Giants Talk: Predicting San Francisco's Opening Day roster for 2026 MLB season
On "Giants Talk," co-hosts Alex Pavlovic and Cole Kuiper discuss infielder Bryce Eldridge's chances of making San Francisco's 2026 Opening Day roster.
Giants Talk: Predicting San Francisco's Opening Day roster for 2026 MLB season originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Video Transcript
A lot of places if you look around the diamond, starting position, eight guys pretty set.
So who do we have before we dive into the maybes, the, the complete question marks, who are our locks?
I have nine locks here going just around the diamond.
Patrick Bailey, Devers, Arias, Adames, Chapman, Ramos, Bader, and Lee.
Those are their starters.
I think- Yeah Casey Schmitz is gonna be very involved with everything they do.
he should feel very comfortable getting an apartment in San Francisco.
He has.
And being good to go.
And then I, I put two guys here, it seems very, very likely, and that is Daniel Susac, who I has been the front runner because of his rule five status.
And then Christian Koss I think is just in a good spot with his versatility, and obviously spent the season in the big leagues last year, and, I think he looks good physically.
That would leave very little wiggle room there.
that's 11 guys.
That probably leaves two spots.
The big question is Eldridge.
So- Yeah, I was gonna say, not having Eldridge on your seems very likely- Yeah is, that's a discussion to be had right here.
I'm doing this like NFL injury reports.
Like seems very likely to me is like 75% or whatever.
Okay.
They're like the questionable tag.
So that's what I was gonna say.
Yeah.
So Eldridge is questionable, and, Susac is probable.
Yeah.
Whatever the tags are here, I put Yeah, I guess we have different sports too, but we're, we're really crossing over.
But I'm gonna put Susac, I put him in like the 80, 90% bucket here.
Okay.
I think Koss is pretty close to that.
And Eldridge for me is more of a coin flip right now.
Mm-hmm.
'Cause I think he's, he's playing a ton.
He looks a lot better defensively.
he has had some good moments at the plate this spring.
I just, I just still go back to like it would be really easy for them to make the case that, you know, given everything else that's going on, that this guy probably needs to play for a few weeks in triple A.
Okay, so if we're saying two spots, then I, I am pro Eldridge being on the opening day roster.
You know that.
But if, if he is out, that leaves us with what?
Two spots for outfielders?
Yeah.
There's two spots left here after the guys I got to.
and if you take Eldridge out of that, then you're I- Gerard Encarnacion has not had a great spring.
Mm-hmm.
I still kind of feel like he's probably someone they want to take a look at.
they've stuck with him, and stuck with him, and stuck with him through some injuries, and some bad luck, and all that, and he really does kind of fill potentially a need on this roster.
They're gonna Whether it's Bryce, whether Bryce is on the team or not, they at some point are gonna need someone off the bench who can, who can pop one late in the game.
And, and, you know, maybe that ends up being Casey Schmidt, maybe, maybe Susac.
Certainly he's known for his bat.
Like maybe, maybe that becomes part of it, but I think it would be hard to give up on Encarnacion at the end of March.
