In a SF Chronicle article on Bryce Eldridge, it was noted that his family has a group chat named “Dude Rakes”, and I have been meaning to do some research on him and how he compares with recent great hitting prospects.
ogc thoughts
I thought I would compare Bryce Eldridge with recent teenaged prospects like Jackson Merrill, Gunnar Henderson, and Corbin Carroll. But a complicating factor is that he did all this at age 19, and advanced farther, so I am breaking it down by levels, and only for the two levels where Bryce had a significant amount of AB.
A League
Here are their batting lines and age:
- Eldridge (19): .263/.323/.478/.801
- Merrill (19): .325/.387/.482/.869
- Henderson (20): .312/.369/.575/.944
- Carroll (18): .326/.408/.581/.990
He hit the worse, pretty clearly, but his stats are complicated by an injury and then the bad hitting while he was getting back to game playing shape, essentially another spring training getting ready. From May 8th to his promotion, he hit .293/.347/.527/.874 in 36 games, 150 AB. Which is more in line with his initial batting line before his injury: .278/.316/.611/.927 And he was pretty lost for the ten games after his return.
Advanced A League
And that better hitting was reflected by how well he did in Advanced A league:
- Eldridge (19): .335/.442/.619/.1.060
- Merrill (20): .280/.318/.444/.762
- Henderson (20): .231/.343/.432/.775
- Carroll (20): he had a great line, but very limited AB, so I left it out
Here, Eldridge shines a lot brighter in comparison with recent teen hitters in the lower minors.
Comparison
So Eldridge is comparable with his recent contemporary teenaged hitters in the lower minors. And hence why I have been very encouraged about what he has done so far, as teen hitters don’t normally force their way into a AA promotion.
I also like to compare how old the hitter is compared to the league when he’s doing well in the league. That’s what kept me encouraged about Heliot Ramos, who hit well in A-ball and then Advanced A ball, even through his struggles as he rose, until he caught up in age to AAA. He was -3.4 years versus the league in A-ball and -3.5 years in Advanced A ball, and he struggled against older players until he caught up in age in AAA in 2023, reaching -3.7 years. And last season, he was -4.3 years vs the majors in 2024, and now in 2025, he’s -3.6 years vs the majors. And he's just hit his third homer vs RHP, after being mostly shut down by RHP previously.
Eldridge was -3.5 years vs the league in Advanced A ball last season, similar to Ramos in A-ball. Of course, Ramos only hit .885 in Advanced A ball, while Eldridge hit 1.060. Moreover, despite the fact that Eldridge didn't play much upper level baseball, ZiPS projects him at .243/.303/.405/.708 in the majors in the 2025 season. This reminds me of how Robin Yount didn't hit all that well in his first season, but then hit really well afterward. He should hopefully hit well enough (healthy permitting, he's out again with an injury) in AA in the first half to advance to AAA, and probably get a September call up if he hits well in AAA.
He's only 20 YO for this season, and if he follows Ramos pattern, he'll start really kicking ass when he reaches age 25, but looks, so far, to still be pretty good much earlier than Ramos, given how well he handled Advanced A compared to Heliot. If he’s already at a projected .708, and presuming some growth, then mid-to-high 700’s should be in the cards for him, in the next couple of years, and that would make him a valuable MLB hitter.
Eldridge Obstacles
This is where the concerns crop in: his contact rate, which is related to his strikeout rate. It's not bad bad, like the 30%'s, but still, a roughly 25%+ strikeout rate in his combined A and Advanced A stats is not great as he rises, he will need to make improvements as he rises. And with his high walk rate, that 25% K% becomes a very low 70% contact rate, and ideally you want your hitters to be at least 75% contact rate and ideally 80-85% contact rate, though if he continues to rake like he has, he won't need to worry, an OPS of over .800 is worth almost any low contact rate.
But the good news is that he's among the leaders in Max EV in the minors, despite his youth, and you don't do that by mistake generally. If he can maintain a high Max EV, he would reach the majors and do damage there.
His biggest obstacle right now is how well he fields first base. The Giants traditionally (in this ownership group) have emphasized good to great fielding firstbasemen, like JT Snow and Brandon Belt. The reports out of spring training was mostly not flattering about his level of defense, but JT Snow said in an interview:
“I think patience is the biggest thing,” Snow said. “He’s young and learning a position. But he’s farther along than I thought. … He’s kind of like a clean slate, which is good. You can kind of mold him and get him to do things. Maybe he doesn’t have any bad habits yet. If someone already has some bad habits, you have to break those. He doesn’t have any of those, so you can look at that as a positive.”
So, the good news is that he doesn't have much bad habits, basically. I'm excited to see how he does in the majors, but am patient enough to wait for him in 2026 to force his way up to the majors. Likely Wade and Flores will be let go after this season, and hopefully Jerar Encarnacion will grap the DH position, so that Eldridge can come up and take 1B in 2026.
No comments:
Post a Comment