Giants top prospect Bryce Eldridge is no banjo hitter, despite bluegrass in his blood

SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. — It’s become a daily sight during the Giants’ morning workouts this spring: Coaches Matt Williams, J.T. Snow and Ron Wotus gathering on the infield grass, focusing their individual attention on one player and pouring more than 100 combined years of fielding wisdom into 20-year-old first baseman Bryce Eldridge, one ground ball at a time.

Eldridge, arguably the Giants’ most heralded hitting prospect since Buster Posey, combines a 6-foot-7 frame with a surprisingly compact swing that has so much power potential that team brass might be tempted to develop the rest of it in the major leagues. But Eldridge is also learning a new position. His ability to play a sufficient first base might be the only thing holding back his debut.

It’s looking a little rough right now. Eldridge received his first exhibition action as a first baseman on Wednesday and misplayed a routine ground ball into a charitably scored double. He has everything to learn about positioning, bunt defenses and how to save his teammates errors on throws in the dirt.

But Giants coaches and officials are confident that Eldridge will improve with time and practice. You might say it’s in his genes.

His grandfather was a Hall of Famer who could really pick it.

Ben Eldridge’s instrument was not a first baseman’s mitt. His plaque is not in Cooperstown. But among bluegrass music devotees, he is regarded as one of the greatest banjoists in the history of the genre. He was a founding member of The Seldom Scene, the influential bluegrass jam band that was nominated for four Grammy Awards, recorded with countless stars including Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris, and was inducted into the International Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in Owensboro, Ky.

The family’s musical accomplishments extend to guitarist Chris Eldridge, Ben’s son and Bryce’s uncle, a nine-time Grammy Award nominee who beat out the likes of Joan Baez when his band, Punch Brothers, won the Grammy for best folk album in 2019.

It’s a family legacy that Bryce Eldridge is proud of, even if he decided to pick up a baseball instead of a banjo.

“Those guys can rip it,” he said. “I didn’t appreciate it much when I was younger because I didn’t fully understand what was going on. I was 11 or 12 when my grandfather got inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame. So I’m not sure I grasped how cool that was. But he was such a great guy and obviously he could play anything. He was a legend for sure.”

Ben Eldridge died last April at the age of 85. His funeral service was not a stiff and stoic affair. There were stories and laughs from his old friends and bandmates, hundreds of pictures that jogged thousands of memories, and of course, enough live music to fill a two-day festival. When you spend so much of your life on the road, memory lane becomes as full as a six-lane expressway.

Now his grandson is the jewel of the Giants’ minor-league system and poised to draw crowds of his own to watch him perform. He was so irrepressible as a 19-year-old in his first full professional season last year that the Giants promoted him three times — from Low-A San Jose all the way to Triple-A Sacramento — and then sent him to the Arizona Fall League to get additional work at first base. He was just about the youngest player at every stop yet he hit at all of them, including an all-too-short nine-game stint close to home at Double-A Richmond. In 116 games across four levels, he hit .292/.374/.516 with 23 home runs.

Bryce Eldridge is not a banjo player. He’s not a banjo hitter, either.

“What’s most impressive about him — what I’ve heard from our reports and what my eyes have seen — is just his presence in the box,” said Posey, now the Giants’ president of baseball operations. “There are certain guys that just look like hitters and he’s one of those guys.”

The other thing that strikes Posey about Eldridge?

“That it’s hard to believe he was 19 (last season),” Posey said. “I mean, he looks like he’s 30.”

At no point in his life was Eldridge average sized. He was born three weeks premature yet weighed close to 10 pounds. From the time he was in kindergarten, he was the tallest kid in every class. He says in all seriousness that he might have been taller than his kindergarten teacher, too. His father, also named Ben, is 6-2. Bryce stood eye to eye with him by the seventh grade.

His older brother, also named Ben, was born 20 months earlier and 5-year-old Bryce would tag along to baseball practice with the older kids. From the start, Bryce was zipping throws, pelting balls off the pitching machine and understanding how to turn a double play.

“Other kids couldn’t hit it past the mound and he’s scorching them up the middle off a machine,” said Bryce’s father, Ben Eldridge. “He’s been different from very early on.”

His notoriety in baseball circles grew nearly as fast as he did. He was the star hitter and pitcher on his Little League all-star team in Vienna, Va., which won the state title three times and narrowly missed qualifying for the Little League World Series. He was 12 when the first Division 1 college program started recruiting him. He thinks he was in the eighth grade, maybe the seventh, the first time someone asked for his autograph.

On May 6, 2015, Nationals star Bryce Harper hit three home runs in a home game against the Marlins. A few hours later that day, 10-year-old Bryce Eldridge hit three home runs for the Vienna Little League Major Braves.

“We’re all huge Nats fans and Bryce Harper was his hero,” said Eldridge’s mother, Beth Kenney. “Then he left to sign with Philly and … well, it was game over for that.”

For the Eldridge family, the games were just getting started: travel ball, showcase tournaments, Team USA. His parents, who separated when he was young, would take turns driving him and his older brother up and down the Eastern seaboard, bat bags clattering in the backseat. They considered every mile on the odometer to be an investment in what promised to be a special career path. There was just one problem, as Bryce’s mother saw it.

“Bryce is the worst car mate,” Kenney said with a laugh. “Any time you get in a car with him, he falls asleep. I don’t care if he just rolled out of bed. We’ll go on a long drive and forget about trying to have a conversation. I have so many pictures of him in the front seat, just lights out.”

Eldridge had more growing to do but even after starting at James Madison High School in Vienna, when he stood nearly 6-7 as a sophomore, he retained his compact swing path. When he spreads out in the batter’s box, nearly straddling it from chalk to chalk, and takes one of his short and direct swings, it’s not hard to see Harper’s influence.

Eldridge loved playing wide receiver almost as much as baseball and he was impossible to guard on a fade to the corner of the end zone. His favorite position was safety and he “really enjoyed lighting people up,” his father said. But both his parents worried about the potential risks. The only way for defenders to tackle him was to take him out at the knees. So against Bryce’s protestations and a slammed door or two, his parents held a united front. He would focus on baseball.

There was no reason to narrow his athletic path any further than that. By the time he was a sophomore, pro teams were writing him up as a two-way prospect. And when the legions of scouts showed up to his games, it helped that they weren’t necessarily there to see him. They were filing reports on James Triantos, who hit .700 with 11 home runs and just two strikeouts in his senior year before the Cubs drafted him in the second round in 2021.

“It was cool for me to see how he handled all that pressure,” Eldridge said. “It was definitely something I tried to follow. It’s like the scouts weren’t watching me but they were watching me. I think it helped to not have that pressure on me but know I’m maybe putting some of them on notice.”

Eldridge pitching in the Perfect Game All-American game as a junior in 2022. (Mark J. Rebilas / USA Today)

Then came summer ball after his sophomore year. And a hitting slump that wouldn’t end.

“It got to a point where I was growing so much that I was uncoordinated and didn’t know my body,” Eldridge said. “Everything was getting stretched out and hurting all the time. Once my growth plates closed, that’s when my pain finally stopped and I started to put on good weight. Until then, it was harder to repeat my swing.”

Eldridge started to hear whispers from scouts through his adviser and current agent, Tucker Ward. He learned what the “PO tag” meant: pitcher only.

Eldridge looks back now and said he never considered giving up hitting. There might have been external pressure to focus on the mound, where his fastball reached 97 mph in the state championship game as a senior. But Ward provided reassurance from a credible source — his father, Turner Ward, is a former major leaguer who served as the hitting coach with the Diamondbacks, Dodgers, Reds and Cardinals. And he loved everything about Eldridge’s swing.

“If you let this kid put the bat down, it’ll be the biggest mistake of both of your lives,” Turner Ward told his son. “You just don’t see guys with longer levers who swing the bat the way he does.”

In his junior year, while winning the first of two state titles, Eldridge heated up at the plate. He hasn’t cooled down since.

He hit .422 with eight home runs and a 1.716 OPS as a senior while winning Gatorade Player of the Year honors for Virginia. He was almost untouchable on the mound, finishing 9-0 with a 1.06 ERA and 66 strikeouts to eight walks in 39 2/3 innings. Then he was named MVP at the WBSC under-18 Baseball World Cup while winning the gold medal with Team USA.

“I was on the map because I threw hard but I knew I could hit,” Eldridge said. “I always knew I could hit. Being a PO was never in the picture.”

The Giants drafted Eldridge with the 16th pick in the 2023 MLB Draft and immediately sent him out for seasoning. They listed him as a two-way player on draft day and saw enough in a pre-draft workout at their Papago Park complex to be open to the idea of a dual development path. But it took just a handful of minor-league games and a few glimpses of his at-bats in instructional league to determine that he could be fast-tracked as a hitter.

They did not force him to give up pitching. They hoped he would come to that decision on his own.

“The only thing I told Bryce was that I didn’t want him to regret his decision,” Kenney said. “I think it goes back to what he told scouts when they interviewed him and asked what his dreams were. Most kids might say their dream was to get drafted. He said, ‘I want to win a World Series and go to the Hall of Fame.’ He understood that (hitting) was the fastest way to get there.”

The Giants still had to determine a defensive position for someone who was mostly a pitcher and designated hitter in high school. Eldridge began his pro career as a right fielder where his arm strength figured to be an asset. Then the plan changed to first base last season. He was wiped out and had lost weight by the time the Giants sent him to the AFL last October, but the assignment had a specific purpose. They gave Eldridge an intensive course at first base with former All-Star Will Clark as his instructor.

“They couldn’t believe it back home,” Eldridge said. “I feel every one of my teammates’ dads who we told had the biggest crush on him. My dad couldn’t believe it. It was great. He’s one of the funniest guys I’ve ever met.”

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This spring, Eldridge is a special assignment for Snow, a six-time Gold Glove first baseman who is in camp for a few weeks as a guest instructor. No lesson or tip is too basic to pass along. Earlier this week, Snow asked Eldridge where he’s looking when a pitch is delivered. Eldridge said he watches the pitcher and follows the ball to the plate. Snow explained that it’s better to be focused on the spot where you expect a hitter to make contact. It’s a small adjustment that can improve reaction time.

“His instincts are really good,” Snow said. “His setup and positioning, I was impressed. For a tall and lanky guy, I told him, ‘You might have to work a little harder than a guy who’s 6-1 to get down to the ball.’ I’m impressed by his athleticism. The big thing now is repetitions. Patience is the biggest thing because he’s young and learning. But he’s further along than I thought.”

Eldridge arrived in Arizona in mid-January and was eager to begin his first spring as an invitee to major-league camp, but the Giants didn’t allow him to do early work at Scottsdale Stadium. They kept him at Papago until the day position players reported. He’s almost certainly going to be sent back there during one of the rounds of roster cuts in the coming weeks.

But it’s no secret that the Giants lack left-handed power. They don’t have a lefty DH candidate on the 40-man roster. Even if LaMonte Wade Jr. gets a day at DH, or starts in the outfield, there isn’t another lefty hitter on the roster to fill in for him at first base. There might come a time when the Giants sorely regret not having a lefty complement who can shield outfielder Heliot Ramos against tougher right-on-right matchups. If the Giants get off to a rocky start, and Eldridge is lighting up pitching in the upper minors, the temptation will be strong to call him up regardless of how many throws he’s able to pick at first base.

“The goal here is just to make a good impression with all these guys and just build relationships,” Eldridge said. “And leave here with these guys thinking that they need me on their team. That’s the goal: whenever they send me back to minor-league camp or whatever the plan is, have them thinking, we want this guy back as soon as possible.”

There are 62 players in the Giants’ big-league camp. Eldridge is the youngest. Justin Verlander, the 42-year-old future Hall of Fame pitcher, is the oldest. When Verlander made his MLB debut in 2005, Eldridge was 7 months old.

Eldridge has photographic evidence of an encounter with Verlander when Eldridge was 10 years old. The Vienna Little League was being honored on the field at Camden Yards and the kids had field passes to watch batting practice. Verlander, who was with the Tigers, stopped to sign autographs. The selfie that a grinning Eldridge snapped with Verlander in the background is having its viral moment on social media.

We need an updated photo of Eldridge and Verlander pic.twitter.com/36wAG3Y98g

— trev (@BayAreaTrev) February 17, 2025

On the day he arrived in the Giants clubhouse, Eldridge did not hesitate to reintroduce himself.

“I feel like two years ago I would be, like, really flipping out,” he said. “But now I’ve got to act like a professional.”

Eldridge grew up fast in more ways than one. His father marvels at how Bryce demonstrated mental discipline from a young age. But Ben Eldridge didn’t fully appreciate it until Bryce was 15 and they traveled to spend time with his advisor in Nashville. They stopped by to visit Uncle Chris, who happened to be home and not touring with Punch Brothers. Small talk in the living room between his Grammy-winning brother and his teenage son turned into a deep conversation about the challenge of performing in front of thousands of people.

“I’m sitting there in amazement for almost an hour, listening to my brother and my son having this really cool conversation,” Ben Eldridge said. “It was honestly one of the coolest nights of my life. Because I can’t tune it out like they can. I love playing guitar and I’ll go all night when there’s 20 people at the house. But it’s not fun to think about performing in front of thousands of people. That’s a gift to be able to harness that fear and direct it. Whether it’s baseball or music, they’re both performing when you come down to it.”

Said Bryce: “I think that’s when my dad knew I was built for this.”

Being the son of a legendary bluegrass banjoist makes for a pretty entertaining childhood, as it turns out. Someone famous was always passing through or showing up to jam, sometimes unannounced: John Denver’s bandmates, the guys from Little Feat, Ricky Skaggs, the bass player from Lynyrd Skynyrd.

“Tony Rice would crash with us,” Ben Eldridge said. “Here he is, one of the greatest acoustic guitar players ever, and I had to move my toys so he can sleep on our couch.”

Thursday night at The Birchmere was like a midweek secular church service. The lines would be out the door at the legendary venue in Alexandria, Va., for The Seldom Scene’s jam sessions that they called their “weekly card game.” Stars would show up and get on stage. Future Vice President Al Gore was sometimes in the crowd.

And to think, playing the banjo was a second job. The elder Ben Eldridge was also a mathematician who worked for Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory and conducted groundbreaking research in underwater acoustics for the U.S. Navy.

“There are people who know the rest of my family and then they find out who Bryce is,” the younger Ben Eldridge said. “And they ask, ‘How did you get all these genes?’”

The musical gene might have skipped a generation. Or not. Bryce Eldridge said part of him regrets not picking up a stringed instrument with any purpose to learn to play. Then again, he just turned 20. He’s too young to have regrets. And besides, the time spent honing his chosen craft appears to be well spent.

As mature as he might look and act for a 20-year-old, Eldridge is still working on mastering some aspects of adulting. Last November, when he and his mother added Portugal to the list of European trips they’ve taken together, Kenney pulled into a gas station and told her son to fill the tank. They drove just a few hundred meters before the car started shaking and sputtering.

“He filled it with diesel!” Kenney said. “Not his finest moment. But we had fun. We always do. Bryce is not the kind of person who just sits on a beach. He loves history. He loves to see the sights. He wants to know what we’ve got planned for every day. We really travel well together.”

He might even stay awake in the car long enough to carry on a conversation.

“He will be the guy in the clubhouse who’s dialed in to make sure the focus is on winning,” Kenney said. “He will never be OK with losing. And Bryce is the type of kid who befriends the new kid in class. They would assign special needs kids to his class because they knew he’d be a protector and supporter for them. He’s a sweetheart, he really is.”

One other thing might have to come with age. Bryce admits he doesn’t listen to a whole lot of bluegrass music. He’s more likely to have Chris Stapleton as his walkup music than anything featuring a banjo or mandolin. But tastes change as you get older. Maybe he’ll even be strumming something from his grandfather’s catalog before too long.

“Bluegrass, honest truth, I never liked it growing up,” he said. “But Papa Ben’s got a song called ‘Wait a Minute.’ That was the one song I loved as a kid. I had that one on repeat.”

Wait a minute? That sounds like good advice for Giants fans.

(Top photo: Norm Hall / Getty Images)