ogc thoughts
Here is what I found when digging into his game log:
- He was called up on May 4th and was used in the game played that day. Projections had him hitting in the low 700 OPS (ZiPS projected his 50th percentile projection at .238/.302/.422/.724, his 80th percentile at .269/.330/.476/.806, his 20th percentile at .217/.276/.369/.645; he has a very wide range of possibilities, from poor to very good).
- He started 4 of the next 5 games, hitting .154/.214/.385/.599 in 13AB/14 PA with 4 strikeouts (69% contact rate, 29% K-rate) vs 1 walks (poor 25% BB/K), and 1 homer. He missed a good SP in game 38, RHP Carmen Mlodzinski.
- Then he didn’t start the next two games, but did PH late in extra innings game, walking once and striking out once. He missed game 40 starter RHP Bubba Chandler, and game 41, RHP Roki Sasaki.
- He next started 3 of 4 games, struggling again to make good contact, hitting .000/.091/.000/.091 in 10AB/11 PA with 4 strikeouts (60% contact rate, 36% K-rate) and 1 walk (poor 25% BB/K). He missed RHP Emmet Sheehan, who was very good last season but struggling this season.
- Then he sat 2 games, missing RHP Luis Severino and LHP Jeffrey Springs.
- And now is in a stretch where he started 10 of the Giants last 12 games. He is hitting .353/.425/.618/1.043 with 6 doubles and a homer in 34 AB/40 PA, and 5 walks to 6 strikeouts (very good contact rate of 82%, 15% K-rate, very good 87% BB/K ratio). He missed game 49, RHP Ryne Nelson and game 53, LHP Noah Schultz.
Eldridge is Being Developed and That Takes Time
Some people seem to think it’s a science, that a team should know whether a prospect should be ready or not. But it’s not that simple, and the only way to find out is to bring him up when he’s not being challenged by AAA pitching and adjust as necessary. And sometimes the prospect is simply not ready, and needs years to reach his potential. It took Matt Williams and Brandon Belt years to figure out the majors, for examples of prior Giants power hitters. And Schmitt appears to be figuring it out in his fourth season, though at least there was signs he was figuring it out last season, until he was injured by the Dodgers with a HBP.
Eldridge has been mostly platooned up to this point, hitting mostly against RHSP, and missing a couple of LHSP. But he also missed a bunch of RHSP as well, which is probably why Giants fans were up in arms about his usage (led by the media, I would add). Still, he struck out 4 times out of 6 AB/7 PA, against LHP, so skipping them seems like a good plan up to now, while he is figuring out MLB RHP, even as he was handling LHP okay in AAA.
As I outlined in the bullets, the Giants threw him in immediately, gave him a few starts to see where he is versus MLB pitching, where he wasn't batting very well, so they gave him a break, where he worked on their recommendations for changes, then he got another few starts to see where he is again, then another break to work on things again, because they saw things in his mechanics that needed tweaking still. Just because he hit a homer doesn’t mean that he didn’t got lucky there and would usually be handled by pitchers, and he was striking out too much, in any case. Unless a .599 OPS hitter rocks your boat.
But once they saw that he was incorporating their recommendations, and more importantly, showing better results, he started getting regular starts, now at 10 starts of 12 games, with fewer skipped starts. And what good results so far, 6 doubles plus a homer and hitting 1.043 OPS. More importantly, his strikeout rate is currently at a good MLB 82% contact rate, which if he can keep this up, is a good rate for a MLB hitter.
More importantly, he also started taking a lot more walks, almost 1:1. Only the best hitters can maintain nearly a 100% BB/K ratio, so he is doing well during this stretch, but obviously he needs to sustain this for another 3 weeks or so, before small samples is not as much of a factor as it is now.
You would think fans and especially the media would know that hitters need some development, some more than others. Eldridge has been a top prospect, but no top prospect is a sure thing, not even the Top 10 or even #1 overall, and he has been usually around the 20’s.
The difference is that while other Giants top hitting prospects got cups of coffee in the majors when they struggled, the Giants saw something in Eldridge that they felt that they can work with up here, that he was close, instead of sending him down. And so far, their plan seems to be working out, but, again, it is yet to be seen whether he’s truly ready or having some luck, like Nate Schierholtz.
Nate the Great would be Barry Bonds when he’s on his hot streak for a month, then he would be Freddy Lewis, for a longer period of time. Nobody could ever fix him. Mac Williamson as well. Of course, neither of these two were ever ranked in the Top 100, let alone 20’s like Eldridge. Only Buster, Belt, Bart, and Luciano have reached such heights among Giants position prospects. And as Giants fans have seen, results are mixed.
Which matches up with my fantasy baseball experience. I would memorize the Top 40 prospects and jump on them when available in waivers, after their team promoted them to the majors. You would be amazed at how low the odds are of them being good for their team from the get go, most of the time, they struggle, even the Top 10 prospects.
The Eldridge Difference Versus Other Recent Failed Prospects
Still, the difference between Buster and Belt versus Bart and Luciano is that the former were great hitters in AAA, but the latter were not. And Eldridge was also great in AAA. So I have a lot of hope in him, while acknowledging that there’s a possibility that he flops in the majors, particularly because of his inability to avoid strikeouts all through the minors.
The key thing for him is whether he was controlling his strike outs in the minors. Was he just swinging and seeing what happens? Or did he calibrate and adjust his swing to get great production, which has increased strikeouts as a consequence? There's no way to truly know, he just has to demonstrate it in the majors. Up until this recent stretch, it looked like he was not in control, but now he appears to be.
Of course, each prospect will have their ups and downs. I remember checking on Belt's contact rate, and watching it go up and down, periods of great command of the strike zone, other times he's just not in sync. So while I am happy that Eldridge is having this good stretch, it was all mostly done in Colorado, as his OPS was only .694 when he flew to Colorado with the team. The good news there is that his contact rate was already good as well, so while he wasn't getting the production, he certainly was covering the strike zone well, and not striking out as much.
So I'm very hopeful that, while he will have his ups and downs, he will eventually figure it out and be a consistently good, if not great, hitter. He's been able to keep up his good hitting in AAA against much more experienced pitchers, even better in 2026 than in 2025. And he's doing very well in this stretch in avoiding strikeouts while making good enough contact. I think he's going to be a good hitter this season.
If so, the lineup will be loaded. Over the month of May, the Giants have 8 hitters above .750 OPS, 5 above .800, 4 over .850, and 2 over .900, averaging 4.57 runs per game. Those 8 are Haase, Devers, Arraez, Schmitt, Adames, Eldridge, Bader, and Lee. Haase will decline at some point, and Schmitt is unproven (as well as Eldridge, but here, we are in the universe where he's consistently good), the rest have sustained such good hitting over a long period of time before. Once the offense is more consistently good, the pitchers will be able to be more comfortable pitching without feeling like they have to shut out the other team all the time to win.
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