Many Giants fans are down on Eldridge already. But they shouldn’t.
ogc thoughts
Some are pointing out his lack of any hit and all his strikeouts. These people are missing that the flyout he hit in his first game would have been a homer in 23 parks, he just happened to hit it in a park that was an out. Then his first hit would not be a discussion point. Plus, he’s had only 10 plate appearances so far.
Also, some think he’s the same as other Giants position prospects, and thus will fail. One compared him with Christian Arroyo, a good prospect of the past. The problem: Arroyo is nowhere near the quality of position prospect Eldridge is. Eldridge is a top 15-25. Arroyo at best was 60-80’s. Buster was Top 10, at ages 22-23, he’s a better comparison.
That said, yeah, he needs to hit and for huge power, for him to be a good MLB contributor. Given all the caution Posey has noted about prospects promotion, this front office clearly thinks he’s not far from reaching the majors, since they brought him up already, so may as well give him a taste now and learn what he needs to work on to succeed in the majors. To expect anything other than struggle ignores the history of prospects: prospects will struggle.
There’s no guarantee and yet, he is a very good hitter in AAA at age 20 season, and was in AA not that long ago. Those are still huge achievements and not to be treated as nothing.
The amazing thing to me so far is that in each of the last two seasons, he played roughly half his season in a lower league, and most prospects who get promoted do not end up doing what he did, which was continue to hit as well (or better) in the higher level.
Some view bringing up Mays early struggles as an insult, which I get. And I don’t want to insult Posey either, though people forget that Posey didn’t hit all that well early on either, at roughly six weeks, he was in the upper 600’s OPS, because of a 3 week slump of .175/.186/.211/.397.
Better comparisons would be Matt Williams and Brandon Belt. They rise quickly in the minors but took a few years in the majors to finally reach their potential in the majors. To compare, in their first significant experience in AAA, Matty at age 21 hit .809 OPS, Belt at age 22 hit .956, and Eldridge at age 20 hit .836 OPS. So it might take 2-3 more years for him to reach his potential. And in those two cases, worth the wait.
Most top prospects struggle with their initial MLB experience. He would not be the first nor the last. And most hitters require 2-4 years to adjust to MLB pitching.
We will see with Bryce but he has done what he needed to do to reach the upper minors at age 20, which around 99% of baseball prospects never do. So why not enjoy his achievements and vast potential?
More importantly, he’s been able to adjust quickly, first to pro ball, then at each new level, he has struggled initially but then adjusted quickly enough that his seasonal stats still are above average for the league. That suggests the ability to adjust quicker than other players to the majors.
So I’m going to appreciate and be grateful for the experience (and memories) of watching a rare power hitting phenom in a Giants uniform, first since Matt Williams, so it’s been a while. Hopefully he makes it. And I think his early success suggests that he will be a MLB hitter, just how great is the question. But we’ve seen #1 prospects fail before, so you never know for certain, each prospect is different. And I’m going to enjoy the ride!
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