The Giants are calling up Bryce Eldridge, and it’s a little weird

In his first year at the helm of the organization, Buster Posey has been something of a walking contradiction. If that sounds like a criticism, I don’t particularly mean it as such. All great athletes must be contradictions, and it follows that those constructing great athletic clubs may need to do the same.

Every great quarterback knows that you should never throw across your body, yet every great quarterback’s highlight reel of greatest plays features countless such throws. Every great golfer knows the whole point of the sport is to minimize risk, yet every great golfer is remembered for the rewards reaped when choosing risk.

It’s the elite athlete paradox. So many of sports’ worst plays occur when an athlete doesn’t realize that they shouldn’t do something; and so many of its best plays occur when an athlete does realize that they shouldn’t do something, and proceed to do it anyway.

Posey did that plenty of times as a player, and he’s done it more than once as the San Francisco Giants President of Baseball Operations. But never quite as strongly as on Sunday night, when word came out that Posey and the Giants were calling up 20-year old top prospect Bryce Eldridge.

Since the start of Spring Training, Posey has been throwing cold water on the idea of calling up Eldridge this year. He’s been throwing so much cold water, in fact, that he’s even used the term “cold water,” and I believe has done so on multiple occasions.

Calling up a prospect after suggesting that you wouldn’t is hardly grounds for the label of walking contradiction; had you told me a few months ago that Eldridge would debut this year, I wouldn’t have been surprised. But the context paints a lot of color in the lines.

The most reasonable reason for calling up Eldridge would have been that he mastered AAA. That’s hardly the case, as his performance — an .836 OPS, a 106 wRC+, a 30.8% strikeout rate, and defense that still needs improvement — depicts an exciting prospect with plenty of wrinkles to iron out.

Another common reason would be a hot streak of such epic proportions that it feels like malpractice for a player’s homers to be left in AAA parks instead of in Major League ones, accruing actual value. But that’s not the case either: while Eldridge is currently on a seven-game hitting streak, his performance during that time — 10-28 with one home run, four doubles, two walks, and eight strikeouts — is more “end the season on a high note” than “force the issue.”

And then there’s the reason that I would have expected had you told me at any point in July or August that Eldridge would be arriving: the season’s over, so why not give a future building block some run before March, and give the fans something exciting to cheer for? But that’s obviously not the reason, as the Giants sit just a game-and-a-half out of the playoff standings.

Instead, it appears to be an entirely reactionary decision from a man known for his stoicism when others would react. The Giants offense was paltry over their weekend series against the Los Angeles Dodgers, particularly against righties Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Tyler Glasnow. There’s nothing offensive about that, both literally and figuratively: Yamamoto and Glasnow are among the best pitchers in all of baseball. And even with those hiccups, the Giants have been baseball’s best offense for nearly a month now: since August 23, they lead the Majors in runs per game (6.6) and wRC+ (130), while ranking in the top four in batting average (.278), on-base percentage (.348), and slugging percentage (.475).

But those weekend struggles to score are in the forefront of everyone’s mind, most importantly Posey’s. On Monday’s Giants Talk podcast, NBC Sports Bay Area’s Alex Pavlovic called the call-up a “reaction” to Sunday’s listless loss, saying “I think Sunday changed [the equation].” John Shea of the SF Standard said that “(Dominic) Smith’s injury, coupled with the weekend meltdowns, created an urgency.”

Eldridge would still be preparing for the final week of the Minor League season had Smith not gotten hurt, and he’d probably be doing so had the Giants lost 10-8 on Sunday, instead of 10-2. Instead, that small sample of futility was enough to cause a complete directional shift by the organization, not unlike in July, when the team was reportedly ready to buy on a Monday and then, after watching two dysfunctional losses, decided to sell on Wednesday.

It’s a doubly risky move when you consider there’s a good chance Eldridge struggles. Posey himself struggled when he was first brought up as a September call-up, hitting 2-17 with no extra-base hits or walks. Many of the games greatest hitters did the same: Aaron Judge slashed .179/.263/.345 in 27 games his first year. Mike Trout went .220/.281/.390 in 40 games when he debuted. Eldridge’s idol, Bryce Harper, won Rookie of the Year in his first season, but not before spinning his wheels and posting a .663 OPS through his first two weeks.

This could be the latest bit of brilliant button-pushing by Posey, whose successes far outweigh his failures. Eldridge could hit the ground running, propel the team to the playoffs (where he’d be eligible through a rigged-for-your-pleasure appeals process), and give the team roster clarity heading into another critical offseason.

But it’s certainly out of character for a Giants brain trust that has made every effort to be calm, careful, and collected. Then again, knowing when to be out of character tends to be what separates the greats from the rest. Perhaps this is just the latest example.

0 Comments