2024 Season Wraps: Eugene Emeralds

One prospect to rule them all

Photo Credit: Eugene Emeralds

As is the case every year around here, before we start looking ahead to the coming season, we need to take a moment to relive the past one. We’ll wrap up the season for each level, taking a look at the overall success of the season, memorable games and special accomplishments, and of course, we’ll take a look at which players made their case for There R Giants’ Top 50 list! We’ll start from the bottom and go level by level. Today we look at the Eugene Emeralds.

Previous Season Wraps:

• DSL Giants (Black and Orange)

• ACL Giants

• San Jose Giants

The chilly and damp spring weather in Eugene typically leads to slow starts for the Emeralds’ players. But 2024 flipped that script on its head. Instead of floundering out of the gates, the Ems played their best ball under the rainy skies, racing out to a 16-6 record in April and dominating the league’s hitting stats from the top of their lineup to the bottom.

That would be the high-water mark for the team as a team, however. From May 1 through the end of the year, the club staggered, playing 23 games below .500 for the final 4+ months of the season. Ouch!

The club also played most of the season under the gathering cloud of uncertainty for the future, as locals voted down a bond issue in May that would have secured funding for a new stadium in Eugene. The club will continue to play in the University of Oregon’s PK Park for the foreseeable future as the team’s front office works tirelessly on finding a long-term solution to their existential crisis.

Still, in the face of mounting losses both on and off the field, Eugene was home to some of the best stories of the year on the Giants’ farm, with one particular player rising tall above the rest. For this is where The Rise of Bryce Eldridge really took place. While the young prodigy was good and promising in San Jose, in Eugene he was great and dominating. And it could well be that nothing else that happened on the farm this year matters nearly as much as this origin story.