{"id":620537,"date":"2026-03-12T18:21:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:21:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/620537\/"},"modified":"2026-03-12T18:21:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T18:21:19","slug":"bryce-eldridge-belongs-on-sf-giants-opening-day-roster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/620537\/","title":{"rendered":"Bryce Eldridge belongs on SF Giants’ Opening Day roster"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the big leagues, Tony Vitello<\/a>.<\/p>\n

We do things a little differently up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As the Giants<\/a> wind down camp in Scottsdale and barrel toward Opening Day<\/a>, the new skipper is about to get a crash course in Major League Baseball\u2019s front-office bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

The 26-man roster that runs onto the grass at Oracle Park on March 25 isn\u2019t Vitello\u2019s final call.<\/p>\n

That heavy responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of Buster Posey and Zack Minasian.<\/p>\n

But you better believe the front office is going to pull the new manager aside and ask for his input. When they do, Vitello has a golden opportunity to set a defining, uncompromising tone for his tenure.<\/p>\n

He should ignore the spreadsheets, completely bypass the hand-wringing over minor-league options, and simply advocate for the absolute best players to be on his big-league team. Age, pedigree, and contract status be damned.<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say Eldridge is a guaranteed superstar from Day 1, or that he\u2019s a completely flawless selection. But look at what he\u2019s doing. Going into Thursday\u2019s Cactus League game, the kid is slashing .259\/.412\/.556. Yes, that comes with an uncomfortable 32 percent strikeout rate, but the raw offensive upside is undeniable. When you stack those numbers up against a guy like Jerar Encarnaci\u00f3n \u2014 who is sitting on exactly zero walks and a pedestrian .412 slugging percentage this spring \u2014 it seems incredibly obvious that the kid is the right choice to be the opening day designated hitter.<\/p>\n

But this is modern baseball, where front offices treat \u201coptionality\u201d like a religion.<\/p>\n

What, you thought that was gone with Farhan?<\/p>\n

The catch is that Eldridge has minor-league options. Encarnaci\u00f3n does not. Neither does Luis Matos. So, the path of least resistance for the front office is to stash the promising kid in Sacramento, hold onto the out-of-options veterans, and comfortably avoid making a tough, decisive move until the more seasoned players fail. They might be able to get them through waivers in a couple weeks.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an agonizingly safe way to run a baseball team.<\/p>\n

Things can flip. Encarnaci\u00f3n or Matos could play well enough to demand a roster spot. Eldridge could, in turn, do nothing but strike out between now and the Giants\u2019 final day in Arizona next week.<\/p>\n

But right now, under the criteria of \u201cbest player for the team\u201d, Eldridge has to be on this big-league roster.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s not just hitting the ball; he\u2019s absolutely obliterating it with exit velocities that put Brandon Aiyuk\u2019s drives in front of Levi\u2019s Stadium to shame. His glove has been better than expected at first. His left-handed swing has stood up against left-handed pitching.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s shown (so far) that he\u2019s ready for the challenge of the big leagues.<\/p>\n

Bat him seventh or eighth, and the Giants\u2019 lineup goes from pretty good to one of immense potential. Sorry, but Encarnaci\u00f3n or Matos can\u2019t make that claim.<\/p>\n

There are front-office arguments for leaving Eldridge in Sacramento to start the year, but baseball ones?<\/p>\n

As of right now, I\u2019m not hearing them.<\/p>\n

Alas, those front-office arguments so often win out.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is why so few Giants spring training games are televised \u2014 so we can\u2019t lay eyes on the team and see the preposterousness of ruling by spreadsheet.<\/p>\n

Look behind the plate. Daniel Susac is probably the best option to back up Patrick Bailey to start this season. But he was always the favorite to win the job because he\u2019s a Rule 5 draft pick, meaning if he doesn\u2019t make the big-league roster, the Giants will be forced to send him packing right back to the Athletics (wherever they might be).<\/p>\n

And don\u2019t even start me with the bullpen construction<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Giants open the 2026 season against the Yankees in less than two weeks. It\u2019s Opening Night, under the lights, with the whole world watching on Netflix. (Nope, it still doesn\u2019t sound right.)<\/p>\n

The fundamental question Posey, Minasian, and Vitello need to answer right now is simple: Will they put the best team they can possibly assemble on the field to face Aaron Judge & Co., or will they field the team that best avoids conflict and gives the front office more \u201coptionality\u201d?<\/p>\n

Can this franchise honestly afford to keep playing that game?<\/p>\n

Because it seems obvious to me that the Giants \u2014 whether you look at their best-case or worst-case scenarios \u2014 are going to be playing a whole lot of tight, low-margin baseball games this season. Turning just four or five of those tight games from narrow losses into hard-fought wins could fundamentally change the entire campaign. You don\u2019t win those games by stashing your most dangerous bat \u2014 someone who can fundamentally change the bottom of the team\u2019s lineup \u2014 in Triple-A to manipulate the waiver wire under the guise of strikeout abatement.<\/p>\n

There are zero guarantees in this crazy sport.<\/p>\n

But here\u2019s one from me: Getting cute won\u2019t work for the Giants.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Welcome to the big leagues, Tony Vitello. We do things a little differently up here. As the Giants…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":620538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2408],"tags":[5,162,5774,5775,853,4,378,66,4343,4340,4344,4341,4342,185,430],"class_list":{"0":"post-620537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-francisco-giants","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-giants","10":"tag-giants-hq","11":"tag-inside-sports","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-mlb","14":"tag-san-francisco","15":"tag-san-francisco-giants","16":"tag-sanfrancisco","17":"tag-sanfranciscogiants","18":"tag-sf","19":"tag-sf-giants","20":"tag-sfgiants","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-sports-columnists"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116217596304592921","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=620537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/620537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/620538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=620537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=620537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=620537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}