The trade deadline is upon us
Who might the Giants be targeting? WILL THEY TRADE FOR SHOHEI OHTANI? Okay, they won't and I made that up, but it's fun to think about, right?
Here we are, in the last week of July. It seems like just yesterday that the Giants were breaking camp, with Giants fans everywhere thinking, “Just be decent.” They are, it turns out, much more than decent! The Giants are currently 62-37, and lead the NL West by 2 games over the Dodgers, which is downright Better Than Decent. Congratulations to them on a very successful first 99 games of the year.
But as Spider-Man said, with great success comes great ability to make franchise-ruining decisions. Because as a First Place Team, the Giants now have the playoffs in their sights. With the playoffs in their sights, they have to think about upgrades, and trading prospects for those upgrades, any one of whom could turn out to have a productive major league career at exactly the position where you needed a productive major leaguer, and all you’ve got to show for him is this lousy Mike Leake.
But if you want to convince the media and the clubhouse that you’re serious about winning, well, you have to do something. Waiting for Evan Longoria and Brandons Belt and Crawford to come back and then saying, “It’s like we traded for three All-Stars” isn’t going to cut it. And yet…they do have three All-Stars coming back to the infield. Belt will presumably push LaMonte Wade Jr to an outfield role, which will also help with outfield production against righties. Longoria will be especially key against lefties, and Crawford will shore up the defense and also maybe hit 30 homers?
Like that’d be cool, so he should do it in my opinion. Just putting it out there.
Also, I neglected to mention 2019 All-Star Tommy La Stella above, but that’s only because I forgot about him. Sorry, Tommy!
So assuming that the Giants don’t make any trades for infielders, that leaves the outfield, the bullpen, and the rotation as areas to possibly upgrade. We’ll start with…
The outfield
The Giants are said to be interested in Starling Marte. This is because Starling Marte is a good player who is having a good year. More to the point, the Giants haven’t gotten a lot from Alex Dickerson or Mike Tauchman this year, and they’re probably looking to upgrade. They have gotten a lot from Steven Duggar, but he’s been regressing something fierce lately, probably because his high strikeout rate and high BABIP meant he wasn’t going to keep it up forever.
Marte can play center, which means he can probably play anywhere in the outfield, so he fits the strong defensive identity the team is going for; he is also having his best offensive year, though like Duggar, a high BABIP is a factor here. But his walk rate of 11.9% is by far the best of his career, almost twice as high as his previous best, 6.1% with the Pirates in 2014. It seems like he’s learned to control the strike zone, and just typing those words has made an alarm go off in Farhan Zaidi’s office. Sorry, Farhan. Those things are annoying.
The Giants could also be targeting outfielders other than Starling Marte, but I haven’t seen any rumors. Other big name outfielders thought to be available are Joey Gallo, Byron Buxton, and (technically) Kris Bryant, though with the success that Farhan has had with under-the-radar guys, there’s no way to tell who the Giants will target, since they can apparently turn total unknowns into impact players.
The bullpen
We have all watched the bullpen fail repeatedly, and it’s not fun. Nobody likes it when a bullpen is bad, because then your team loses a bunch of games that they seemed like they were going to win, and then instead of feeling good you feel very bad.
You come here for sophisticated baseball analysis, and I’m here to help.
But the thing is, the Giants bullpen has been…good. Yes, Tyler Rogers went walk-walk-dinger against the Dodgers last week, and Dominic Leone had a meltdown against the Pirates on Friday, but that happens. Baseball players who have good seasons have bad games sometimes, and if it’s not too often (and with those two, it hasn’t been), you just kind of have to accept it as par for the course.
On the whole, the Giants bullpen, though, is:
3rd in ERA
6th in FIP
1st in BB/9
9th in WPA
2nd in WPA/LI
And that’s after recovering from a bad April in which their Win Probability Added was 26th in the league. They’ve honestly been a good bullpen, unless you go by fWAR (16th), in which case they’ve been a completely average bullpen.
But that doesn’t mean they can’t improve. Adding Craig Kimbrel, for example, to a bullpen will make that bullpen better, and it’ll also mean that Tyler Rogers and Jake McGee are both available to put out fires earlier in the game, and Gabe Kapler doesn’t have to predict matchups down the line to figure out the best way to deploy them in the 8th and 9th. This would be a good thing!
The Giants do have a spot in their bullpen for an upgrade. John Brebbia hasn’t been impressing anyone lately, and Zack Littell’s not having a great month either. They could make room (with the caveat that if Reyes Moronta is at full strength soon, he’ll take one of those spots, and apparently Aaron Sanchez is coming back to the bullpen soon). It’s just a question of if there’s a guy available who is both an upgrade and worth the cost in prospects to get him. Without a sense of who the Cubs (or the Pirates, for Richard Rodriguez, or…) are asking for, it’s tough to judge that from the outside.
The rotation
The Giants have been the biggest surprise in baseball this year, and their rotation has been the biggest surprise on the Giants. Kevin Gausman and Anthony DeSclafani have led the charge, with Alex Wood and Logan Webb acquitting themselves perfectly well.
And then there’s Johnny Cueto. Cueto started the year off well, with a 1.80 ERA over his first three starts, but then he got injured, and since he came back, he hasn’t been the same. Since coming off the IL on May 9, Cueto’s had a 4.76 ERA, and while he is personally a delight, and is easily the most fun starter on the Giants, he is, unfortunately, not currently a particularly good starter for the Giants.
There is, it’s fair to say, room for improvement. The Giants were said to be interested in Danny Duffy, so they certainly are interested in adding to their starting pitching depth. Duffy is hurt right now, though, so are they interested in having another starter right this very second? That’s a little trickier. Are they interested in having another, better starter for the playoffs? Probably. As our good friend Roger Munter said:
The main point is this: You can always use more starting pitching. No matter how much you have, adding to your depth is probably a smart move. Look at the Dodgers, who started the year with approximately 74 Cy Young winners on their roster, and are now having bullpen games every few days. Things can always go wrong, and you need backup plans, backups to the backup plans, and backup plans for those.
And hey, if things go right and you find yourself in the playoffs, well, you want to make sure your plan will work there too.
Next time: What might the Giants give up? Who on the 40-man is in danger? And how are they going to handle this upcoming roster crunch anyway?