It’s promotion season! Well, not for you. Your boss hates you, which is why you spend all day reading The Athletic at your job. This is an effective form of passive resistance, and I support your struggle. But it’s promotion season for the Giants, who began September with two extra active roster spots to use, and they filled them with players they’re hoping will stick in the lineup for several years.
The Giants also promoted their top prospect to Double A, which isn’t a minor development. Well, it’s quite literally a “minor development,” but not in the way …
Let’s just get to the takeaways.
Marco Luciano is going to start every day (this time for real)
You’re skeptical, and that’s understandable. The last time you were told Luciano was up to become the full-time DH, he was instantly buried behind a minor-league free agent and couldn’t even find pinch-hitting opportunities. He got 15 at-bats in the first 15 days of August.
However, the Giants did take the pretty drastic step of outrighting their starting second baseman off the roster to open up a spot for Luciano. It seems legit this time. I’m not sure if the bait-and-switch last time was because they were hoping to catch lightning in a bottle with Jerar Encarnación, or if they got cold feet at the idea of Luciano losing valuable defensive development or a little of both. It’s hard to see them doing the same switcharoo to get Brett Wisely into the lineup.
It’s obviously ideal to figure out if Luciano is a viable major-league hitter going into the offseason, but it’s even more important to see if he’s an infielder at all. In his first game back up, he made the most dreaded of all errors: the kind of error that made a paunchy middle-aged baseball writer think, “Sheesh, even I could have made that play.”
Luciano’s defensive problems are mental — and I’m including things like “proper technique” and “consistent footwork” as a mental part of the game — and not physical. So there’s a chance that he smooths out some of these kinks. He also just might be clumsy, or incapable of adjusting to bad hops or throws that need to get to first faster than he initially thought. Some infielders are going to play defense like their hands have 10 big toes instead of fingers, and there’s nothing they can do about it.
No time to find out like the present.
Luis Matos has returned to do … stuff
He’s not going to start that often. That much was made clear by manager Bob Melvin, who mentioned it would be difficult to juggle all six outfielders on the roster. Mike Yastrzemski still might have a place on this team next year — don’t complain to me, complain to either version of WAR, which says that he’s still a net positive for any team — and it doesn’t make sense to bury him completely. Heliot Ramos is obviously an everyday player until something changes, and Grant McCray might be the true center fielder the Giants thought they finally had with Jung Hoo Lee.
OK, all of that makes sense. But here are my list of (politely stated) demands:
1. Michael Conforto won’t be a part of the next contending Giants team, and his playing time should be adjusted accordingly.
2. Mark Canha won’t be a part of the next contending Giants team, and his playing time should be adjusted accordingly.
3. Grant McCray shouldn’t be hidden from left-handed pitchers, and he definitely shouldn’t be platooned. On Tuesday night, Melvin brought Matos in as a pinch-hitter against left-hander A.J. Puk, which is a more than defensible baseball move. But the Giants shouldn’t want a McCray-Matos hybrid. This is the perfect time to see if McCray’s minor-league numbers against lefties might translate to the majors. He’s an everyday player if they do.
It sure looks like McCray is going to be the one losing at-bats for Matos, and I hate it. But I also hate that Matos isn’t getting regular at-bats, and getting them late against the Puks of the world is one way to do it. The Giants are unlikely to face a lot of left-handed starters for the rest of the season.
The imperfect solution is probably to get Matos some of the at-bats that McCray and Yastrzemski would otherwise get, against lefties and righties alike. It’s an imperfect solution, but it’s also the least imperfect solution.
It’s hard to overstate just how impressive Eldridge has been this season. In the roughly 500 days since his senior prom, he’s already in Double A, where teenagers usually fear to tread.
In case anyone needs a reminder of how old Bryce is, it’s on his jersey 🫡
With his debut tonight, Eldridge became the second-youngest Flying Squirrel in team history at 19 years, 10 months and 14 days. pic.twitter.com/CAs91xUerZ
— Richmond Flying Squirrels (@GoSquirrels) September 3, 2024
Eldridge started the season slowly, but he improved dramatically starting in May. Then when he was challenged with a promotion to High A, his walk rate spiked, his strikeout rate dropped and his power exploded. The only sensible thing to do was get him up to Richmond for a little taste of that Double-A life. It beats assigning him there for the first time next spring, when Eastern League conditions are famously rough on hitters.
If you’ve been looking around enviously at players like Jackson Chourio, Jackson Merrill and Junior Caminero, none of whom could legally drink when the season started, and wondering where the Giants’ version is, here’s your best shot in a long, long time. You’ve seen several players quickly move from Richmond to the majors, from Matos to Wade Meckler. It’s not unthinkable that Bryce-mania could overtake San Francisco by this time next season.
(Some perspective: The last time we included Eldridge on our list of takeaways, 2024 first-round pick James Tibbs III was also included. After his promotion to Eugene, he had one hit in his first 42 at-bats, which translated to a .024 batting average. He had two hits on Monday night, but never forget that baseball is cruel and difficult and also cruelly difficult. Another 19-year-old to reach Double A for the Giants? Heliot Ramos, who needed another half-decade to establish himself as a starter.)
(But, also, holy cats, Bryce Eldridge.)
(Photo of Eldridge: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)
