{"id":632746,"date":"2026-03-20T01:38:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:38:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/632746\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T01:38:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T01:38:18","slug":"giants-option-bryce-eldridge-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/632746\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants Option Bryce Eldridge – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Giants optioned rookie first baseman\u00a0Bryce Eldridge<\/a>, the team informed reporters (including Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>). San Francisco also optioned second baseman\u00a0Tyler Fitzgerald<\/a> and outfielder\u00a0Grant McCray<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Eldridge will open the season in the minors after finishing the \u201925 season on the MLB roster. The 21-year-old top prospect made his big league debut in September. He played in 10 games and took 37 plate appearances, batting .107 without a home run. Eldridge took seven walks but struck out 13 times.<\/p>\n

A 6\u20197\u2033 power bat, Eldridge popped 25 homers in the upper minors last year. He combined for a .260\/.333\/.510 batting line across 433 trips. Eldridge spent the majority of the year as one of the youngest players in Triple-A. There\u2019s immense physical upside, but he\u2019s clearly far from a finished product. Eldridge struck out in more than 29% of his minor league plate appearances.<\/p>\n

The whiffs have remained an issue this spring. Eldridge has fanned in 19 of his 50 exhibition plate appearances. He\u2019s second (behind former Giants first-round pick James Tibbs III<\/a>) in strikeouts among Spring Training hitters. It\u2019s understandable the team feels he\u2019d benefit from more reps against Triple-A pitching.<\/p>\n

While Eldridge is surely disappointed not to have made his first Opening Day roster, it\u2019s not exactly a career setback. Most hitters his age aren\u2019t in consideration to break camp. He\u2019ll very likely be back up at some point this season.<\/p>\n

The demotion will probably have service time implications. He has 14 days of big league time, meaning he\u2019d need to spend 158 days on the MLB roster to reach one year of service at season\u2019s end. That won\u2019t happen unless he\u2019s called up before the end of April. It\u2019s not a case of service time manipulation, to be clear. If the Giants were primarily concerned with that, they wouldn\u2019t have promoted him last season (earlier than they needed to select him onto the 40-man roster).<\/p>\n

The Giants are likely bypassing the chance at getting a Prospect Promotion Incentive draft pick, though it\u2019d technically still be in play if they recall him within the first couple weeks. The PPI pick is conditional on awards voting, though, and Eldridge\u2019s strikeout rates are concerning enough that he\u2019d have an uphill path to winning Rookie of the Year. The primary focus is what the team thinks best for his development.<\/p>\n

Rafael Devers<\/a> will be the primary first baseman. The Giants don\u2019t have a set designated hitter with Eldridge in the minors. There\u2019s now more of a path to carrying both\u00a0Luis Matos<\/a> and\u00a0Jerar Encarnaci\u00f3n<\/a> on the active roster. Both players are out of options and would otherwise need to be traded or exposed to waivers.<\/p>\n

Casey Schmitt<\/a> and a backup catcher (likely Rule 5 draftee\u00a0Daniel Susac<\/a>) are going to have bench spots. That\u2019d leave one position player spot available between\u00a0Will Brennan<\/a>,\u00a0Drew Gilbert<\/a>,\u00a0Christian Koss<\/a> or a non-roster invitee. Corner bat Victor Bericoto<\/a> and speedy outfielder Jared Oliva<\/a> are among the minor league invites who have impressed this spring.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Giants optioned rookie first baseman\u00a0Bryce Eldridge, the team informed reporters (including Susan Slusser of the San Francisco…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[5,710,37817,4,1739],"class_list":{"0":"post-632746","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-bryce-eldridge","10":"tag-grant-mccray","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-tyler-fitzgerald"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116258951083783660","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632746","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=632746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}