The Giants should have traded some of their okay players for big stars who are great at baseball
C'mon, guys, do I have to think of everything?
The trade deadline has come and gone, and, unless you’re enamored of Anthony Banda, who the Giants acquired for cash, it was a slow one for them. The A’s got Tommy La Stella and Mike Minor, and the Padres seemingly acquired every baseball player who’s ever lived, but for the Giants, it was one infinitesimal deal, and then they were done.
Now, the team was in a tough spot: not good enough that they should be trading any of their top prospects for major league talent, and not bad enough that they should be selling off their own veterans in order to improve for the future. If you buy when you shouldn’t then you cripple your future; if you sell when you shouldn’t then you shatter the morale in the clubhouse and make any free agent think twice before signing with a team that’ll give up on its season at the drop of a hat. It’s a tough job!
And that’s why my suggestion is this: Take guys in the Giants organization who aren’t very good and trade them for players on other teams who are extremely good.
It makes a lot of sense when you think about it. If the Giants think that Melvin Adon can’t throw a strike, then why wouldn’t they trade him for Cody Bellinger? That’s a huge upgrade for them! Cody Bellinger is an extremely good baseball player, and Melvin Adon is less good. The role of any front office is to upgrade their roster, and Bellinger would clearly be an upgrade.
Now, I know what you’re thinking. “But Doug, why would the Dodgers trade their very good Bellinger for the Giants’ not as good Adon? That doesn’t make sense from their perspective!”
I’m glad you brought this up. If I were suggesting a one-for-one trade, that would obviously be ludicrous. But I’m not! I think the Giants should have traded multiple players for one great player. Were the Dodgers going to turn down Adon AND Rico Garcia AND Carlos Navas AND Chris Herrman AND Abiatal Avelino? That’s five players for just one player. They’d be stupid not to take it!
And I haven’t even gotten to the most important reason for this trade to have happened: I personally would very much enjoy it if the Giants had more players who were extremely good at baseball by the standards of Major League Baseball players. This is very important to me, so it must therefore also be very important to the rest of the world. It makes sense, then, that every baseball team would work together to create this result that appeals to me, since, as I said before, I would like it.
When you look at the totality of the evidence I’ve presented here, I think it’s pretty clear that the Giants front office was negligent in not trading several players not good enough for their own major league roster for last year’s National League MVP. I eagerly await the personal apology that I am sure to receive shortly from Farhan Zaidi, Scott Harris, and everyone else who contributed to this travesty.