SB Nation • 17 min read

Giants Minor League Baseball Roundup, September 17: Blade Tidwell returns

And then there was one. In yesterday’s San Francisco Giants Minor League Baseball roundup, we talked about the Low-A San Jose Giants winning the California League Championship. With that, San Jose’s season is over. As is AA Richmond’s. As is High-A Eugene’s. As is the Arizona Complex League team. As are both Dominican Summer League teams.

From seven Minor League affiliates to just one: the AAA Sacramento River Cats, whose season is nearing a conclusion. But until it does … we must talk about them!

Link to the 2025 McCovey Chronicles Community Prospect List (CPL)

All listed positions in the roundup are the positions played in that particular game.

AAA Sacramento (75-71)

Sacramento River Cats beat the Round Rock Express (Rangers) 5-2
Box score

For the second game in a row, the story in Sacramento was a high-profile pitcher returning to the mound after a brief stint on the sidelines. On Tuesday it was LHP Carson Whisenhunt (No. 2 CPL), who didn’t pitch very well in a rehab assignment. But on Wednesday it was RHP Blade Tidwell, who pitched very well indeed.

Tidwell, who along with Drew Gilbert headlined the Tyler Rogers trade, was pitching for the first time since August 15. He was shut down with shoulder soreness, and while that felt ominous, he was able to make it back to the mound before the season ended. At the time that Tidwell was shelved, he appeared in line to make his San Francisco debut imminently. Obviously that didn’t happen, but it still could before the season ends. The Giants are quite high on him — higher than they are on a handful of players currently eating innings for the Major League team — and could lean on him in the final games of the season to earn some outs.

Wednesday’s performance will help give them confidence. Tidwell got the start and pitched the first 2 innings of the game, and did so perfectly, not allowing a baserunner. He only struck out 1 batter, but he needed just 20 pitches to cruise through the 2 frames, and was pounding the strike zone, with 15 strikes. Tidwell, who appeared in 4 games in the Majors this year with the Mets, has been phenomenal since the trade, amassing a 1.50 ERA and a 2.13 FIP while striking out 24 batters in 18 innings, with just 5 walks. Whether it’s this week, next week, or next year, he sure is tracking to look great in a Giants jersey.

Eating the bulk of the innings was LHP John Michael Bertrand, who pitched for the second time since his late-season promotion. The southpaw had a strong showing, allowing 6 hits, 1 walk, and 2 runs in 5.2 innings, while striking out 4 batters.

Bertrand’s role with the Giants going forward is going to be interesting to monitor. The 2022 10th-round pick, who is 27, has had good results at every stop of his career, but he also has extremely low strikeout numbers, the result of primarily living in the high-80s and very low-90s. The Giants have used him explicitly as a starter, with his few appearances out of the bullpen being like Wednesday’s game, where he was essentially a late-appearing starter.

Given the lack of heat and lack of strikeouts, it’s hard to project Bertrand to have a long and super successful MLB career, unless you have a time machine and can take him back to a previous decade. But at the very least, he looks like someone who could come up and fill in where needed, which is something every team needs … and with RHPs Mason Black (No. 7 CPL), Trevor McDonald (No. 15 CPL), and Tristan Beck entering their final option years after this season, that’s a role the Giants might need a new player to cycle into.

Finishing the game was RHP Miguel Díaz, whose only allowed baserunner in 1.1 scoreless innings came on an error, while he struck out 2 batters. It was a return to normalcy for Díaz, who had allowed a run in his prior outing … which was his first earned run since August 1. In that time he’s made 17 appearances, pitched 19.2 innings, and allowed just 7 hits, 9 walks, 2 runs, and 1 earned run, with 21 strikeouts. He’s down to a 3.58 ERA, though the abundance of walks has led to a 4.92 FIP for the 30-year old journeyman.

The offense managed to produce, despite missing a lot of firepower. The team’s top two power sources this year were absent in the lineup, with Bryce Eldridge (No. 1 CPL) promoted to the Majors where he’s learned the hard way that Chase Field is not like the Pacific Coast League ballparks, and Marco Luciano getting a day off as he’s mired in one of the worst slumps you’ll ever see (0-29 with 20 strikeouts over the last 7 games).

While it’s always good to have the offense perform well, it came with the caveat that the biggest swings came from players who don’t really factor into the organization’s plans, and probably will be employed by different teams next year. First baseman Drew Ellis continued his recent surge, hitting 2-4 with a 2-run home run and 2 strikeouts.

Ellis, who will turn 30 in December, will probably look for a new team this offseason, since it’s hard to imagine the Giants even considering him as a depth option given their other options at the corners of the infield. And while he hasn’t had a very good year — he has a .225 batting average, a .780 OPS, and a 101 wRC+ — he’s ending it on a very strong note. This was his 3rd straight game with a home run, and his 4th in the last 5 games.

Also homering was shortstop Osleivis Basabe, who finished 1-4 with a strikeout. Basabe is no longer on the 40-man roster (the Giants have lost some infield depth there, after outrighting Basabe early in the year and DFA’ing Brett Wisely a few days ago), but he’s been auditioning well this year. He’s still a comfortably below-average hitter, as he has just a .714 OPS and an 84 wRC+. But he’s shown the ability to run into one this year, as his 13 home runs are more than his two next-best seasons combined. That, combined with his excellent defense across the diamond and his age (he turned 25 over the weekend) make him at least an intriguing player, be it for the Giants or for someone else.

Center fielder Turner Hill made his AAA debut after a recent promotion, and hit 1-3 with a double. Hill, a 26-year old lefty, has turned into an awesome story after being an undrafted free agent. He’s not exactly a spring chicken by prospect status, but it’s still remarkable to debut in 2023 and make it to AAA by 2025 when you’re an undrafted player.

Despite not having any power — he has just 5 home runs in 1,143 plate appearances in the Minors — Hill has managed to hit at every level so far, sporting a 108 wRC+ in Low-A in 2023, a 131 wRC+ in High-A and a 108 wRC+ in AA in 2024, and a 114 wRC+ in AA this season. He has tons of speed (though he’s only stolen 20 bases this year) and plays a very strong center field, and for his career has had more walks than strikeouts (which is a testament to both his high walk rate and very low strikeout rate). Like Bertrand, it’s hard to project him to be an MLB regular, but easy to project him as someone who could fill in when there are roster emergencies.

Speaking of undrafted players who are great stories, third baseman Dayson Croes had a brilliant day, hitting 3-4 and finishing a home run shy of the cycle. Croes, a 25-year old from Aruba, was signed this year out of an indy league, and made his professional debut in May in the Complex League. Now, 4.5 months later, he’s starting in AAA! And not just starting, but excelling: after running through the ACL (.862 OPS, 125 wRC+), High-A (.797 OPS, 124 wRC+), and AA (.754 OPS, 122 wRC+), Croes is off to a red-hot start in the PCL, posting a 1.039 OPS and a 178 wRC+ through 10 games. It’s unclear if the offense is sustainable, and it’s unclear if he can play defense well enough to survive in the Majors, but it’s crystal clear that he’s been one of the coolest stories on the farm this year … and the farm has not been short on cool stories!

Left fielder Wade Meckler (No. 13 CPL) had a nice day, hitting 2-4 with a pair of doubles, which raised his OPS to .743 and his wRC+ to 104. It’s still very hard for me to see a way that he cracks the Giants outfield rotation, even though he’s on the 40-man roster, but it’s good to see him piling up the hits again. This will be a critical offseason for him, and I’m curious to see what happens when he arrives in Scottsdale come February.

The rest of the 40-man players: second baseman Tyler Fitzgerald hit 1-3 with a double, a walk, and a strikeout, raising his OPS to .691 and his wRC+ to 81; and catcher Jesús Rodríguez went 0-4 with a strikeout and an error, dropping his OPS to .813 and his wRC+ to 121. As mentioned, Luciano did not play, and neither did outfielder Luis Matos, who was optioned on Monday but hasn’t yet played for Sacramento since.