Last time, we talked about areas the Giants could target to improve their roster. Then it turned out they’re very involved in Max Scherzer discussions, so they should do that. Go get him, Giants. That’s a great idea.
But to trade for Scherzer or Kris Bryant or, fine, less outwardly exciting options, the Giants will have to give up players. So who could be out of the organization by this time next week? Let’s start with…
Guys in the majors
Steven Duggar
Hey, wait, no. I already don’t like this list. Let’s start over.
Steven Duggar
Damn it all.
Duggar has been having a very good season, finally combining his always-excellent defense with strong production on the offensive side. And while the batting average is sure to decline, power is power, and his ISO is comparable to Brandon Belt’s from 2013 to 2016. He has extra base power, in other words, and someone will be interested in that.
Why would the Giants be willing to trade Duggar? He’s having his breakout year. Is that really the time to trade someone?
Well, yes. If Duggar’s value is at its highest, then that’s the time to trade him. If Duggar is the biggest part of a package for a star, or even the Schierholtz in the Hunter Pence deal, and the biggest prospect is then a lower tier guy, then that’s value. If the Giants think that Duggar’s year is a total mirage, or even if it’s just a partial mirage and they can find someone with a similar skill set as a free agent, then it’s reasonable to use him like that.
It would also make sense for the Giants to trade Duggar if they were enamored with, for example, Mike Tauchman, and felt he could work his way into being a better hitter. But what’s the evidence for that?
Austin Slater
This is, in a lot of ways, the opposite of the Duggar situation. While Duggar’s been having a breakout season, Slater’s regressed from what he showed last year. He had a disastrous month of June, and while he’s rebounded very nicely in July, his overall season line is still disappointing.
So it’s entirely possible that a team would ask for him as part of a package because they think that he’ll rebound, or that they can fix what’s wrong. And the Giants might have to agree to trade him because, well, they have a 40-man crunch coming up and it might be better to get what value they can instead of hoping someone, not necessarily even Slater, passes through waivers.
Jaylin Davis
Hey, there’s a theme here!
Davis is currently working his way back from the IL, but he’s in a similar situation to Duggar and Slater. He’s not a fully established major leaguer, and the Giants don’t know what they can expect from him going forward. Another team might believe in him more than the Giants do, trusting in those incredible AAA stats from 2019 and 2021, and want him in a deal.
More to the point, these three could still have some value, unlike Tauchman and Alex Dickerson, who are out of options and aren’t young and aren’t producing. There’s no reason a selling team would want them, and if the Giants still think they can turn it around in San Francisco, getting rid of them would accomplish nothing.
Guys in the minors
Joey Bart
No reason to bury the lede on this one. Bart is available in the right deal. Now, it’s tough to see that being a deal for a pure rental, since Bart could take over for Buster Posey tomorrow and the team’s other much-touted catching prospect, Patrick Bailey, got sent down from Hi-A to Low-A because he wasn’t producing in Eugene. But yes, the Giants would be willing to trade Bart, unlike Marco Luciano, for example.
But it’s tough to see Bart going in any deal other than a blockbuster. Yes, the A’s did just trade Jesus Luzardo for two months of Starling Marte — glad I wrote multiple paragraphs about him on Tuesday! — but reports are that the A’s had already soured on Luzardo, and nothing of the sort has come out about the Giants and Bart. He’s apparently not going to be part of a Kris Bryant deal, so the package coming to San Francisco would have to be more impressive than that, if that gives you any information.
Tyler Beede
Beede’s electric stuff was the talk of Spring Training 2020, and then there was a pandemic, and then there was Tommy John surgery, and now he’s back in Sacramento, and he’s not good. This is a problem for the Giants, who need good pitchers this year, but maybe less of a problem for a bad team, who could let him build up his strength and maybe come back better then ever in 2022.
It would be a risk for that team, yes, but one with significant upside. If you’re selling in 2021, upside in 2022 is probably what you’re after.
Kervin Castro, Camilo Doval, Gregory Santos
I’m putting them all together because they’re similar in a lot of ways. They’re young relievers who were put onto the 40-man roster in the hope that their pure stuff would break through and make them electric major leaguers, and it hasn’t quite happened. Doval and Santos were in the majors earlier this year and did very poorly so they got sent down to Sacramento. Doval has been awful there, and Santos got suspended for a PED. Castro’s numbers are better than either of theirs, but he’s still walked 16 guys in 30 innings, which won’t get it done in the big leagues.
But the stuff. Folks, the stuff. I talked about Doval and Santos earlier, and all of that still rings true. The stuff is great, and the control isn’t. If you’re not sure what the difference is between control and command, well, good news, the command isn’t very good either. These problems are fixable with time, and if some other team wants to take the time to fix them, then they could get a dominant reliever a year or two down the line.
Guys not even on the 40-man
Roger Munter did a better job breaking down this category than I ever could, because he has “expertise” on it or whatever, but there are a few names I want to highlight, not because they’re necessarily the guys the Giants will trade, but because they represent types of players who might go. The first one is…
Seth Corry
Corry had a dominant 2019 as a 20-year old in Augusta, with a 1.76 ERA in 122.2 innings, and looking every bit like a pitching prospect whose every start you want to watch.
This year, Corry has an ERA of 5.98 in 58.2 innings in Augusta, and you have not wanted to watch his starts.
So chalk Corry up as a Promising Prospect Who Fell On Hard Times. Teams might demand him as a reclamation project, and the Giants might not want to say no.
Other guys in this category: Patrick Bailey, Hunter Bishop, Logan Wyatt
Luis Toribio
There was a lot of talk about Luis Toribio coming into the year, and while he hasn’t been an absolute disaster, a .246/.357/.369 line as a corner infielder in Low-A isn’t anything special. You can, then, chalk him up as a Talented Youngster Who Hasn’t Put It Together Yet. He is said to flash outstanding hitting skills, but they don’t show up consistently in games.
But, a rival executive might think…what if they did?
Other guys in this category: Casey Schmitt, Alexander Canario
Jhosward Camacho
Camacho is a 17-year old in the Dominican Summer League, hitting well in a sample size so small as to be worthless, and I have no idea if he’s actually a prospect or not. But his name is cool as hell, so he’s going to be my Ultra Low Minors Guy Who You Pretend To Have Heard Of Because You Don’t Like Admitting You Don’t Know Things.
Other guys in this category: Basically everyone on the DSL Giants except for one guy, who will be in the next category because I am overly optimistic
Caleb Kilian
Kilian has had an excellent year between Hi-A Eugene and AA Richmond, so his stock has never been higher. He is probably the pitcher who has had the best year in the entire organization, doing everything right: striking guys out, avoiding walks, avoiding hits, and avoiding runs. But when a guy has a breakout year, like I said with Duggar way back at the beginning of this thing, that makes him a juicy trade target. So file Kilian away as a Hot Prospect if you want, though keep in mind that at least one scouting report doesn’t quite get it:
Other guys in this category: Kyle Harrison, Ryan Murphy, Aeverson Arteaga
Simon Whiteman
Whiteman has had a perfectly respectable year across two levels, hitting .258/.368/.367 as a middle infielder, which, fine, whatever, I’m not here to talk about that. Whiteman also leads all Giants minor leaguers with 29 stolen bases, which makes him a Guy With A Skill. A team sees something a guy can do and says, “Hey, why not, let’s build around that,” and insists on him as part of a trade. It’s a similar situation to Connor Cannon, who mashes dingers and not much else, and went to the Yankees (along with Wandy Peralta) in the Tauchman trade. Take a flyer on a guy who can do something and see if you can make him better. If not, oh well, he wasn’t the main focus of the trade anyway.
As a baseball writer, I am also legally obligated to mention this any time I talk about Simon Whiteman: He went to Yale.
Other guys in this category: Tyler Fitzgerald, almost Sean Hjelle but he’s been a little too good for it but he’s still very tall and that’s his skill
There are probably other categories of prospects, but I think those five give you an idea of how to think about the guys the Giants might trade. Note that I explicitly didn’t include Marco Luciano and Luis Matos and others who seem pretty unlikely to go anywhere; even Kyle Harrison won’t get traded, but he’s a good example of the category he’s in.
Also note that, as Roger said, there are a lot of 40-man decisions that might force the team’s hand in trading someone who they won’t be able to put on the roster. Hjelle, for example, has had an okay but unspectacular year, and maybe the team will want to get some value for him now instead of losing him in the Rule 5 draft in December. There are a lot of moving parts, and I’ll be here to complain about every one even though there is absolutely no way that I could ever do better.
And now, to hope that the Giants don’t immediately make me look stupid by either making a big trade before this goes up, making the list useless, or making a trade that doesn’t involve any of the players on this list. Here’s to the team getting good players who help them win a World Series, without giving up any future stars. In my opinion, that’s what they should do.