What Giants’ non-roster invitees, led by Eldridge, say about roster originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO — Bryce Eldridge won’t be competing for an Opening Day job this spring, and in the Giants’ ideal world, they would allow him to spend most of the 2025 season getting needed reps in Triple-A. But the organization’s top prospect will get an early opportunity to show what he can do against big league-caliber pitching.
Eldridge highlighted Friday’s release of this year’s non-roster invitees to spring training, which was heavy on pitching and showed the Giants might be just about set at one important position group.
The first baseman, one of MLB’s top prospects, will be in big league camp for the first time.
The Giants invited just six non-roster position players to camp, and none were outfielders. They haven’t touched that position group all offseason, indicating they plan to provide a long runway this spring for young options like Luis Matos, Marco Luciano, Grant McCray and Wade Meckler.
Matos, who had a strong winter ball season, would appear to enter camp as a frontrunner, and Meckler could be interesting as a bench option given his advanced profile at the plate and desire to add second base to his profile.
Of the 20 non-roster players initially invited to camp, 14 are pitchers, although the Giants won’t actually have many jobs available. Their rotation is set but they should have a competition for multiple bullpen jobs this spring.
Left-hander Carson Whisenhunt, one of their top pitching prospects, will be in camp for a second time, although he’s viewed as a long-term starter. Cole Waites might be the most interesting invite on the pitching side; the hard-throwing right-hander was one of the organization’s top relief prospects a couple of years ago but missed all of last season with an injury.
Max Stassi and Logan Porter join Sam Huff (who is on the 40-man roster) as potential backup catcher options.
The Giants currently have just three catchers on their 40-man roster and Tom Murphy, who missed nearly all of last season with a knee injury, should enter camp as the favorite to back up Patrick Bailey.
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