Bryce Eldridge and Trey Yesavage, while quality prospects, are arriving too late to matter in Fantasy Baseball

Better late than never, right?

Not for Bryce Eldridge and Trey Yesavage. At least when it comes to Fantasy Baseball, late is no better than never.

Don't get me wrong: They're huge prospects. Eldridge had an average exit velocity of 95.8 mph and a max of 114.6 mph at Triple-A -- readings that rank up there with any major leaguer -- and he reached those marks as a 20-year-old. Yesavage had 14.7 K/9 and a 20 percent swinging-strike rate across four levels, both of which would lead all major league starters by a significant margin. As a baseball fan and a purveyor of prospects, their arrival pleases me greatly. But we're entering the second-to-last week of the season, the final week for some Head-to-Head leagues. There's simply not enough time for them to gain your trust, particularly with so much on the line.

Maybe it would be different if they were flawless prospects putting up the sort of pristine stat lines that would suggest they were long overdue for a promotion (because those players always click right away, as everyone knows), but I wouldn't say that's true in either case.

We'll begin with Eldridge, who, yes, hits the ball harder than any 20-year-old has a right to. He was also running a 31 percent strikeout rate at Triple-A, which accounts for his modest .249 batting average there. A .249 batting average would be fine for him in the majors, but you'd expect better from a player who had fully mastered Triple-A. And no, he hadn't shown much improvement in recent weeks.

None of this is to diminish Eldridge's stock as a prospect. What he's accomplished at age 20 is amazing. But I suspect he's only getting the call now because the Giants unexpectedly find themselves in the thick of a playoff race and could use one last thrust to get them over the finish line. How much worse could Eldridge be at first base than their current platoon of Dominic Smith and Wilmer Flores?

Bryce Eldridge 1B SF San Francisco • #88 • Age: 20 2025 Minors AVG .260 HR 25 OPS .843 AB 384 BB 42 K 127

For all I know, Eldridge will homer six times in these final two weeks, forever endearing himself to those crazy enough to take the plunge. It's within his capabilities, I'll admit. But I'm not going to sit here and predict improbable feats for a strikeout-prone 20-year-old who's just now getting his first taste of the majors. Rather than make wild predictions, I'll simply share what I'd do with the information currently available to me, and that's trust in the hitters who brought me here over some wild card -- or, failing that, trust in any of my 10 sleeper hitters for Week 26 (Sept. 15-21).

I have a little more hope for Yesavage amounting to something these final two weeks because, in theory, he lines up for two starts right away -- and with pretty good matchups at the Rays and the Royals. Unfortunately, the Blue Jays haven't committed to him remaining in the rotation beyond Monday.

Trey Yesavage SP TOR Toronto • #39 • Age: 22 2025 Minors W-L 5-1 ERA 3.12 WHIP 0.97 INN 98 BB 41 K 160

I mentioned that his performance in the minors this year was across four levels. At the latest of those stops, Triple-A, he was functioning more like a long reliever, falling short of five innings in all six of those appearances and working three innings or less in four of them. It's been more than a month since Yesavage has thrown five innings at a time, and only once all year, back on May 1, did he exceed five innings. Just how deep are the Blue Jays going to let him go Monday? Just how likely are they to move him to the bullpen thereafter?

Beyond the role and workload, it's distinctly possible that Yesavage performs poorly. Yes, he missed a ton of bats in the minors, buoyed by an extremely high arm slot that put every fastball on a downhill plane (see above). It's an unusual look in the modern game and combines with his splitter and slider to make him the bat-missing monstrosity he's been. Then again, the last call-up widely touted for his big strikeout numbers from an unusually high arm slot was Jonah Tong, and you see how that's gone.

Yesavage also struggled with walks in the minors and is prone to fly balls, which could make him susceptible to home runs in the majors. There are numerous ways he could go wrong, in other words. So what happens if you play him in Fantasy, he makes just the one start, and it goes poorly? I don't think anyone would be out of line for saying you should have known better.

Really, though, this take is less about Eldridge and Yesavage than any prospect call-up during this final stretch of the season. We're likely to see more, perhaps even as late as the final weekend, but trying them out in Fantasy is an absolute stab in the dark. They're too volatile for you to entrust with a lineup spot before they've had any exposure to the majors, before we even know for sure what their role is, and there simply isn't enough time left for them to gain that trust. You can monitor them to have a better idea what to expect from them next year, but in terms of adds and drops and starts and sits, they're better ignored.