6 hours left to the deadline!
I wrote this last night, so I hope it's not already out of date by the time it goes out
The trade deadline is here, and it’s one of the more intriguing ones in recent memory. The Giants are stuck in no-man’s-land, where they’re not good enough to go all-in and buy, and yet not quite bad enough that selling is a no-brainer. There’s no slam dunk move that would-
NO! NO! WE ALREADY TALKED ABOUT THIS AND WE’RE NOT GETTING OUR HOPES UP AGAIN. THE GIANTS WERE OUT OF THE SWEEPSTAKES AND THEY WILL NOT GET JUAN SOTO. DON’T GIVE ME THIS FALSE HOPE.
Ahem.
So, setting Soto aside, let’s get the most important thing out there. Just one incontrovertible fact that should inform what the Giants do today:
The Giants aren’t good enough to win the World Series.
Even if they add enough to sneak into that 6th wild card spot, this team will not advance farther. Their myriad weaknesses — the bullpen, the many underperforming hitters, every defender — have been relentlessly exposed, and will continue to be relentlessly exposed until the end of the year. One more good player will not make enough of a difference. Even a great player wouldn’t be enough. There is no enough. The Giants are bad. Retool the team, try again next year.
And yet, doing that would suck.
The best, most obvious trade assets the Giants have are Carlos Rodon, Joc Pederson, and Wilmer Flores. All have deals expiring this year (Rodon’s is essentially a player option, but he would be foolish to not go back on the market). All have made the Giants much more watchable this year, though admittedly Pederson has slumped badly over the last couple of months. Rodon has been the team’s best pitcher, though, and Flores has been the team’s best position player (he’s tied in fWAR with Austin Slater, but Slater has a .397 BABIP and Flores has a .258 BABIP, so I’m comfortable with taking Flores here).
But “much more watchable” does not mean the team has been watchable, and it certainly will not make them watchable next year. What will make the Giants watchable next year is good baseball players, and their best chance at having more good baseball players next year will involve giving up some of their good baseball players this year.
However.
Rentals will not net the team a whole lot on their own. Maybe — maybe — packaging Rodon with either Pederson or Flores (depending on the other team’s needs) will bring back someone promising, but it’s more likely that they’ll have to give up someone under control for next year too. We’re talking John Brebbia, or Austin Slater, or Camilo Doval, in ascending order of value. There will not be a deal that just gives up a guy who won’t be around next year, because that deal will not move the needle.
The deal that has the best chance of improving the 2023 Giants will be one that might also go very wrong for the 2023 Giants. If you trade, like, Slater and Doval and Rodon for Dylan Carlson (whether or not that’s a plausible deal is beside the point), there’s a nonzero chance that Slater figures it out in St Louis and has a better 2023 season than Carlson. There’s obviously a much higher chance that Carlson is better for longer, but you can’t get good players without also giving up good players. That’s how it works.
Also, Doval would become an All-Star closer with the Cardinals for three straight years. And Rodon would re-sign there without hitting the open market. And Aaron Judge would publicly flirt with the idea of signing with the Giants before not signing with the Giants. It would be terrible. Apocalyptic. It would make the Pierzynski deal look good.
Or Dylan Carlson will continue being an above average baseball player, getting better as he hits his prime years, and the deal will look reasonable, or even good for the Giants. Who’s to say?
The Giants should sell. And yet, somehow, selling will make this stupid team even worse. They will lose their better players, and replace them with what? Who will get at bats if Wilmer Flores gets traded? Will there be more time for Tommy La Stella, who cannot physically play second for multiple days in a row? Will they give Donovan Walton another shot after he gets healthy, or will they perhaps try out potential superstar Isan Diaz? Will they just throw Dixon Machado over there after Brandon Crawford comes back to see what happens? Are any of them likely to be as productive as Flores? Probably not, honestly.
This is the price the Giants will pay for selling, and their reward isn’t guaranteed. This isn’t to say that they shouldn’t do it — oh boy do they have to sell — but it’s very hard to find a deal that’s a guaranteed winner.
Just think of the 2019 deadline. The Giants seemingly fleeced the Twins in the Sam Dyson deal, but Jaylin Davis washed out, Prelander Berroa is gone, and Kai-Wei Teng has a 5.27 ERA in Richmond. Everyone was thrilled they got rid of Mark Melancon, but Tristan Beck has a 6.27 ERA in Sacramento this year. The Giants got Mauricio Dubon for Ray Black and a couple months of Drew Pomeranz, but Dubon wasn’t anything special with the Giants and hasn’t been anything special with the Astros either.
Even trades everyone agrees you win don’t necessarily help down the line (This is not to give up on Beck and Teng, who could both be contributors someday, but it’s far from a sure thing). Trades bring tons of uncertainty with them, and it’s entirely possible that a minor deal that gets done — Pederson for a couple of pitchers in Hi-A, for example — only makes this team worse and never helps a future one.
So if the Giants end up inexplicably hanging on to a veteran, that could be why. Or maybe the front office doesn’t want the team to think they’re quitting on them, though it would be only fair, considering how the team has spent the last couple weeks quitting on all of us. Or maybe they think they have a great chance at re-signing Rodon, but only if he sticks around for the rest of the year. Or maybe they really, honestly, truly think that 6th NL playoff spot is theirs for the taking.
In any case, the trade deadline is here, today. There are a lot of great things that could happen for the Giants. There are also a lot of not-great things that could happen. I, for one, would prefer the great things.