that it’s “more likely” the 20-year-old will finish out the season in Triple-A and hope for his first call to the majors in 2026. President of baseball operations Buster Posey removed further doubt the following day when telling John Shea of the San Francisco Standard that his team would “most likely not” promote Eldridge for his big league debut before season’s end.
That may be disappointing for San Francisco fans who’ve been hoping that an Eldridge promotion would give them extra incentive to stay tuned in to a season that has largely slipped away. There are justifiable reasons to hold off, however. The Giants have been breaking June acquisition Rafael Devers in at first base, and Eldridge has been slumping recently in Sacramento.
Eldridge, a 2023 first-rounder, is widely regarded as one of the sport’s top 25 or so prospects. He hit .280/.350/.512 with seven homers in 140 Double-A plate appearances but has cooled after a hot start in Triple-A. He’s still slashing a respectable .241/.311/.513 with 15 homers in 219 plate appearances since moving to the top minor league level, but Eldridge is hitting .203/.280/.419 over the past three weeks. He’s also struck out in 32% of his Triple-A plate appearances.
Beyond Devers’ transition to first base and Eldridge’s recent struggles, there are other elements to consider. The Giants aren’t contending for a postseason spot at this point — barring a miracle Wild Card run — and Eldridge wouldn’t be eligible to be poached by another club in the Rule 5 Draft until 2027. He’ll be added well before then — early next year, in all likelihood — but delaying his promotion until 2026 effectively gives the Giants an extra 40-man roster spot they can utilize in the offseason. He can then be selected to the roster next year when the Giants have the 60-day IL available to open roster space, whether that be in spring training or early in the year. (There’s no 60-day injured list in the offseason.)
The Devers acquisition and his subsequent move to first base clearly placed a roadblock to Eldridge eventually becoming the everyday first baseman at Oracle Park. However, Eldridge told Slusser that vice president of player development Randy Winn called him quickly after the trade to reassure him that he’s still a big part of the team’s long-term plans.
“Natural human instinct is going to be, ‘Well, that’s my position,’ but they’re paying that guy a lot of money,” Eldridge said. “But Randy reassured me that they like me and they like the progress I’ve made, they see me in their plans, playing first or DH, wherever it may be. It doesn’t necessarily matter to me too much where I’m at, I just want to be a part of helping that team win.”
When Eldridge is ready, Devers will be the DH. No worries.
more likely they split time
They also don’t want to burn an option year, or accelerate him into arbitration, obviously.
True and if they bring him up at the beginning of next year and he does well enough they can get an extra pick.
Devers is not hitting when he plays First Base. In 64 AB’s he has .172/.254/.313 slash line with 25 strike outs. His future is as a DH. Eldridge at First Base and Chapman at 3B
It would be funny if he sours on the giants because they’re moving him around from DH to first
I’m not too terribly concerned about those numbes for this year.
He’s learning a new position, and getting back into the flow of playing the field and hitting – although he wasn’t too long remove from that.
Once he gets more comfortable over there I’m sure those numbers improve.
Now if he’s hitting like that after ~100 or so ABs next year, sure I’ll start ringing the alarm bells.
64 ABs is a very small sample, basically 16 games. That’s not enough to be drawing any firm conclusions. He and Eldridge will split time at 1B. Eldridge isn’t playing 162 games there.
64 AB’s is a pretty small sample size. Devers had an awful start to his time as a DH in Boston before getting back to his normal self.
It’s also worth noting that Devers has posted (in a small 16 game sample) 0 DRS and 1 OAA at first for the Giants. That’s by no means a great performance on D, yet for Devers, it kind of is. He’s been serviceable on defense, which is something rarely said of him.
Not sure what Eldridge did on defense this season, but in 2024, he was quite bad at first. I could see the DH and 1B being either/or depending on who’s better on D.
Either way, having those two bats in the lineup should help SF go farther next year.
Man that trade is looking bad for SF
Devers just got put into freaking oracle park marine air confines of course he isn’t going to hit like he’s in Fenway
To understand how hard it is to hit there just look at that baseball bat bros video where they could barely hit over right field
Yeah, thank God the Red Sox got reliever with an era north of 6, a minor league starter who can’t crack their rotation despite a desperate need for a 5th starter, and an OF prospect they turned into a starter who is only controlled for this year and has an era of 4.50.
Meanwhile, Devers has an Ops+ of 128 for the Giants.
But yeah, bad trade for SF.
I stopped reading at 64 at-bats.
Dominate in AAA then get the call. Let him figure it out.
The Giants….What a miserable shiz show. Their low baseball info fans were posting here all summer about the ‘Playoffs’ despite the fact that the team only booked 1 month with a winning record ( April) this season. May, June, July, August all below .500………….Team has been a mess for a long time. They’ve only finished over .500 once since 2016
MLBTR comments try not to rip on the Giants for five minutes challenge (IMPOSSIBLE)
there are a lot of reasons for that – you seem to be pretty low info yourself if all you are looking at is the record over that time and not the fact that you really need to look at the record since 2020 since that is when the team reset and they are not a losing team over that period, they are a middling team floating at .500
As a diehard fan I’m well aware of the stats I just think its funny how ridiculously targeted it feels sometimes for a team that isn’t even bad just kinda mid.
From my perspective I’ve already seen more championships in the 2010s run than a lot of fans will see in their lifetimes from their team so I’m good.
yeah I hear you on that – most teams don’t get a run like that but it has taken years of restructuring since then to get something that can pull out of the collapse after that . people seem to ignore the fact that maintaining that winning streak decimated the farm and left the team with a lot of bloated contracts keeping those guys over that stretch.
10-15 more years and Giants fans will sound like old Raiders fans talking about the glory years in the 1970s and early 1980s. Those 3 championships in 5 years were fun, but it’s 2025 now. You think Yankee fans are satisfied because they won a lot 20 years ago?
@bag o ballz You are incorrect. Since 2020 the San Francisco Giants have absolutely been a losing team with the exception of 2021.
The organization posted losing record seasons in 2023 and 2024. And they are on their way to another losing season this year!
.500, .494, ..488, .483 in a short season – that is pretty much the definition of a mid team and lot a ‘losing team. going into the last few weeks (which is where they dropped below .500 in the years they did) they have been floating every year between a couple of games above and a game below .500 every year.
@bag o ballz
Let me break this down to you like I would explain it to a 7 year old:
Finishing the season below .500 is a LOSING season
Finishing the season above .500 is a WINNING Season
that is a stupid argument – so you are saying that last year the giants would have been a good team if they would have won the last game of the season but are instead a horrible team. that is complete dumbassery
it is also worth noting that in that 2020 short season they would have made the playoffs but for a series season against the reds who made it in with an identical record
Man, Giants fans are just insufferable nincompoops
or maybe people that constantly rag on giants fans because they are idiots are insufferable.
Yeah, those Giants’ fans are so stupid. Imagine any fan, when in mid-June their team is 11 games over .500 with a +46 run differential, actually thinking they have a chance at the PS.
Low-info is the perfect description of TheBull’s post. But I most admit that the user name is appropriate since he’s definitely full of it.
Some respect to Dom Smith for playing good 1B in the interim. Not the long-term answer, but he’s been one of the few steady bats during this slump.
“(There’s no 60-day injured list in the offseason.) ” !!
It’s absolutely amazing that EVERY PLAYER on the 60 day IL is magically cured/healed just after the World Series ends but that/those ailments somehow reappear JUST AFTER THE START OF THE FOLLOWING SEASON’S SPRING TRAINING.
Yet ANOTHER archaic MLB rule in need of review, revision and updating
Tell us how you really feel with more caps so we can laugh at you some more.
It’s not the fun outcome, but it’s the correct one.