Could 6-foot-7 'scary-looking dude' end up a 2-way star like Ohtani?

This story was originally published on July 3. We have updated it to reflect Bryce Eldridge being drafted No. 16 overall by the Giants.

There is temptation to cynically assume that the Virginia kid known to some in the baseball community as the “American Ohtani” will end up like the other stateside two-way talents before him and have to commit to either hitting or pitching if he’s going to reach the big leagues.

But then you see the 6-foot-7, 223-pound Bryce Eldridge. You grip that strong right hand capable of flinging a 97-mph fastball. You observe the powerful frame and core that helped him amass a 1.716 OPS his senior year of high school. And you listen to the stories about how he outgrew his teacher by the end of kindergarten. How he avoided what could have been an ugly fate when a huge oak tree crashed into his bedroom. How he put his hometown team on his broad back en route to a state championship.

Get to know Eldridge, who was selected No. 16 overall by the Giants in the 2023 Draft, and you can’t help but wonder if, perhaps, he could one day challenge Shohei Ohtani’s unique stature as a true two-way star in the Majors.

“I know not many people can do it,” Eldridge says. “But it’s something I’m super dedicated to.”

If nothing else, Eldridge looks the part of a superstar.

“Show me another kid that looks like that at 18 years old,” says Pudge Gjormand, Eldridge’s coach at Madison High School in Vienna, Va. “He’s unbelievable.”

Eldridge, who participated in the MLB Draft Combine, is as earnest as he is imposing. Those close to him describe him as a gentle giant.

“I guess I’m kind of a scary-looking dude,” Eldridge says. “I’m very tall, and I’m 18 years old with a beard. But you can come up to me. I’m a nice kid, and I’ll be very respectful.”

He has also shown respect for the work it takes to be great in both facets of the game.

As it became clearer that Eldridge's massive raw power at the plate and his velocity and feel on the mound gave him a chance to thoroughly explore each area, he committed himself to the extra core work, the extra leg work and the strange schedule.

“It’s not easy doing the two-way, with all that’s required,” says his father, Ben. “He doesn’t complain about it; he thrives on it. At the beginning, I told him, ‘The day I have to ask you to work out, you’re done.’ That day never came. Instead it’s me asking him, ‘Hey, can I actually see you for a change? Can we go to dinner, maybe?’”

Eldridge evidently didn’t miss many meals as a young kid. To say he sprouted early is an understatement.

Though his kindergarten teacher, Miss Dennis, was no giant herself, Bryce was so tall at 5 years old that the other kids in class called him “Mr. B.” His mother, Beth Kenney, recently found an old picture from that time that forms a nice frame of reference, with Bryce standing next to a mom who is 5-foot-2, only slightly taller than he is at the time. In another photo, from sixth grade, the kid comically towers over his teacher.

But while the photos are funny, Eldridge’s parents are quick to point out that his heart is bigger than his height.

“He is such a sweet kid,” Beth says. “When he was younger, he would always gravitate toward the new kids and bring them into the fold. And special-needs kids. There was one girl they put with Bryce every year in elementary school because he was so good with her.”

Eldridge’s big heart was beating fast one day in June 2021. He and his dad had boarded a flight bound for a travel team tryout, but the jet sat on the runway for about two hours waiting out a bad storm. It had yet to take off when Ben got a call informing him that a tree had struck the family home. Unable to reach Beth, Ben convinced the flight attendants to let him and Bryce leave the plane so that they could rush home.

“I started breaking down,” Bryce says, tearing up at the memory. “For a solid hour, I thought my mom was dead. It was traumatizing.”

What Bryce did not yet know is that his mom had rushed out of the house when the tree collapsed upon it and had not had time to grab her cell phone. She was fortunate to be one room away from where the tree hit. And Bryce was fortunate to be out of the house at the time.

“It basically hit Bryce’s room,” Beth says. “If he hadn’t been on that plane, he would have been sitting in his room, because, as a teenage kid, that’s where he spent all his time.”

Adds Bryce: “That would have been the end of me.”

The Eldridges survived, but the house was a mess. The family lost a lot of their possessions in the damage, and it took nine months for the home to be repaired. They spent that entire time at Beth’s sister’s house, with Bryce either sleeping in his cousin’s bedroom when she was away at college or on a mattress on the floor in an office when she was in town.

“I love that family, and we had a good time,” Bryce says. “But you know, it was not great, not being able to have your own house.”

Eldridge is a young man who clearly values his home and the people around him. His baseball talent showed up early and emphatically enough that he could have attended an elite academy rather than his local high school. But he committed to his hometown team.

“Vienna, Va., is a really special place, and Madison High School is a really special place that the community really gets behind,” he says. “Every game, the place is packed with people. The support we get and the amount of Instagram and text messages I get from random parents or whatever it may be, telling us how proud they are of us, and being able to play with my guys that I’ve been friends with my whole life, was just such a special feeling for all of us.”

No feeling was better than the one Eldridge had in the state championship game on June 10, when he came on in relief in a tie game and pitched three perfect innings with six strikeouts. The Warhawks took the lead late, and Eldridge punched out the final batter of the game. Tears streamed down his eye black in the postgame celebration.

That capped a year in which Eldridge struck out 66 batters with only eight walks in 39 2/3 innings while also hitting .422 with eight homers. He was named Virginia’s 2023 Gatorade Player of the Year and now figures to follow the footsteps of fellow Madison alum James Triantos (taken by the Cubs in the second round in 2021) in going pro.

“The cool part for me is watching him embrace everything and mature,” Gjormand says. “He was autographing for kids after every Madison game. He just gets it. He’s comfortable being that guy in a way that a lot of people aren’t. I think he’s ready for whatever the game brings his way.”

It won’t be easy.

Eldridge, who committed to Alabama during his freshman year of high school, has a fastball/slider/changeup repertoire with good velocity and movement. He has a relatively short left-handed swing and can hit the ball out to all fields. He’s also extremely athletic for his size. He moves very well at first base, but also has the arm to play right field.

But none of that answers the question as to whether or not he can stick as a two-way player. Ohtani is not just a physical marvel, but he's also a unique case in coming over from the professional ranks in Japan, directly to the big leagues. It’s a very different thing to develop a two-way player in the Minor Leagues, and some teams are reluctant -- if not outright unwilling -- to try.

“To be honest, there are some teams that have said, ‘We don’t have a plan, we don’t know how to handle it, it’s not going to work for us,’” Eldridge says. “There are others that have said, ‘We love it, this is a good challenge for us.’ What I hear most from teams is that they’re going to let it play out. Maybe, at some point, I’ll be batting .370 in Double-A with a 9.00 ERA -- or vice versa -- and I’ll have to drop one or the other. Who knows? But I think most teams are very open to the idea.”

Needless to say, Eldridge relishes the possibility.

“The frame I have, I think, can handle it,” he says. “Obviously I’ve got to put on some more weight here. But getting into a big-league system that can help me develop, I think it’s going to be really cool to see how it all plays out.”

If ever an amateur prospect seemed worthy of a gamble, it’s this one. In recent years, we’ve seen Aaron Judge prove that being 6-foot-7 doesn’t mean your big strike zone can be easily manipulated and exposed. And of course, Ohtani has proved that the once-unthinkable idea of a guy playing both ways in the big leagues in the context of the modern game can actually work.

“I just want to ask him what he eats, how much sleep he gets, what does he do to recover,” Eldridge says of Ohtani. “At that level, I don’t know everything that goes into that. Just being able to talk to him and see what his life and routines are like would be really beneficial for me.”

For now, the “American Ohtani” embarks upon his pro career with the skills, the sincerity and -- yes -- the size to take on this tall order.