Two top Giants prospects ready to thrive in High-A

This story was excerpted from Maria Guardado’s Giants Beat newsletter. To read the full newsletter, click here. And subscribe to get it regularly in your inbox.

SEATTLE -- It didn’t take long for the Giants’ last two first-round Draft picks to find themselves hitting in the same lineup.

First baseman Bryce Eldridge (the Giants’ No. 1 prospect per MLB Pipeline) and outfielder James Tibbs III (No. 3) are currently batting third and fourth at High-A Eugene, offering an early look at a promising hitting duo that could develop into the heart of San Francisco’s order in the not-too-distant future.

Tibbs has enjoyed a fast rise since being selected by the Giants with the 13th overall pick of the 2024 MLB Draft last month, hitting .415 (17-for-41) with a .941 OPS over nine games with Single-A San Jose before earning a promotion to Eugene on Tuesday.

Tibbs went 0-for-4 in his Emeralds debut on Wednesday, but he ended up being upstaged by the 19-year-old Eldridge, who launched a mammoth three-run shot in the first inning to set the tone for an eventual 7-0 win over Tri-City. Eldridge’s 17th home run of the season traveled 461 feet out to center field and rocketed off his bat at 109 mph, showcasing the prodigious power that has quickly turned the teenage slugger into the Giants’ top hitting prospect.

Eldridge, the 16th overall pick of the 2023 Draft out of James Madison High School in Virginia, has been on a tear in August, batting .343 with a 1.084 OPS, five home runs and 18 RBIs over 19 games this month. He made one of the biggest jumps on MLB Pipeline’s Top 100 Prospects list this year, rising from No. 96 to No. 54 in the annual midseason re-rank.

“I'll give kudos to the Giants here for simplifying things,” MLB.com’s Jim Callis said recently on the MLB Pipeline Podcast. “He talked about how he wanted a chance to play two ways, but, first-round pick, you're going to do what the team tells you. This year, the Giants were like, ‘We're not going to do the two-way thing. You're not going to play the outfield. Just play first base. Just go out there and hit.’ And he went out and hit, and the power has been everything we thought it was going to be.”

The Giants have similarly high hopes for Tibbs, who recorded his first High-A hit after singling in the first inning of a 6-3 loss to Tri-City on Friday night. Tibbs, like Eldridge, swings left-handed and earned ACC Player of the Year honors after slashing .363/.488/.777 for Florida State this year. The 21-year-old is known for making good swing decisions -- he collected more walks (58) than strikeouts (37) for the Seminoles this season -- which could help keep him on the fast track moving forward.

“We know he has the ability and skills to be a really good Major League hitter,” senior director of amateur scouting Michael Holmes said last month. “I like to tell a lot of these players that they kind of set their own pace based on how they go out and perform. We feel like he has a little bit of a leg up because of that zone control. We’ll get him indoctrinated into the organization, get him out into professional baseball and we’ll allow his play to kind of dictate the pace that it goes. But we’re excited about how we think his transition will go.”