The MLB Trade Deadline is a week away. The Giants started off the 2nd half hot, going 5-0 sweeping the Pittsburgh Pirates and then taking the first two games against a sneaky good Reds team in Cincinnati. Since then? A complete dumpster fire. The Giants have lost 6 in a row, finishing a 11-game road trip against mostly sub .500 teams at 5-6. Although the road trip was long and somewhat grueling, the opponents represented a soft spot in the schedule for SF, a chance to make up ground on the Los Angeles Dodgers who had a brutal portion of their schedule on the road against contenders like the Baltimore Orioles and Texas Rangers. The Dodgers went 6-3 to instead put distance between themselves and the Giants and Dbacks. The Giants are broken. They have been one of the most injured teams in baseball which has led to extensive playing time for rookies who are showing they're not quite ready for a pennant race. After a scorching 18-8 June, the Giants are currently 8-11 in July. They are still solidly in the wildcard hunt, tied with the Miami Marlins and Arizona Dbacks for the 2nd and 3rd wildacrd slot and leading the Philadelphia Phillies by a meager half game. The wildcard standings are tight and the Dodgers have opened up a 4 game lead for the division. The trade deadline is a time for teams to flex their might and decide to go for it, augment their roster and make minor tweaks, or give up and sell off parts that can help them in 2024 and beyond. So what should the Giants do?
Despite the recent dreadful play against, quite frankly, poor competition, the Giants are in no position to sell off. Farhan Zaidi has been waiting for his farm system to get to a place where he can make competitive trade offers for legitimate MLB talent. He also has been hoarding most of his prospects so he could field a team with young up and coming cheap everyday players and starting pitchers. If the season ended today, the Giants would be in the playoffs. They have a very good chance of making the playoffs whether or not they make trades to better the roster. However, given the wildly inconsistent offense and the complete lack of competitive starting pitchers after Logan Webb and Alex Cobb, they currently aren't a team that realistically has a chance to make a deep run in October. The good news is they are not far off.
It's no secret the Giants middle infield is in shambles. Brandon Crawford was having his worst season since his rookie year before he got placed on the IL, but even so, his absence and clutch hitting ability is strongly missed at the moment. Thairo Estada had been regressing offensively a lot before he got placed on the IL as well but he at least has shown he's a legit MLB second baseman. Middle infield might have been a concern even if both those guys were healthy given the skid offensively, but without them, it's become a glaring black hole. Casey Schmitt has not hit anything for a month. He's become Joey Bart 2.0, swinging wildly in and out of the strike zone, and essentially being a complete zero at the plate. He's played himself into being unplayable, yet the Giants have continued to let him flounder. His counterpart Brett Wisely has been equally inept. Neither rookie has shown they can be any sort of factor offensively on a team that needs production throughout the line-up. They are liabilities. It's the easiest area to look at and identify a need for an upgrade. Even with Crawford and Estrada coming back eventually, the Giants need more middle infield depth in case either or both get hurt again or continue to have diminishing offensive outputs. Unfortunately, an external solution is not easy to find. The names being bandied about are not all that inspiring, though literally any veteran player would likely have higher upside than Wisely and Schmitt at present. The common names are Paul DeJong and Tommy Edman on the Cardinals, Tim Anderson on the White Sox, and Jeimer Candelario (a third baseman) on the Nationals. As with every MLB Trade Deadline, there will be other names that come up last minute and guys traded who weren't on the radar. Jonathan India on the Reds could be a name, and he'd be great, but he'd also cost a lot in terms of prospects. Tim Anderson would be an interesting guy, because he's having a terrible season, but his baseball card says he's a borderline star player. He also has a not completely unreasonable 14M option for 2024 if he somehow showed he was more that star player on a new team than the really crappy version he's been in 2023 thus far. But that would be a big risk that you pay up a lot for a guy who could give you the same production as a minor leaguer.
The other issue is the starting rotation. Somehow the Giants need starting pitching. They went into the season with a ton of starting pitching options. So much so, that Giants fans could dream of never seeing a bullpen game again or an opener. The Giants had Logan Webb, Alex Cobb, Alex Wood, Anthony DeSclafani, Sean Manaea, Ross Stripling, and Jakob Junis on their roster. That's 7 guys that could/should start games. On top of that, they had Sean Hjelle, Tristan Beck, and Keaton Winn as AAA guys who could come up and make starts. On top of that, they had top prospect Kyle Harrison waiting in the wings. On top of that Carson Whisenhunt and Mason Black emerged on the fast track and could even be seen as guys who could get starts in 2023. Yet somehow the Giants need starting pitching. All of the veterans guys not named Webb and Cobb have floundered. Stripling has been okay of late, but not a guy that you'd want starting in a playoff series unless he was maybe the 4th starter. DeSclafani started off great in April then has been extremely hittable and shockingly wild ever since. Alex Wood has looked good one day then awful the next. Sean Manaea hasn't started a game in two months, relegated to a long relief role. For whatever reason, the Giants haven't let Tristan Beck get a start. They gave Keaton Winn a few starts before they optioned him to the minors because they needed to have their veterans pitch. Sean Hjelle has been an afterthought. The Giants didn't want to rush Harrison, who then got hurt. They've promoted Black and Whisenhunt in the minors, but it's hard to see them making their MLB debuts this year in a pennant race. Junis hasn't been terrible or dominant in long relief, but he hasn't gotten a start either, for whatever reason. So the Giants find themselves needing another starter (or two) that can give them effective innings. In a perfect world, the Giants would trade for a front line starter, trim the fat off their roster by trading DeSclafani, Manaea, and Wood and rolling with Stripling and one of the rookies to round out their rotation. A rotation of Webb, Cobb, Frontline Trade Guy, Stripling, and, say, Harrison once he's healthy, should be good enough to carry the Giants to the playoffs if the offense gets it going. But in order for that to happen, the Giants have to find a way to ditch the contracts and the roster spots being held by Manaea, Wood, and DeSclafani. Tristan Beck and Keaton Winn are flat out better options right now than Wood, DeSclafani, and Manaea but because they have options, they are withering away in the minors while those guys eat up ineffective MLB innings and costing the team wins. Fortunately, there are a number of solid starters available, namely Lucas Giolito, Marcus Stroman, and potentially guys like Justin Verlander and Max Scherzer. Just like the middle infield, there are most likely other names out there that haven't been mentioned. Dylan Cease is a long shot to be traded by the White Sox, but he has ace upside that would be a perfect fit to complement Webb and Cobb. The Cardinals have Jordan Montgomery, who's quietly been very effective and is a lefty, which the Giants could use in the rotation given Wood and Manaea's struggles and the hesitation to promote Harrison.
So what should the Giants do? Some fans are crying "sell, sell, sell" after the 6-game losing streak. But the reality is, this team is right in the thick of it for a playoff spot. Their bullpen is very good, an imperative need for a deep October run. The offense is ice cold right now and the line-up is completely devoid of power. The middle of the line-up is not producing as expected. Joc Pederson, JD Davis, and Michael Conforto all have gone cold at the same time. That combined with the ineffective rookies has made scoring runs near impossible. A trade for some line-up help and a stabilizing starter is really all the Giants need to get back on track. The line-up should get a boost once guys start getting healthy. Mitch Haniger is a wildcard. If he can come back and provide right handed power in September he can help deepen the line-up. If Estrada can come back and erase the zero offense at second base, that will help. But the Giants need to boost their depth and they absolutely need another consistent starting pitcher. Farhan Zaidi came to the Giants with a reputation of being creative. Giants fans have yet to see much of that creativity on the trade market. It's time for Zaidi to wheel and deal. The Giants need to "sell" low on the guys providing negative value for a hopeful playoff team. Alex Wood isn't providing enough consistency to be a stalwart in the Giants rotation, but he may be valuable to a borderline playoff team that just needs a 5th starter. Anthony DeSclafani isn't a guy the Giants should throw out there every fifth when they're fighting for a playoff spot, but he's a guy that maybe the Nationals or some other rebuilding team would want to eat innings the rest of 2023 and in 2024 for a relatively market rate price. Every year there are salary dumps, change of scenery guys, and stars traded. The Giants need to buy AND sell. They need to sell off the dead weight and buy depth and improvements. It's time for Farhan Zaidi to show us his creativeness and his ability to swindle other GM's. Even if it means selling assets for pennies on the dollar, the roster spots that open up are more valuable for cheaper, better options like Beck, Winn, and Harrison.
I believe this is the path Farhan and the Giants want to take at the deadline. Starting pitching is always in high demand, even if that starting pitching isn't very good. All it takes is one GM thinking they can take an Alex Wood or a Sean Manaea or an Anthony DeSclafani and make a small tweak and get them back to valuable starting pitchers to make a trade successful. Let's hope Farhan can find those counterparts and import some new talent along the way. The trade deadline is 7 days away and it's time to see how this team will be improved. It helps that Shohei Ohtani almost undoubtedly will not be traded, hence no last minute bidding war for the game's greatest talent. With Ohtani likely off the market, Farhan and company can focus on pieces that will help the 2023 team reach its goal of making the playoffs. Hopefully that looks a lot like a middle infield upgrade and an ace starting pitcher. As the girl from The Ring would say...
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