{"id":17927,"date":"2026-05-21T01:35:57","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T01:35:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/mlb-analysts-rip-giants-over-bryce-eldridge-situation-heavy-com\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T01:35:57","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T01:35:57","slug":"mlb-analysts-rip-giants-over-bryce-eldridge-situation-heavy-com","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/2026\/05\/21\/mlb-analysts-rip-giants-over-bryce-eldridge-situation-heavy-com\/","title":{"rendered":"MLB Analysts Rip Giants Over Bryce Eldridge Situation &#8211; heavy.com"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/mlb\/san-francisco-giants\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The San Francisco Giants<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> are running into a serious problem with top prospect Bryce Eldridge. And Foul Territory concurs.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/>&nbsp;<br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">In 28 big league at-bats, the towering 6&rsquo;7 slugger has an abysmal .143 batting average and a 38 OPS+.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Giants were <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/mlb\/san-francisco-giants\/bryce-eldridge-speaks-playing-time\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">betting on Eldridge<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> to be a force for years to come. With a lineup full of middling stars, the last thing President of Baseball Operations Buster Posey needed was a scuffling prospect.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since his floundering start, it&rsquo;s become apparent that The Bay is wandering away from the Eldridge approach. <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/aroundthefoghorn.com\/d-backs-broadcaster-calls-out-sf-giants-for-apparent-lack-of-care-amidst-awful-start\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">It&rsquo;s been such a rough go<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> that the rookie&rsquo;s role has been dialed down to &lsquo;glorified pinch hitter.&rsquo;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Analysts around the league have raised eyebrows at how the top prospect is being handled. One former player in particular is fed up.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Eric Kratz, a former big league catcher and now analyst for <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DYlFpWSxaHO\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The Foul Territory Network<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">, believes Eldridge deserves more of a shot.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t call your prospects up to fill in,&rdquo; said Kratz. &ldquo;You call your prospects up because it&rsquo;s time to go. In the long run, it&rsquo;s not as good for the player as teams would think. &lsquo;Oh, it&rsquo;s okay, it&rsquo;s totally fine, Bryce Eldridge can come up right now, and he can sit on the bench. Teams are afraid of us pinch-hitting him.&rsquo; They&rsquo;re not [afraid]. It&rsquo;s not fair, he&rsquo;s never done it! It&rsquo;s hard enough. You learn to do that at the end of your career. You don&rsquo;t pinch-hit as a prospect in the big leagues, that SUCKS. That is really hard to do, and I think they&rsquo;re putting him in a spot to fail. If you call Bryce Eldridge up, he plays. Bar none. You have to find him at-bats, or you leave him in Triple-A.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">AJ Pierzynski, another former <a class=\"wpil_keyword_link\" href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/mlb\/\" title=\"MLB\" data-wpil-keyword-link=\"linked\" data-wpil-monitor-id=\"270303\">MLB<\/a> backstop and Foul Territory host, added onto Kratz&rsquo;s point.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&ldquo;This is a Buster Posey thing. It has to be. There&rsquo;s no other way to look at it,&rdquo; Pierzynski added. &ldquo;If this were Tony Vitello and Buster wanted him to play, Buster would be like, &lsquo;Tony, you need to play Bryce Eldridge.&rsquo; And if he said no, then Buster would be like, &lsquo;You need to play him.&rsquo;&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Kratz didn&rsquo;t entirely agree with Pierzynski&rsquo;s point.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&ldquo;I think it could be the other way,&rdquo; he interjected. &ldquo;Buster hired this guy for a reason. He didn&rsquo;t hire him to keep him like a puppet, as other organizations do. So maybe he&rsquo;s like, &lsquo;This is your team, go play them.&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Pirezynski followed up on Kratz&rsquo;s disagreement with his own.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">&ldquo;That makes zero sense,&rdquo; he replied. &ldquo;If I&rsquo;m Buster, then I&rsquo;m like, &lsquo;Okay fine, you&rsquo;re not gonna play him? Then I&rsquo;m gonna send him back down to Triple-A, where he can get at-bats. He&rsquo;s doing me no good.&rsquo; That is not a Tony Vitello thing. That is an organizational Buster Posey, whoever else is in the front office thing.&rdquo;&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Regardless of how you look at it, one thing is clear: Eldridge hasn&rsquo;t been handled correctly.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Whether it&rsquo;s playing or demoting Eldridge, moving or doubling down on expensive contracts, or <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mlb.com\/giants\/news\/landon-roupp-has-strong-start-but-giants-lose-vs-d-backs\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener external\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">deciding the future of their organization<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\"> as a whole, San Fran has major decisions approaching.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">With a current record of 20-30, it&rsquo;s trending towards Buster Posey being a seller. If that&rsquo;s the case, Eldridge will have been riding months of pine to no avail. Here are the four words of the day for Giants&rsquo; fans: <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/sports\/mlb\/san-francisco-giants\/buster-posey-could-deal-batting-champion\/\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">beware the fire sale<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">.&nbsp;<\/span><br \/>&nbsp;<br \/>  Like Heavy Sports?  <br \/>  Go here and check the box<br \/>next to Heavy Sports  <br \/> \t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/author\/ajlovesthecardinals2006\/\"><strong>AJ Stone<\/strong><\/a> AJ Stone is a baseball writer for Heavy, covering MLB news and various trends. His work has also appeared on Redbird Rants, Inside Halos, District on Deck, and other digital outlets. With a focus on analytics, he aims to blend data with storytelling for an engaging experience for his readers.  <a href=\"https:\/\/heavy.com\/author\/ajlovesthecardinals2006\/\">More about AJ Stone<\/a>\t\t<br \/> \t\t\t\t\t\tStay Connected\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/rss\/articles\/CBMilAFBVV95cUxOMURIUlI4a1BpTHdGUmE1MFlhVmw5cHp4amdXdERLRktnMjF2Vl9XdWtDRnN2T2FfRTFmb2x0MGdrY0hWSEI0cHZzd1RiSnhlSWtQdFhsR1Y2U09LaGQ1aDlmaWt3LTNELUgzWFdfR0c3dTZyX3R5V2JjUkFfenJ1RUJhQ3hUdVFkOTdEM3gyRzhGS2pX?oc=5\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The San Francisco Giants are running into a serious problem with top prospect Bryce Eldridge. And Foul Territory concurs.&nbsp;&nbsp;In 28 big league at-bats, the towering 6&rsquo;7 slugger has an abysmal .143 batting average and a 38 OPS+.&nbsp;The Giants were betting on Eldridge to be a force for years to come. With a lineup full of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17928,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globalnewstoday.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}