Well, it’s finally happened. The San Francisco Giants have backed into the perfect opportunity to recall their top hitting prospect, left-handed hitting DH/1B Bryce Eldridge, along with one of their more intriguing ones, right-handed hitting C/3B/1B/DH Jesús Rodríguez. It’s desperation season already for the Giants and we’re all about to find out if these youngsters will sink or swim.
Buster Posey didn’t have very many levers to pull to try to improve a moribund lineup, but Eldridge’s .963 OPS in 30 games and Rodríguez’s .840 in 24 games for Triple-A Sacramento are solid. It’s also the obvious move at this point, as the chances of the team making the postseason seem to be on the verge of transitioning from “probably not” to “longshot.” They need more and better contact, more on base-ability, and, of course, more power. In theory, both players check all three boxes.
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Eldridge is 5th in the PCL for batting average (.333), Rodríguez is 7th (.330).
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Eldridge is 2nd in OBP (.445), Jesús Rodríguez is 15th (.400)
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Eldridge’s OBP is 5th, Rodríguez’s is 20th.
Of course, they’re not without their flaws. Our managing editor, Brady, doesn’t feel that Eldridge is quite ready at this point for a very simple reason: a 30% strikeout rate. It is the result of plenty of swing and miss in his game (22nd percentile in Whiff rate). The rest of his Statcast profile reminds of Rafael Devers, too. Plenty of swing and miss in the strike zone. Does that make this recall premature? Probably. But the Giants are desperate. And the fans ought to be, too. At this point we’re watching a really bad Marvel movie and only some random cameos are going to rescue the feeling of wasted effort investing in this team. The Giants will be playing at home against the Padres, who will be throwing three straight right-handed starters and, as a staff, are middle of the pack in terms of strikeouts per game. So, Eldridge is getting a nice setup.
Rodríguez doesn’t make consistently hard contact (33% Hard Hit rate — 32nd percentile) despite making lots of it (90% zone contact rate — 89th percentile). It also remains to be seen just how versatile he is as a catcher and corner infielder and whether or not Tony Vitello will deploy him in that way (he can just ask Christian Koss what good being a Swiss Army Player has done him).
This might be a downbeat post about what should be some exciting news. On the one hand, the Giants have two promising prospects to call up; but, on the other hand, those players will be expected to give a team filled with All-Star veterans a season-saving transfusion of talent. It’s far from the front office’s plan they devised in the offseason, but maybe the ones being made out of necessity will prove better in the long run than these best laid ones through which we’re presently suffering.
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