"Bryce Eldridge is Soon to Make His Double-A Debut" Free for All Mailbag
Only four hitters have taken an at bat in the Eastern League this year at the age of 19. One of those was a roster emergency fill in who popped up for two days from a nearby A-ball squad and quickly departed again. One has played most of the year as a 20-year-old (Boston’s Roman Anthony, who started the year in the EL and turned 20 at the beginning of May). In fact, across all three Double-A leagues, there are only three players in their age 19 season who have taken more than a token “we need a body for a day” at bat in Double-A this year: the Orioles’ Samuel Basallo (a true monster who has been in the EL all year), Alfredo Velasquez (who has more recently been promoted to Bowie), and the Angels’ Nelson Rada, who started 2023 as the only 17-year-old on an opening day minor league roster).
Sometime today or tomorrow, Bryce Eldridge will join that list when he makes his debut with the Richmond Flying Squirrels. In doing so, he will become just the third 19-year-old to appear on a Richmond roster in the franchise’s history. One of those was another “get us a body” situation, when Anyesber Sivira was brought up for the final two days of the 2019 season. The other — more equivalent to Eldridge’s situation — was Heliot Ramos. And even Ramos had spent an entire year previous to that in Low-A, climbing only from High-A San Jose to Richmond in the course of 2019. Eldridge’s accomplishment, climbing from Low-A to Double-A as a 19-year-old in his first full professional season, is pretty much unprecedented in the Giants’ organization in recent history.
And if all of that isn’t crazy enough, according to Baseball America, Eldridge’s 188 wRC+ in High-A puts him pretty select company:
Better than Vladito and Giancarlo! That seems good! It’s almost anti-climactic to note that he was named the NWL Player of the Week this week.
All of which seems like a good reason to pop the champagne cork and take a long sip as I open this week’s mailbag…
Steve Angeline
Hi Roger,
I noticed in Low A and High A there is very little “in game” coaching strategy. The lineup is set from the start of the game and a position player is never pinch hit for unless in the case of injury. I 100% understand this strategy, but is this the same for AA & AAA?
Hi Steve,
You’re quite correct about that. There is a lot of behind-the-scenes determination that goes on in the minors regarding who is available for any given game, who is going to pitch and for how long. It’s all mostly scripted. You might occasionally see a bunt or intentional walk or something like that, but mostly the top levels of the organization have a strong hand in the lineups, and, as you say, they don’t change much in game.
There’s a little more of that sort of thing in the upper minors — but only a very little more. Richmond actually leads the Eastern League in pinch hitting appearances this year, as the club has made use of platooning switches — but that league leading total is, I believe, in the 20s, which is still not very many pinch-hitters used in the course of a year. And even there, some of that platooning is being scripted from above, as in the case of Vaun Brown and Turner Hill. Also, for what it’s worth, the strategy hasn’t helped much, as the team hasn’t had an actual pinch hit yet this year.
By and large, these are development leagues first and foremost and everything else comes second.
Good day, Roger. It appears to many of us longtime (old) Giants fans that substantial changes are necessary in order to bring our team out of this lengthening funk of barely .500 baseball (three years and counting). One surefire way to bring young, inexpensive talent to the 26-man is "grow your own". You know better than most (maybe even better than some on the Giants staff) who are the best candidates for 2025-2027 promotion. In your opinion, who are the five best players that fit this description, and when do you think they will arrive?
John, this sounds like a perfect setup for me to mention that a brand new set of Depth Charts covering every position on the field will be coming out this winter to be followed by the (very slow and detailed) unveiling of my 2025 There R Giants’ Top 50 which will have all the answers you seek!
Thanks so much for helping me advertise the off-season content plans!
(Also, you probably want to check out the “above the jump” portion of today’s post again! Here, a quick refresher…..)
Easy question (I think): why has Jairo Pomares disappeared recently? And maybe not so easy: in light of Grant McCray’s (and maybe a couple of others) success in AAA and the majors after appearing to be just eking by in Richmond — is Richmond the equivalent of Purgatory?
When guys disappear from the lineup for an extended time, it almost always means a health issue of some sort. I don’t know what particular issue is keeping Pomares out of the lineup, but he hasn’t been placed on the IL, which would point to a “day-to-day” situation (of course, it’s also true that Richmond needs to open a space on the roster to fit Eldridge on, so maybe Pomares will be the opening).
The Eastern League is a tough league to hit in for a wide variety of reasons (including a lot of affiliates from good pitcher development orgs), and the PCL is an extremely hitter-friendly league for an equally wide range of reasons. That said, I really don’t think that McCray (who is hardly a finished product at the plate), has been a much different hitter in the PCL, or the majors so far, than what he showed in Richmond. There are very clear strengths — in particular a barrel rate that seems to get to his best contact with high frequency — and clear holes that will need to be polished up for him to keep progressing forward. When you take into account that April suppresses offensive stats every year in every league at every level, and almost exactly half of McCray’s time in the EL came in April, I think his year has actually been quite consistent across all the levels. Indeed, would it surprise you to learn that, by wRC+, McCray’s finest performance this year came with Richmond (109, as opposed to 102 in Sacramento and 99 currently with San Francisco)?
There are other players without McCray’s skillsets who move up to the PCL and have better performing stats, but I would caution people to see those “performance improvements” through a PCL-lens. To be honest, I don’t really know of players in the Giants’ system who have succeeded in the majors without having been successful in Richmond — at least not since the days of Buster Posey (who didn’t play there at all) and Brandon Crawford (who didn’t hit there).
I really enjoy your work. I am concerned about the A’s playing in Sacramento and how that will disrupt the development of Giants prospects with the River Cats. What are your thoughts on this? At one point, I had heard speculation that the River Cats might play somewhere else, even in Oakland, to minimize disruption. Have you heard anything about this?
I have to say that, though everything about the A’s situation is something between a mess and a crime, I do think MLB should be commended for making what certainly appears to be a good faith effort to accommodate the A’s and River Cats sharing a facility. The A’s 2025 schedule conforms much better to complementing the minor league schedule format than I had any hope of its doing. There are only one or two weeks in the entire year where the one week on, one week off, nature of the minor league schedule doesn’t fit, and those will be worked around fairly easily I would imagine (for instance, split location series with Reno).
In addition to the schedule, it’s already been announced that the A’s will be putting in a turf field to help it stand up to pounding of being played on every week for a full season — which a grass field never could.
So, it certainly does seem that the Giants’ legitimate concerns over disruption to their Player Development operations are being treated with sensitivity and thought. And, as a Giants’ staff member said to me several months ago, it seems likely that there will be benefits as the A’s work to bring the “behind the scenes” portions of the facility up to big league standard. After all, the River Cats will get to use those big league upgrades half the time and it’s all on somebody else’s dime!
I’m curious why Oracle Park seems so hard for hitters. Joey Bart couldn’t seem to hit much above the Mendoza Line with us but is hitting like .270 for the Pirates. Are we drafting the right type of hitters for Oracle Park? I wonder if Giants brass will consider further tweaks of that enormous right field wall.
Speaking of McCray, earlier this year I was halfway through trying to ask him a question about why it’s so hard to hit in the Eastern League in April, and before I even got to the end of the question, he scoffed, “it’s just damned cold, bro. It’s no fun! Nobody likes to play shivering and wearing five layers of clothes — your muscles getting stiff while you stand there.” Now McCray also went on to note that the job is to perform in any kind of environment and state his firm intention to do so.
But the point stands. Opposition players (and, at some point in the past, many Giants players) have complained for years about playing in San Francisco, whether Candlestick or Oracle, because the temperature and the winds have them in a perpetual deep freeze. On top of which, of course, those winds are often blowing in and knocking balls down. It does seem to be the case that hanging curtains on the archways during the pandemic had a significant impact on the way the park played, and perhaps there’s some compromise they can reach that allows them to hang some sort of see-through material out there that will still allow fans to enjoy the game from that concourse while also filtering out some wind. Outside of that, I don’t see that they can change the wall without compromising the integrity of the ballpark in general. You just have to make it work, in the immortal words of Tim Gunn. They’ve certainly had their success in that park, and many teams that play in much more hitter-friendly environments can’t say as much.
What’s the report on this Josuar de Jesus Gonzalez kid? Any internal chatter about him? Where do you think he will rank in his class when MLB pipeline releases their IFA list?
An add-on related to International. There is a rumor that the Giants already have a top (if not THE top) international prospect locked up for the coming season. Any comments? Confirm or deny?
Actually, there are multiple rumors — and my friend GPT is the source for both of these — that the Giants have agreements with one of the top shortstop prospects in each of the next two international classes: Dominican Josuar de Jesus Gonzalez in 2025 (whom Joe Salermo actually mentioned as a target when he was on the pod last January), and Venezuelan Luis Hernández in 2026 (who has already been performing professionally in Venezuela against much older players who have major league experience). Both look like they are going to be top two or three type prospects in their classes (and will be paid like it).
Gonzalez is a smaller-framed player now, but he has shown electric explosiveness with his feet, hands, and arm. Baseball America’s Ben Badler — who is really the king of all international news — has said he has 70 grade speed and a 70 arm, incredibly fast feet and athletic actions at shortstop, and hands so fast and explosive that despite his current 5’10” stature, he produces over-the-fence power from both sides of the plate. According to Badler, “[f]or some scouts, he’s the best prospect for 2025 out of the Dominican Republic because of his combination of athleticism, explosive tool set, ability to play a premium position and hit from both sides of the plate.”
A deal is not a deal until it’s signed and executed — and some agreements do get lost along the way (the Giants lost a player they had been connected to last year) — but there is every reason to believe that Gonzalez will officially be a Giant come January and Hernández will join him a year later. Were they both in the organization officially today, they’d likely be in my top 10 for the organization right now, to be honest. (We’ll see if Jhonny Level makes it in the top 10 this year — he very well might! It feels to me like a slightly thinner group this year than in recent years, thanks to all the graduations).
Below, by the way, is video from a tweet from GPT, and I’ll put it up in addition to Badler’s video above, because it’s probably worth noting the gear he’s wearing here:
How does the Giants’ facility in Santo Domingo compare to other teams in the Dominican Republic? Ancillary to that, does it look like the Giants are spending enough money on scouting and signing international talent?
Also, are the Giants spending enough money on development? Are their international players ready for the jump to the California League, given there is no short-season league? Are they getting developed enough in their Papago Park facility and the Arizona Complex League?
More questions on the international side! The question of spending money on scouting and signing international talent is really a moot point. MLB places a hard cap on what teams can spend on the IFA market and the Giants spend every bit of that pool every year. They also have a reasonably large international scouting organization, coaching staff, and R&D and analytics staff, so it’s pretty hard to see how they could fix their somewhat lackluster international production through money. MLB continually moves to cap the influence that money can have in a lot of areas of development (that’s also what the restriction on players on the domestic list is about, naturally).
As for the facility, it was a jewel when it was opened in August of 2016. Now that’s amazingly getting close to a decade ago now, so I’d imagine that there are some dents and bruises that have appeared in that time. Still, the Giants were at the tail end of a generation of Dominican Academy upgrades at that time — most of the other orgs had built one in the previous decade. So naturally, the Felipe Alou Academy was a bit nicer and had a state-of-the-art technical infrastructure at that time. I don’t know off hand if any other teams have built a new facility since that time, but I’m pretty sure that the Giants facility is still one of the newest ones in the game, so I’d imagine it holds up quite well.
On the broader scale, I think the Giants are outspending a lot of clubs on their minor league side. The Papago Park facility is amazing, and the club spent somewhere between $60 and $80 million in constructing it — and that was at “height of the pandemic” interest rate prices.
Every affiliate is fully stocked with Hawk Eye. They’ve put money into nutrition, mental health, and conditioning. They’ve increased the size of coaching staffs. If there is an issue, it isn’t money. That said, moving from the ACL to full-season ball is going to continue to be a monumental challenge now that short-season ball is gone — and if MLB gets their wish and eliminates one of the A-ball levels, things are going to get much worse. That’s just the nature of the game now.
Some of the Giants’ recent international players have managed that ACL-CAL leap with great success (Luciano, Matos, Pomares, Arteaga), while others have found it more of a challenge. But then, this is a “challenge” business. Remember those wise words of Tom Hanks: “it’s supposed to be hard. The “hard” is what makes it great!”
Hey Roger! I’m banging the Marco Luciano drum, as I believe unlocking his potential needs to be a top, top priority for the organization. If you’re the Giants' chief decision-maker, what would your plan be for Luciano at this critical juncture in his development?
Hi Michael! Let me first repeat something that I always like to emphasize — the importance of player agency in determining their own careers. And just as I think it’s crucial to focus on the player when there’s credit to be handed out for success, the player also should take on the burden of responsibility when things aren’t going as well. So first, I think Luciano needs to really get himself focused on putting in a great winter’s work and come to camp next year in the best shape of his life — particularly focused on explosiveness and flexibility. He’s just too young a man to be dealing with the constant hamstring issues that we’ve seen from him the last two years. I don’t think he’s been nearly as physical this year, and he looks like he’s stiffened up on both sides of the game, which has been part of his issues this year, I think — and that’s on him as much as it is on anybody.
Secondly, before he leaves for the winter, he and the Giants HAVE to come to some sort of understanding about what position he should be working on this offseason. It should NOT be shortstop and, in my opinion, it shouldn’t be 2b. The difference between those two positions just isn’t great enough to solve the fundamental issues we’ve seen from him on defense going back years. His arm strength is fine — which is typically what moves guys to the right side. If the sense within the organization is that Matt Chapman isn’t going to be back, then maybe you could focus on trying him at 3b, but my suspicion is we’re more likely talking about LF in the long run. If that’s the case, you say so be it and try and turn into the best LF you can possibly be. If Ramos can handle RF (which might be iffy as well), then there’s a chance to create an outfield with offensive impact in the not-too-distant future.
Finally, I really think that the Giants have gotten into Luciano’s head about the importance of working walks, and I feel it’s really made him overly passive. He has a good understanding of the strike zone, and that should help him be a productive player who always has a solid walk rate. But I don’t think he should be chasing the walk rate — and that’s really seemed to be his approach the last couple of years. He seems to perpetually be in full counts and almost never jumps on pitches early in at bats. I would tweak that and try to regain some of his early count aggressiveness. He needs to be hunting pitches he can launch. The version of Luciano we’ve seen in Sacramento this year isn’t likely to be an impact player on either side of the ball and they need to get him back to creating impact at the plate.
One of the criticisms I’ve had of the Giants’ org the last few years is that I think they are a little too single-mindedly focused on BB/K rates in all of their evaluation and acquisition models. I fully understand the importance of that indicator of success. Still, I’m not sure how well this front office evaluates, promotes, or frankly helps players who get to their abilities in different (maybe even less effective) ways. I think the Giants can get into the habit of trying to pound square pegs into round holes a little bit with these types players, and sometimes the result of that process isn’t making players better, so much as it is just making them confused about who they are and what they should try to become (I think you could tell the stories of Joey Bart, Luciano, and Luis Matos in that same basic narrative). I think they could do with a little more open mindedness about balancing different types of skillsets and strengths and approaches, even while having organizational preferences and priority values.
(This is a bit of a tangent, but there’s something of that behind the needlessly shabby way they are moving on from 2023 Willie Mac winner, Thairo Estrada as well. If you’ve decided you want to non-tender him, fine — do it at the appropriate time. But the idea that you need to force a very good Giant to end his career slumming it in Sacramento in September in order to give more looks to Casey Schmitt or Brett Wisely is not terribly convincing to me. I know which of them I’d bet on to be the better major leaguer over the next 2-3 seasons).
Hi Roger! I'm really excited about Dakota Jordan. He was one of the college players I had really hoped the Giants would draft, yet who I thought would get picked up by another team. I did see the video you posted of him, thank you making it available on You Tube. I'm curious what your initial thoughts are from seeing him play in person and if you heard anything about him from any of the scouts. I know he has a lot of swing & miss with the bat, but he looks to me like a toolsy player with lots of power, speed and overall athleticism. Do you think he'll start 2025 in San Jose and perhaps be fast-tracked through the system depending on how he adjusts to each level? Perhaps we'll see him in AAA in 2026 if all goes well for him? Thanks!
Initial thoughts? He’s blazing fast, has a good arm, patrols center field reasonably well, and looks very powerful in the box (though I wasn’t able to see him in BP to get a real look at the power). It’s a great starter package! There is definitely work to be done in recognizing spin. The last game I saw from him at extended, he struck out four times, and the opposition squad was just shoving sliders at him relentlessly (both right-handed and left-handed pitchers). I did happen to be sitting with a long-time scout and former MLB player who noted that Jordan’s going to have to show teams he can do something with that pitch or he’s never going to see anything else. So, the learning process begins.
The hope with a former two-sport guy is that having a single-minded focus on one sport will speed up the learning curve. The whole point of development, after all, is to get better. Work and improve. So, I certainly don’t want to suggest that swing and miss against breakers is going to be an eternal issue for Jordan — but it’s definitely the biggest area of growth potential for him as he begins his journey.
As you say, his raw physical skills and athleticism put him in rare company in the organization, and we’ve seen players successfully turn elite athleticism into production despite swing and miss issues this year.
Sadly, Jordan might not be getting any more of those reps this year. In just his second game after being assigned to San Jose, he pulled up short trying to beat out a ground ball and clutched at his hamstring. After hobbling back to the dugout, he was replaced. With just a week left in the regular season, followed by the Cal League playoffs, the immutable logic of even a mild hammy pull probably takes him out the rest of the way.
Hi Roger! Two questions (if that’s ok): What are your thoughts on Diego Velazquez? He’s one of my biggest movers this year. Who else in the system has improved the most in your estimations?
Hello Griffin! Thanks for the questions.
I’m a big fan of Velasquez! There is no doubting that he has a tremendous ability to get the barrel to the ball. And it’s been impressive watching him come up to a very difficult Double-A league at just 20 years old and just continue putting bat on ball and ball on outfield grass.
Velasquez isn’t a particularly toolsy player, but his young age belies a player who has been competing with his elders since he was a toddler, and you can see that he has an advanced instinct for the game and tends to be very fundamentally sound in all of his actions.
The question with Velasquez going forward continues to surround his physicality. He is not strong and both his raw power and game power are 30 grade tools. His footwork is sound, but it’s not fast. If he can add an element of explosiveness to his game, it would help the package play up. As it is, I think you’re maybe hoping for something like a Luis Arraez outcome — though let me emphasize that that’s the unicorn scenario and not the most likely one (the more likely outcome would be a bench player). But we’re talking about some kind of player whose primary value comes from getting on base through a combination of singles and walks, who helps keep the line moving on offense, while being an acceptable level defensive 2b. That seems like the trajectory that Velasquez is on right now.
As for other players who have really improved this year? I don’t want to miss the obvious, so let’s just emphasize that the improvements Eldridge has made throughout his first year have been remarkable. And the same goes for the various players who started the year as prospects but are now big leaguers — Ramos, Fitzgerald, Kyle Harrison, Hayden Birdsong, Erik Miller, Randy Rodriguez, etc. There is no greater improvement in this game than making that leap! I also want to call out Grant McCray’s work this year.
But if you’re looking for lower level improvement, Bo Davidson certainly comes to mind as a player who has really stepped up his game. I also continue to be really impressed by what I’ve seen of Carter Howell this year. I think he’s a big leaguer, and, probably in a smaller role, I would say the same of Turner Hill. Those two have been real bright spots on the Richmond club. Ryan Reckley has bounced back nicely from a disastrous 2023 season. And Lisbel Diaz’s work in moving from the DSL last year to a leading hitter in the San Jose lineup has been very impressive. And then, one other player whose year has sadly been limited by injury, but Jose Ortiz showed tremendous improvement at the plate in his first full season since being drafted out of a Puerto Rican academy. Ortiz is a very small player, so it remains to be seen if his body can hold up to the physical rigors of the game, but he has a lot of supplementary skills (speed, arm, defense, contact ability) that can be a valuable package if it all comes together (think Juan Carlos Perez type of value).
What’s your outlook for Keaton Winn and Landen Roupp for next year? Do you think there is a shot they could move into the rotation or shift more into a bullpen role like Sean Hjelle?
It’s really all about sustained health and withstanding the work load with both of those guys. I think the Giants would love to see both of those guys progress as starters — and for a while in April, we saw how effective Winn could be in that role. But the fact is that over the last two years, neither Winn nor Roupp has been able to build up to 5-6 inning outings on a regular basis without getting shutdown for some ailment or other. With Winn, this has very consistently been elbow irritation — so we’ll see what his rehab and comeback from the surgical procedure he had this year (moving the placement of the nerve that goes through the elbow) is like.
With Roupp it’s been a variety of different nagging things, but at this point, he hasn’t made it to five complete innings since his last start of 2022, and he’s spent nearly half of his time on the IL since then, rather than on active rosters. It’s hard to be a starter that way! I do think that he has the repertoire and command to be a quality starter, but if you can’t stretch him out and keep him stretched out, then there’s no way to know that for sure.
Of course, I can’t talk about Roupp and Winn without recalling my trip to Eugene two years ago when I saw Roupp, Winn, and Mason Black start three days in a row. Three straight big leaguers! That was a good trip! That’s why I keep getting out to the ballpark to watch and study these guys. There Really R Giants on the farm!
Hi Roger! I keep getting surprised by Lisbel Diaz this year. I think I remember someone in your podcast before the season (maybe Salermo or Eli Walsh?) that was quite high on him. Did he catch most scouts/analysts by surprise though? What changed? And what would be his floor, average and ceiling future outcomes now?
Sorry for so many questions in one, please answer as you see fit!
Hello Henrique, yes, Diaz has had an outstanding season. And you are remembering quite well — Senior International Scouting Director, Joe Salermo did indeed bring Diaz up when I asked about guys who had thrived in the DSL last year. That was, in fact, the very same podcast that I mentioned earlier, in which he talked about targeting Josuar Gonzalez for next year:
To a certain degree, Diaz caught people by surprise last year. He was a Cuban refugee about whom fairly little was known — he hadn’t had a lot of time in international tournaments to be seen by US scouts, and consequently didn’t have much of a track record. However, the Giants did a good job scouting him once he had made it through the scary and horrifying human trafficking experience that all Cuban refugees now have to go through (needlessly, in my opinion, and the State Department should get us back to an Obama-era detente on that issue, the sooner the better).
But once he showed up on a baseball field, Diaz has been impressing people. There R Giants’ readers might recall that he had a memorable pro debut, blasting two home runs and driving in eight RBI in his very first game. He started gaining attention for his ability to create hard contact with high Exit Velocities almost immediately — there was a Baseball America article a year ago, for instance, that included him as a potential DSL breakout player based on his underlying batted ball data.
And this spring, though I never saw him play in a game, I did report in my various camp notes that Diaz was one of three DSL players who had come up to join the extended group late in camp. Put all of those bread crumbs together and you have a player who has pretty steadily impressed observers.
As for floor/ceiling outcomes? Well, he’s a 19-year-old who is still getting his feet wet in Low-A. The floor is a player who never rises above Double-A — as is the case for the vast majority of such players. But there is a potential corner outfield profile that you can readily see in Diaz. He has big power and a huge arm — those are his two best tools by far. There’s something slightly funky about his bat path — I think, like Austin Slater, he’s going to be a player who succeeds most in the upper half of the strike zone.
As with all such players, it’s going to be all about where the hit tool ends up.
Have you any concern on Eldridge’s ability to hit Offspeed/Breaking stuff? I was just thinking last night how I don’t think I’ve seen him hit a homer off a breaking ball despite having 19 home runs this year. I think part of that is a testament to his ability to hit the fastball but I thought it was worth noting.
Joe, the kid has the highest OPS in the minor leagues over the last month and a wRC+ in High-A that was better than Vladimir Guerrero, Jr. and Giancarlo Stanton’s at the same age. Allow me to humbly suggest that such concerns, for right now, fall into the category of needless worrying. Will Eldridge be perfect? Probably not? Should we be starting the process of setting aside time to attend his Hall of Fame ceremony in 2052? Might be a little aggressive!
But do we need to pick nits on a player who has surpassed the wildest hopes or expectations set upon him in his first season? We do not. Just listen to him talk — does this guy sound worried?
"I Want To Be Great"
It’s time for another edition of “In the Dugout” — and who better to turn my camera on then the top prospect in the system, 19-year-old Bryce Eldridge, who is putting the finishing touches on a fantastic first full season. He talks about his journey this year, learning about his swing, picking the brains of older, more experienced teammates, and the bur…
(Also, yes, I’ve seen him hit off-speed stuff for homers this year.)
When will we see Bryce Eldridge at Oracle Park?
Thanks for all your great content! Any reason Bryce Eldridge is still in A+? Seems like he has nothing else to prove there and the Giants generally rush top prospects through the minors. Not quite sure what their thought process is with his development—or if they even have one. Thanks!
Luke, barring something awful happening health wise (knock on wood), I think it’s a given at this point that we’ll see him in Oracle sometime next year.
Trevor, you got your wish! He’s no longer in High-A. We’ll see him take his first Double-A at bats either later on today or tomorrow (the Giants often give players a day to adjust to a new environment after travel, and, especially with the long cross-country flight, that would be my guess in this case).
That makes this a good time to pack up the mailbag for this week — I’ve got me a BP session in Richmond to catch, folks!
I dig out a photo of Eldridge from a couple months ago and make it my Substack icon and he immediately gets promoted a level. Coincidence?
Anyway, now I'm franticly looking for an old Vaun Brown photo.
It's beginning to look like (if we squint?) they moved on from Thairo to open up a spot for Marco Luciano to play 2B for the rest of the season. Now the manner in which they did this, to a Wilie Mac Award winner as you pointed out, was pretty harsh. No club chose to add Thairo on waivers (and pay the roughly $800 K left) and rather than simply giving Estrada his release (and the remainder of his salary) they opted to follow the rules to the letter and are requiring him to report to AAA for a few weeks to collect the salary they happily signed him to just a few short months ago. I believe Pavlovic in his reporting mentioned that current Giants players were surprised that Thairo wasn't given his release.
So why would they do that? "Because they can" is the answer, but I wonder what the motivation was. I cannot imagine it is any kind of punitive punishment for Thairo as everyone speaks highly of him. All I can come up with is that by sending Thairo to AAA they are avoiding the indignity of having to compete against the guy they're still paying? The Diamondbacks are in town and their All-Star 2B Ketel Marte is on the IL. The Diamondbacks weren't going to pay $800 K for Thairo Estrada knowing Ketel will be back, but would they pay the prorated minimum for a few games for an edge? I'd think they would. Looking ahead the Cardinals (Nolan Gorman in AAA) might also have been an option and , heck, the Padres signed Nick Ahmed so I suppose they shouldn't be overlooked either. It is the only motivation I can come up with - if you want Thairo you need to take the contract, otherwise we'll keep him becuase he hasn't reached 5 years of service time left. It sucks for Thairo, it raised some eyebrows in the clubhouse, but maybe that's a trade-off the FO is okay with as opposed to watching Thairo get a few hits off of Birdsong or starting a double-play off the bat of Marco Luciano?