SAN FRANCISCO — Bryce Eldridge has continued to elevate baseballs wherever the Giants have sent him this season. The top prospect’s own rise has been even more dramatic.
Barely two weeks after the Giants promoted Eldridge to Double-A Richmond, they set plans in motion to move him to the final rung of the minor-league ladder. Eldridge is headed for Triple-A Sacramento, where he’ll be the youngest player in the Pacific Coast League.
And where he’ll be just one level away from the major leagues.
“It’s nothing more than we wanted to get him another week of at-bats,” Giants farm director Kyle Haines said via text message. “The Double-A season is done on Sunday.”
Sending Eldridge to play a week at Sacramento will also shrink the gap between the minor-league season and the start of the Arizona Fall League, where the Giants expect to send Eldridge so that he can continue to see upper-level pitching and receive extensive instruction at first base. There’s no question now that first base — and the middle of a major-league lineup — is the destination for Eldridge, who was drafted as a two-way player in the first round (16th pick) of the 2023 draft out of James Madison High School in Vienna, Va.
“That’s one thing he’s done to help me out,” Haines said with a laugh. “Nobody’s asking me if he’s going to pitch this year. He’s done so well with his at-bats that nobody wonders why we said, ‘Hey, let’s just focus on the hitting part.’
“He’s gotten better every month. He keeps improving even when we’ve challenged him with higher levels. It’s been awesome to see him grow up in the field right in front of our eyes.”
Bryce Eldridge, 19 years old and crushing homers at Double-A 🚀
The @SFGiants‘ top-ranked prospect collects his 50th XBH of the season (most among all SF Minor Leaguers) in style, teeing off for @GoSquirrels homer No. 1 after joining the club this week. pic.twitter.com/wCIXptTVX4
— MLB Pipeline (@MLBPipeline) September 7, 2024
Eldridge made a brief professional debut last season that ended with 15 games at Low-A San Jose. That’s where he reported to start this season. The organizational plan in April was to leave Eldridge in San Jose all year while he got used to playing every day and navigated the inevitable ups and downs that all teenagers face in their first full season. But Eldridge forced them to accelerate the timeline, quickly finding his stride after missing a couple of weeks because of a hamstring injury. He posted an .801 OPS and hit 10 home runs in 205 at-bats for San Jose to earn a promotion in late June to High-A Eugene, and instead of struggling at a higher level, he reached another at the plate.
Eldridge hit .335 with 12 home runs and a 1.060 OPS in 48 games for Eugene while drawing 35 walks against 52 strikeouts in 173 at-bats. There’s been very little drop-off in nine games at Double-A Richmond, where he entered Friday batting .270 with two doubles, a triple and a home run among his 10 hits.
Haines spent time watching Eldridge last week with the Flying Squirrels in Richmond, where stadium was filled with friends and family.
“I talked with his mom and she was over the moon,” Haines said. “All his family and friends were there, some surprising him, some heckling him. For him to be able to play there is really special.”
A major-league debut would be even more special. But it’s not in the Giants’ interests to promote Eldridge to San Francisco to finish out the season. For starters, adding him to the 40-man roster this year would give them one fewer slot to shelter a minor leaguer who would otherwise be eligible to be taken in the Rule 5 draft. Having Eldridge finish the year in Sacramento is no guarantee that they will start him in Triple A next year, either.
But sometimes, you can’t hold back youth. The Giants just played the Milwaukee Brewers and got beaten by 20-year-old Jackson Chourio, who hit a home run and became the youngest player in major-league history to achieve a 20-homer, 20 steal season. It’s not impossible that Eldridge, who turns 20 on Oct. 20, could make his major-league debut at some point next season. And if he does, he’d become the Giants’ youngest position player to debut since Ken Henderson (20 years, 98 days) played his first game in 1966.
Eldridge, who is 6-foot-7 and sees eye to eye with the Yankees’ Aaron Judge, also would become the tallest position player in Giants history.
Partly because of Eldridge’s height and having to cover such a large strike zone, club officials expected him to experience some ups and downs at the plate in his first full season. They also evaluated his bat as a more likely difference maker than his arm. They aren’t complaining about getting it half right.
The scouting evaluation of his defense at first base isn’t quite as robust, which is why the Giants want to send him to Arizona to get extra work.
“Bryce came up (to San Jose) a little bit last year, and for an 18-year-old kid to have that kind of maturity in the box, the way he took at-bats and the calmness in his swings, you could see there was something there,” San Jose hitting coach Travis Ishikawa said last month. “And this year he’s built more confidence. This is a guy who will be a leader in the big-league clubhouse. I’m not sure when that’ll be, but you can see an aura and maturity level around him that you don’t see from a lot of 19-year-olds.”
ESPN’s Kiley McDaniel was the first to report Eldridge’s promotion to Sacramento.
(Photo of Bryce Eldridge in the Futures Game: Sam Hodde / MLB Photos via Getty Images)
