Bryce Eldridge: Giants 2024 Minor League Player Of The Year
Giants farm director Kyle Haines did not mince words.
“It has nothing to do with anybody else—Bryce has been that good.” he said of 19-year-old first baseman Bryce Eldridge.
Drafted 16th overall in 2023, Eldridge began this season at Low-A San Jose, rose to High-A Eugene on June 28 and reached Double-A Richmond on Sept. 3.
Eldridge then took the rare step of reaching Triple-A as a teenager when the Giants promoted him to Sacramento on Sept. 14.
Haines said that near the end of Eldridge’s stint with Eugene that he “had been on another level compared to A-ball players.”
The lefthanded batter hit 12 home runs in 48 games for the Emeralds. In his final six-game series, he went 11-for-20 with five homers, four doubles and four walks.
“He’s 6-foot-7,” Haines said, “but for such a tall man, he has a really short stroke to the ball.”
At his four stops this season, Eldridge hit .289/.372/.513 with 23 home runs in 116 games. He tied Mariners prospect Michael Arroyo for the lead in home runs by a teenage hitter.
Said Jeremiah Knackstedt, Eldridge’s manager last year in San Jose and this year in Eugene: “I know in BP, it definitely sounds different coming off of his bat . . . With him, it’s very, very effortless to get the ball out of the ballpark.”
The Giants drafted Eldridge out of Madison High in Vienna, Va., where he was a legitimate prospect as a two-way player. He has focused on hitting in pro ball, playing right field in his pro debut last summer and first base this year.
“I’m very curious to see how that could’ve gone,” Eldridge said of his prospects as a two-way player in pro ball. “I think I could’ve been able to do it, but I have no regrets now.”
After opening this season in San Jose, Eldridge has designs on returning to the Bay Area—in San Francisco—by the end of next season, when he will still be just 20 years old.
“I think it’s definitely possible,” Eldridge said. “I just gotta keep doing what I’m doing and stay healthy.”
