Minor League roundup, Sept. 18: More Meckler and Eldridge

Yesterday’s action on the farm.

Only one of the San Francisco Giants Minor League Baseball affiliates is still in action, which means there was only one game on Wednesday. Let’s cover it!

Link to the 2024 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)

All listed positions in the roundup are the positions played in that particular game.

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News

Some season honors in Low-A San Jose! Baby Giants manager Ydwin Villegas has been named the California League Manager of the Year. Congrats to Villegas, as the Giants had a fantastic season, sporting a league-best 74-57 record.

And San Jose LHP Cesar Perdomo was named a California League All-Star after posting a spectacular 1.25 ERA and 2.56 FIP in 43 innings, which earned him a midseason promotion to High-A Eugene.

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AAA Sacramento (78-68)

Sacramento River Cats lost to the Sugar Land Space Cowboys (Astros) 5-4
Box score

Just as was the case the day before, the story in Sacramento revolved around 2 players: right fielder Wade Meckler (No. 11 CPL) and first baseman Bryce Eldridge (No. 3 CPL).

Meckler had another delightful game, hitting 2-5 and blasting a 2-run 9th inning home run off of Wander Suero, a reliever with tons of MLB experience.

The power that Meckler has been showing lately has been an absolute joy to see, and I really don’t want to dump baking soda on the fire. But I also don’t have much to add to the topic that I haven’t already said, so I’m going to just copy and paste what I wrote yesterday, and update it for Wednesday’s game.

His numbers since getting back to AAA following a lengthy injury absence and rehab assignment are pretty good, albeit nowhere near what they were last year, as he has an .876 .892 OPS and a 116 119 wRC+ with the River Cats in 2024.

But those numbers are propped up in large part by a huge boost in power. When Meckler made it back to Sacramento this year, he had hit 8 career home runs in 714 plate appearances across all levels. And since returning to Sacramento, he’s already hit 7 8 dingers in just 180 185 plate appearances.

Adding power is always a good thing, but it’s hard to view that as anything other than variance and park factors, because Meckler’s swing and body just aren’t built for home runs. So while it’s great to see him put up good numbers, it does feel like in needs to be contextualized for the home runs … even though it’s very weird to dock a player for doing the most valuable thing in baseball.

Ultimately, Meckler’s batting average, on-base percentage, and walk rate are substantially down this year, and it’s hard to imagine that increase in power (he has a higher isolated slugging percentage than any player with at least 100 plate appearances for Sacramento this year other than Heliot Ramos and Jerar Encarnación) continuing to hold things up.

So, yeah. Still there. Gonna stay there for a while. I don’t think the underlying metrics suggest that Meckler has magically found power that will translate outside of the Pacific Coast League. But again, it’s hard to dock a player for successfully doing the most valuable thing in baseball.

Still and all, even with the homers, a 119 wRC+ with mediocre defense and a still-surprisingly-small number of stolen bases isn’t exactly forcing the issue, and Meckler has fallen to the very bottom of the 40-man roster outfield depth chart. But then again, he was near the top of that depth chart in Spring Training this year before an injury, so there’s plenty of time for him to reverse his standing with the team. It will be a critical offseason and spring for young Meckler.

Now, onto Eldridge, the hands-down top prospect in the organization. It was another quality day for tall, powerful, and super young lefty, who hit 2-4 with a walk and a strikeout, though he did commit a costly error that put 4 unearned runs on LHP Raymond Burgos’ ledger.

Eldridge has hit safely in all 4 games since getting the speedy promotion to AAA, and the 19-year old is 5-16 with 3 walks and 5 strikeouts. We’ve yet to really see the power on display, as all 5 of his hits have been singles, but he’s been hitting the ball very hard, and spraying it all over the field.

Statistics (Eldridge has a .734 OPS and a 103 wRC+ through 4 games) are helpful in letting us see what players are doing, since we don’t get to watch all — or even most — of the games. But the process, eye test, and underlying metrics are much, much more important when it comes to Minor League players, and that’s part of why Eldridge got promoted out of San Jose and Richmond even when his numbers were much more good than great.

I’m not a professional scout or anything close to one. But I will say, watching these Sacramento games …. Eldridge looks like one of (dare I say the) best player on the field. Or at least the best player in the batter’s box. He just looks like a Major Leaguer taking at-bats with the composure, patience, approach, and attack. I’ve been mightily impressed, and I’m sure the Giants have been, too.

The only other notable offensive day belonged to designated hitter Hunter Bishop, who went 2-2 with a walk and a stolen base. He continues to make a great push as the season nears an end, and is putting himself in position to try to make a push towards the Majors next season. We can never say it enough times: development isn’t linear!

On the mound, the Giants went with a “season is winding down” approach. RHP Carson Ragsdale (No. 32 CPL), making what should be his final start of the year, was again limited to a short stint, not due to performance but due to not wanting to overwork pitchers.

He pitched very well, throwing 31 of 42 pitches for strikes, allowing just 3 baserunners and 1 run in 3 innings, and striking out 2. He ends his debut AAA season with a 5.03 ERA and a 5.65 FIP, but those numbers look a lot better when you remember that he was a midseason promotion, after a fantastic stretch in AA Richmond. Most importantly, Ragsdale ends the year with 120.2 innings pitched … after throwing just 33.1 innings over the last 2 seasons combined. He feels like a lock to be a Rule 5 protection, which means we’ll probably see him in the Majors next year.

And then he handed things over to one of last year’s Rule 5 protections, RHP Kai-Wei Teng (No. 23 CPL). It’s been a fairly brutal season for Teng (other than the excitement of making his MLB debut), but he was given a smaller task in this game — just 1 inning — and did well with it. Teng threw 9 of 14 pitches for strikes, gave up a hit, a hit batter, no walks, and no runs, and struck out 2.

Teng will likely be pretty nervous for the next few weeks or months. He can’t feel like his spot on the roster is secure, after he had a 9.82 ERA and 6.72 FIP in 11 Major League innings, and an 8.72 ERA with a 6.65 FIP in 74.1 AAA innings.

RHP Spencer Howard had a dynamic relief appearance, giving up 2 baserunners in 2 shutout innings, while recording 5 of his 6 outs on strikes. And a hit batter was the only baserunner ceded by RHP Tyler Myrick in 1.1 innings, as his strong season nears its end. Gotta think he’s under some Rule 5 consideration.

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Home run tracker

AAA Wade Meckler (9 total, 8 in AAA)

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Thursday schedule

Sacramento: vs. Sugar Land, 6:45 p.m. PT
Richmond: Season over
Eugene: Season over
San Jose: Season over

Reminder that Minor League games can be watched on MLB TV.