SF Giants need to learn from 2020 mistake with handling top power-hitting prospect

Top SF Giants power-hitting prospect Bryce Eldridge excited the fanbase over the weekend when he hit a mammoth home run. The calls have grown loud for him to make the Opening Day roster but the Giants need to be careful and learn from a 2020 mistake.

SF Giants need to learn from 2020 mistake with handling top power-hitting prospect

The calls will only grow louder if he continues to perform. For now, he has two hits, including that home run, in seven at-bats with five strikeouts.

Deciding when to promote can be tough, and there is often no right answer. If you do it too soon, you run the risk of calling up a prospect prematurely. Plus, the option clock begins and it might start sooner than a team wants.

If a team waits too long, it raises concerns about service time manipulation and does not convey confidence in a prospect. This is especially true if he is performing well in the minors.

If a player is already on the 40-man roster, that changes the dynamic. Sometimes, a player is called up prematurely due to need as was the case with Marco Luciano when he debuted in 2023.

Eldridge is not on the 40-man roster, so the Giants have to be cautious with the timing. It would be great if he just took the decision out of their hands by hitting his way onto the Opening Day roster.

However, there is a recent precedent with this. It was in 2020 with Joey Bart. The Giants were on the bubble of the playoff picture and tried to get more production out of the catcher position.

They began the year with Tyler Heineman and Chadwick Tromp. Neither one performed well enough so the Giants promoted Bart to the major league roster. Similar to Eldridge right now, Bart was not on the 40-man roster at the time.

The former top pick had just 87 plate appearances in the upper minors at the time of his promotion. It was clear that he was not ready. Importantly, it also began his option clock.

Giants fans know how this story played out. Bart was out of options in 2024 and they signed a replacement in Tom Murphy in the previous winter. The former No. 2 overall pick was shipped to the Pittsburgh Pirates where he has pretty comfortably entrenched himself as the everyday catcher less than a year after the trade.

Now, it bears mentioning that the 2020 season was a weird one due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The future was uncertain, so it was difficult to project a lot of variables. Still, it was clear that he needed more minor league seasoning. There are a lot of factors that can be debated in terms of how he was handled in the ensuing seasons, but it was undeniable that he was not ready in 2020.

The Giants are at a similar crossroads with Bryce Eldridge. He is arguably the team's top position player prospect since Buster Posey. The left-handed bat is coming off of a season in which he posted an .890 OPS with 23 home runs and 92 RBI in 519 plate appearances split across four levels.

This includes just 75 plate appearances in the upper minors. The Giants had Eldridge finish the year in Triple-A due in part to wanting him to get more at-bats once the Double-A season concluded. That is a very small sample of playing time in the upper minors and the new front office led by Buster Posey likely will be more conservative with promotions.

That said, if the Giants are going to promote Eldridge at any point, especially early in the year, they need to be 6,000 percent sure he is ready. There is nothing worse they can do than to promote him and send him back down if he struggles. Plus, that option click starts ticking once he is added to the 40-man roster.