Who the Giants have to trade at the deadline, and which teams should have interest (2024)

Sell.

Is there a way for the San Francisco Giants to convince you otherwise between now and the MLB trade deadline Tuesday? There are five games between now and then. If the Giants run that table, they’re 53-54 at the deadline. They’re probably two or three games back of postseason position, which would be very much “in it.”

Except three of those wins would come against the Colorado Rockies, and Oracle Park is typically where they play like they have radiation poisoning. I’m not sure that would be proof of anything. And they would still be under .500 at the deadline, which is the traditional land of sellers. The third wild card is a parasite that feeds off your gray matter and replaces it with asbestos. Do not believe its lies.

And that’sif the Giants win five in a row. Which they probably will not.

Sell.

The Giants are in a tricky spot with a lot of their better players because of their contracts, but they still have players to offer contending teams. Let’s go through what they have, position by position, and see if there’s a match with the teams that need players there.

Catcher

Players the Giants could offer: Curt Casali

Teams that would be most interested: N/A

According to the Giants’ last medical report, Tom Murphy is “continuing baseball activity” and has “progressed to base running.” He’s owed $4.25 million next season. He will not be traded at the deadline.

That leaves Casali, who has been perfectly fine in his role as a backup catcher. Maybe there’s a team that would target him, and maybe the Giants would prefer to make room for Blake Sabol on the active roster, but it seems unlikely.

Don't run on Curt Casali 😤 pic.twitter.com/XtRYxXPTIP

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) July 21, 2024

First base

Players the Giants could offer: LaMonte Wade Jr., Wilmer Flores

Teams that would be most interested: New York Yankees, Houston Astros, Boston Red Sox, Milwaukee Brewers, Seattle Mariners, Pittsburgh Pirates

Flores is listed in the interest of thoroughness and because he’s a good dude, which is a tool that teams hunt for at the deadline. But the star of the deadline, at least when it comes to this position and the Giants, is Wade. He’s affordable ($3.5 million salary, eligible for arbitration), he’s under contract through next season and he’s productive, with a .304/.428/.408 slash line and 2.2 WAR in 229 plate appearances.

It wouldn’t surprise me to see the Giants keep Wade for these reasons. There aren’t a lot of internal options at first until Bryce Eldridge is ready, which could be years from now. They probably aren’t eager to jump into the free-agent market for a first baseman, especially considering the presence of Eldridge.

Still, if the Blue Jays hang on to Vladimir Guerrero Jr., Wade could be the best available player at the position. The Astros are on record as saying that first base is their top priority, and Wade would fit in perfectly there. The Giants might hold out for top prospects, knowing that Wade will help them next year. There might not be a match if that’s the case. But that also means there’s a small potential of a return that makes your bowtie spin.

Second base

Players the Giants could offer: Thairo Estrada

Teams that would be most interested: Red Sox, Mariners

My primary method of determining the needs of contenders is by looking up the wins above average for every team, then sorting from low to high. Only one contending team has a worse WAA from their second basem*n than the Giants, and that’s the Red Sox. The Mariners are close. There are other contenders below average (Yankees, Baltimore Orioles, Atlanta Braves, Pirates, Minnesota Twins, San Diego Padres), but most of them have second basem*n who are either hurt or should be better.

Which is to say that Estrada won’t be traded to a team looking for an upgrade to its starting lineup. He’s bench depth for a team that needs it.

Shortstop

Players the Giants could offer: Thairo Estrada

Teams that would be most interested: N/A

Estrada’s overall numbers are roughly the same as the Braves’ Orlando Arcía, and both are right-handed batters, which would make them redundant on the same roster. No one is trading for Estrada to be their full-time shortstop. Bench or bust.

Third base

Players the Giants could offer: Matt Chapman

Teams that would be most interested: Yankees, Kansas City Royals

Here we go. That method of sorting teams by WAA is handy, but it’s not without surprises. For example, it tells us that no team has gotten more out of the third base position this season than the Giants. Not only are they leading the world in this stat, almost exclusively because of Chapman (with seven plate appearances each going to Casey Schmitt and Flores while they played third), but they’re more than a full win over the team in fourth place. He’s been really good, even if the offensive numbers are merely decent.

Matt Chapman ran a long way to make this catch! 😮‍💨 pic.twitter.com/6KINPr0LV7

— MLB (@MLB) July 6, 2024

Chapman has $35 million that he can collect over the next two seasons if he exercises his player options, with a $20 million mutual option for the third season. That’s eminently reasonable, and it might be something that attracts the right team instead of repels it. The only problem is that there just aren’t a lot of contenders that need a right-handed third baseman with Chapman’s skill set. Not only would he cost the Yankees a lot more money than his salary because of the luxury tax, the last thing they need is a right-handed hitter with a lot of swing-and-miss in his bat. They’ve been flush with those for years.

And if not the Yankees, then whom? The only other answer would be the Royals, who might be tired of waiting for Maikel Garcia’s bat to come around. The good news there is that Chapman would be a perfect fit. The Royals don’t have to worry about the luxury tax now or in the near future, and they were one of the few teams willing to spend on veteran free agents this offseason. I’d imagine they’d love Chapman’s consistency and clubhouse aura in a relatively young clubhouse.

The Giants, who still plan on contending next season, at least from an ownership perspective, might just prefer to keep Chapman. Who, again, is good at playing third base. My guess is he doesn’t go anywhere, but the Royals have to know just how well he would fit.

Outfield/DH

Players the Giants could offer: Mike Yastrzemski, Michael Conforto, Jorge Soler

Teams that would be most interested: Royals, Pirates, Mariners, Cleveland Guardians, Texas Rangers, Braves, Brewers

Here’s a list of outfielders. Your job is to guess what they have in common.

• Mookie Betts
• Bryce Harper
• Juan Soto
• Mike Yastrzemski

It’s a list of every outfielder who has been worth at least 1.9 WAR according to Baseball-Reference in every season from 2019 to 2024, including this season. And two of them aren’t even outfielders anymore.

Is this cherry-picking? Oh, goodness, yes. You can put this kind of cherry-picking on a resume for a job at PG&E. But it’s also a great way to explain that, yes, Yastrzemski is still a helpful baseball player, and he would improve a lot of outfields. The “DFA Yaz” crowd has always been, and continues to be, a bunch of ding-dongs and ne’er-do-wells.

Conforto is a less desirable target for several reasons. He doesn’t run or field as well as Yastrzemski, he can’t play center and he’s making the prorated remainder of his $18 million salary, which the Giants would likely have to pick up a portion of. It would be a trade to make room from the Giants’ perspective, and the acquiring team would have a dreadful outfield in at least one or two positions. There are contending teams that definitely fit that description.

Soler’s not going anywhere. Makes too much, hasn’t produced. But if the Braves wanted to get the clubhouse vibes back from their championship season …

Starting pitchers

Players the Giants could offer: Blake Snell, Robbie Ray, Alex Cobb

Teams that would be most interested: Astros, Guardians, Orioles, Braves, Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals, Arizona Diamondbacks, Los Angeles Dodgers, Padres, Red Sox, Twins, Yankees, New York Mets, Pirates, Royals

Boy howdy, that’s a lot of teams that might be looking for a starting pitcher. (If you don’t like the list, yell at Levi, not me.) Seems to me that the Giants are in the catbird seat. Even though I don’t know what that is*.

* Update: It’s an idiom about a bird. A bird known as the catbird. The popularization of the phrase has a baseball connection, with Red Barber using it to describe hitters in a 3-0 count. And now you know.

The problem is that while all three of those pitchers are talented enough to make All-Star teams and/or win Cy Young Awards, they’re close to untradable. Snell because of his player option at superstar rates, and Ray and Cobb because they haven’t thrown a pitch yet and they make a lot of money.

"I feel like the better version of me is still coming"

Blake Snell believes there's still room to improve despite pitching well his last three starts pic.twitter.com/43D6kuHJrN

— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) July 23, 2024

Consider that the Giants didn’t find a suitable trade offer for Carlos Rodón — who was pitching much better than Snell has this season — and they preferred to take the compensatory draft pick instead. They used that draft pick on Joe Whitman, who is one of their better pitching prospects, so that non-trade looks better now. If teams weren’t willing to risk Rodón’s opt-in contract in a Cy Young Award-caliber season, they probably aren’t willing to gamble on Snell’s last three starts being more predictive than his previous six.

For the record, I thought teams were being weenies in 2022, and I was correct. They would be weenies to be scared about Snell’s contract, too, unless they’re already over the luxury tax. You’re telling me the Guardians, Royals or Twins couldn’t risk it? Please. First team with the proper respect for the trade deadline wins the AL Central.

My guess is they all stay, and next year’s rotation features a mix of Logan Webb, Ray, Jordan Hicks, Kyle Harrison and Hayden Birdsong, depending on whether Snell opts out or not. It’s not a bad start at all.

It’s the kind of rotation depth that would make a lesser writer put something like “Logan Webb for Jackson Holliday, who says no?” in his article, so be grateful that I wouldn’t even dream of it. Just imagine the bloodbath in the comments.

Relievers

Players the Giants could offer: Taylor Rogers, Tyler Rogers, Camilo Doval, Sean Hjelle, Ryan Walker, Erik Miller

Teams that would be most interested:

This is where the Giants can really get goofy. Taylor Rogers has looked outstanding this season, and he’s the most likely player to not be on the Giants’ roster in August. But they can still do their best to extract prospect after prospect for pitchers like Doval, Walker and Tyler Rogers. It would be risky — all of those pitchers are under contract through at least next year, and Doval and Walker are under contract for years after that.

One of the truisms of baseball, though, is that relievers come and relievers go. There’s a reason why the Core Four was honored with a statue giveaway recently. That doesn’t happen. That doesn’t happen! Look at the best relievers from just three seasons ago and see how many are still dominating today.

On the other hand, it’s really nice to have three excellent relievers for the seventh, eighth and ninth innings. A real if-it-ain’t-broke situation. The Giants have a better bullpen than you might realize, and it could be together for a while.

On the other other hand, the Giants could trade those relievers for prospects. Some of them might turn out to be as good as Ryan Walker or Tyler Rogers!

Don’t expect a blockbuster deadline. The Giants’ roster and contract situations are a little too weird for that. There could be surprises mixed in with the deals you’re expecting, though. And if it’s a complete dud, with nobody going anywhere, I’ll meet you right back here to commiserate.

(Photo of Thairo Estrada: Jason Parkhurst / USA Today)