SACRAMENTO -- The surprise promotion from Double-A to Triple-A last weekend was meant to give Bryce Eldridge an extra week of at-bats, but the other side of the ball might have seen even more growth over the final days of his first full professional season.
By sending him back to California, the Giants put Eldridge in their best possible environment in terms of defensive work. He spent a week working with fundamentals coach Jolbert Cabrera and hitting coach Damon Minor, along with Ron Wotus, who has retired from life in the dugout but continues to be an infield instructor at all levels of the organization.
Wotus helped Brandon Crawford and Joe Panik win Gold Glove Awards and worked with Brandon Belt on a daily basis, but Minor might actually bring the most interesting perspective in this case. There are few hitters in big league history who have stood 6-foot-7, as Eldridge does, but Minor is on the list. He also was a first baseman.
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Eldridge, who doesn't turn 20 until next month, is eager to soak it all up. Asked during an interview for the Giants Talk Podcast about what he has learned this season, he immediately brought up the need to improve defensively.
"Defense is going to be a huge thing going into next year -- how good can I get there," Eldridge said. "I'm far from where I want to be on defense right now."
The Giants are confident that Eldridge won't be overwhelmed by big-league pitching whenever he arrives, even if it's very, very early next season. But they want him to stick from that first call-up, which means being reliable at first base -- and ideally starting to form a corner duo with Matt Chapman that the organization might lean on for the rest of the decade.
This is all relatively new to Eldridge, who was drafted as a two-way player and played the outfield in 2023. Pitching was taken off the table in the offseason so that Eldridge could move more quickly through the organization, and the Giants shifted him to first base, where they feel he's a better fit. The lack of above-average foot speed was a concern in the outfield and the hope is that Eldridge's massive wingspan eventually makes him an elite defender.
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Right now, the focus is simply on mastering the basics.
"We're trying to get him a really good base with his legs," Wotus said Saturday on NBC Sports Bay Area's 'Giants Pregame Live.' "He's tall and has a tendency to not get as wide. When he hits, he's got a great base ... we're trying to get him a better base so he can explode better on his first step instead of being so narrow, so you want to be able to move right and left."
There is work to do, but the Giants have been encouraged by Eldridge's hands and his willingness to adapt. His development will continue next month in the Arizona Fall League, and he'll get a full big league camp next spring to continue working with the organization's best coaches.
Eldridge said this initial season at first base has "been a great learning curve." He was often a DH in high school, but he has gotten used to playing the field every day, and his bat certainly hasn't suffered at all from the extra work. Eldridge finished the season with a .885 OPS and hit 23 home runs in 116 games across four levels.
Now, it's about rounding out his game, and the Giants believe that will happen quickly. The expectation is that Eldridge will debut next season, and likely early in the year. When he arrives, Eldridge wants to be a contributor on both sides of the ball.
"That's going to be a big point in the offseason, to nail (that defense) down so I can be locked down over there in San Francisco, hopefully next year," Eldridge said.