Grant Brisbee on the Giants trade deadline moves

[msgkings322]

Lot of interesting stuff here, from The Athletic. Turns out not a single top 100 prospect changed hands this deadline, for any team. Not one.

 

[msgkings322]

Breaking down a Giants’ trade deadline that left everyone unsatisfied​

By Grant Brisbee
Jul 31, 2024

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A quick primer on the Giants’ deadline if you missed it: They bought, they sold, they didn’t buy enough, they didn’t sell enough. They’re trusting in their young players, except when they’re trusting in their veterans. It’s more of the same, just with different faces who might play differently.
It was complicated and mostly unsatisfying. But that explains a lot of deadlines around the league. All of the Giants’ trades and non-trades can be explained, and the trick is to ignore the binary “buyers” and “sellers” descriptions.
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There’s one trade that’s the Rosetta Stone for the entire deadline, but we’ll get to that one last.

The easiest trade to explain​

The Giants traded Alex Cobb because they had six starters and are planning to use five. The least complicated path from a logistical standpoint was to trade the starter who hadn’t thrown a pitch in the major leagues, especially if prospects came back in the deal. The trade wasn’t a white flag. It was pragmatism. The Yankees traded a major-league reliever to the Astros for a minor leaguer because they needed to make room on the roster. The Dodgers eventually traded James Paxton because they knew they were going to need the roster spot. Cobb had more value than either of those examples, but the idea is the same.
(My guess is that the player to be named later will be more than an afterthought. Don’t expect something like when the Pirates got the Braves’ No. 2 prospect, Jason Schmidt, as a PTBNL, but the designation is usually to allow the acquiring team to do a little more scouting on a small, preselected pool of prospects.)

The unexciting addition​

The Giants traded for Mark Canha because they needed a right-handed bat to play first base, and my suspicion is that Wilmer Flores’ knee injury is going to keep him out for more than 10 days. So they got a well-liked clubhouse guy who grew up here and knows the manager. It’s not a win-now move as much as it is a don’t-lose-as-much-now trade. He was better than the internal options.
Don’t overthink it.
Eric Silva wasn’t a non-prospect, so it’s not as if the deal came without any risk. Keith Law writes him up here, giving him a shot at being an average reliever or better, but with organizations having fewer minor-league teams now, roster spots come with a bit of an opportunity cost, especially in the upper minors. It’s unlikely that the Giants will suddenly be glad they have Canha for a rejuvenated postseason push, but it’s about as likely that Silva is an impact reliever for the Tigers, if not more so.

Blake Snell, still a Giant. (Godofredo A. Vásquez / Associated Press)

The selling that didn’t happen​

The non-trades are likely the biggest sticking point for fans who were dissatisfied with the deadline, and they definitely didn’t align with my expectations. The Giants had an ace to deal in a thin market. They had relievers, good ones, in a market desperate for them. They had a first baseman with a .424 on-base percentage with a couple teams needing a first baseman or left-handed bat in the worst way.
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The Giants, winning streak and all, were under .500 at the deadline. The decision to sell was an easy one for me, but teams were too spooked by the player options of Blake Snell and Robbie Ray. Because they’re weenies. Enjoy your years of team control with Trevor Rogers when you could have had a 1-2 punch of Corbin Burnes and Blake Snell in the postseason, Orioles. I didn’t know what sound an oriole made before today, but now I do. It goes something like “Buk buk buk buk ba-GAWK.”
Sorry, sorry about that, I’m better now. The good news, though, is there’s a path to keep someone like Blake Snell, who has finally tapped into his otherworldly talent and might not want to suffer through another exhausting offseason.
The lack of selling can also be explained away by this Baseball America article titled “Ranking Every Prospect Traded at the 2024 Trade Deadline.” While prospect rankings will differ from source to source, site to site, here’s the most salient part:
Top 25 Prospects
None
Top 50 Prospects
None
Top 100 Prospects
None
There were four prospects who landed in the “not far from the top 100” category, and there were 17 prospects in the “top 150-500” category. Top prospects just didn’t get moved. Teams were more willing to go with league-average starters than take a dive into the deep end. It’s not hard to see how meaningful baseball in September, much less an actual postseason spot, is more appealing than the prospects who were available in that market.

The buying that didn’t happen​

There were also fans who were unhappy with the Giants’ failure to add more offense, other than Canha. If they’re so satisfied with their rotation — Farhan Zaidi called it “the best rotation in baseball” — why not put your prospects where your mouth is?
Makes sense. Except I’m going to rank all of the major-league position players who were traded at the deadline. It will be a very subjective ranking, so feel free to disagree with the details. You’ll get the point.
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1. Isaac Paredes
2. Randy Arozarena
3. Jazz Chisholm Jr.
4. Lane Thomas
5. Jorge Soler
6. Jesse Winker
7. Tommy Pham
8. Justin Turner
9. Bryan De La Cruz
10. Mark Canha
11. Joey Wiemer
12. Josh Bell
13. Ty France
14. Amed Rosario
15. Tommy Edman
16. Miguel Vargas
17. Eloy Jiménez
18. Austin Slater (twice)
19. Miguel Vargas
20. Dylan Carlson
21. Danny Jansen
22. Carson Kelly
23. Paul DeJong
24. Kevin Kiermaier
25. Davis Wendzel
Paredes would have been a play for the present and future, and I’m curious to know what the Rays would have taken from the Giants. Arozarena is exciting, but he’s a high-.700s OPS guy with defense that’s average or below, not a superstar to build around. That’s a description you can use for Chisholm, too. A deal for either of them would have made some measure of sense, but missing out shouldn’t make you gnash your teeth.
Three. Three hitters who might have made your monocle pop out and say, “Farhan, old bean, you’ve done it this time.” And it’s not like all of them were perfect fits for what the Giants were looking for. You’ll find those over here, in an article about trade targets that weren’t actually traded. Anyone below Soler would have annoyed the cynics just as much as Canha.

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[msgkings322]

The most important trade of the deadline​

The Giants traded Jorge Soler, who has been one of their better hitters over the last two months. It probably made the 2024 Giants a little worse. It probably made future teams better.

That’s the key to the deadline, the direction they’re going in. Don’t screw up the present entirely, but make sure the future is in a little better shape. Part of this should happen by getting Marco Luciano at-bats without making him worried about his defense (and by giving Luke Jackson’s innings to Spencer Bivens). Getting out of Soler’s contract was a bigger deal, though.

As a reminder, you’ll never see a fan wearing a jersey with “Financial Flexibility” on the back. For one thing, the customization options at MLB.com can’t even fit it all in.

Freeing up money in future seasons is only exciting if a team uses that money on a free agent who can help. Someone like, say, Jorge Soler. Only dorks get excited when teams move around money for future flexibility.

Think of this like the Monty Hall problem, though. The Giants want to win the ultimate prize, but instead of a new car, it’s the perfect player for their roster. Behind the dozens and dozens of other doors aren’t goats, but there definitely aren’t GOATs.

When the offseason was winding down, and the Giants had Jung Hoo Lee and were looking at adding Matt Chapman and Snell, they knew that the easiest way to get the perfect player for their roster was to add power. It was obvious even to the fools among us. So the Giants picked a door. Hall opened another door. Behind it was Snell’s slow start, the injury to Lee, the disappointing seasons from Flores and Thairo Estrada, the unfortunate handling of the shortstop position and other developments.

Now you have the opportunity to switch doors. Soler was the perfect addition to a roster that was supposed to have a lot more going for it, and the Giants were willing to pay for his 33- and 34-year-old seasons to get him, but is he going to be the best fit for next season? Hard to tell without knowing what the offseason looks like. It’s definitely not as easy of a decision as it was this winter.

Soler’s contract would have affected future plans. I love spending imaginary ownership money, too, but that’s the reality. If you’re sticking with the same door, you’re staying with Soler.

The Giants’ odds improved by switching doors. It’s not a perfect analogy, but you should be more excited about the $15 million sluggers in the bush than the Soler in the hand. And, as a reminder, we’re talking about a DH who wasn’t hitting for nearly as much power as hoped. His slugging percentage was eight points better than Michael Conforto’s when he was traded, and there’s still the built-in consolation prize of Luciano getting regular at-bats.

If you wanted the Giants to get a haul of prospects for their best players, remember that no team got that kind of haul.

If you wanted them to get mediocre prospects for their best players and send a lot of money away to get them, that’s your prerogative. I’d rather just see what happens over the next two months.

If you wanted them to trade young players for a hitter who wasn’t a rental, there were only three of them worth more than a cursory glance.

If you wanted them to improve their chances for next season, they probably did, if only in the abstract.

The Soler deal will probably end up being the only one that matters, and we won’t even know its real value for a few months, if not a full year. Who knows? The money saved on him might be used to get a player who’s traded away at another lackluster deadline.

Maybe. But there just weren’t a lot of other buttons to push. So you get what you get, and you definitely get upset.

 

[LHG]

Interesting article. Thanks for posting it here.

Maybe I'll have to more to say as I further digest it but there are two statements he made about the Canha trade that irk me.

First, the idea that Canha is the best player to fill a roster spot than any internal options. I'd say that is hogwash. None of the guys in AAA can post a .687 OPS at the big league level? Villar was doing better than that and he got sent down.

But the bigger statement that bothers me is this idea that minor league roster spots are more precious because there are fewer of them. Not really. Yes, there are fewer minor league teams but the roster sizes have increased on the ones that are still around. Single A to AAA rosters went from around 23/24 to 28/29 and the ACL is ridiculous. The Giants just recently had 36(!) active players on their ACL squad. If roster spots are at a premium, why is Drew Strotman back in Sacramento? No other pitcher get released, they just expended the pitching staff to 19 (well, one is Ethan Small, who is on a rehab assignment). And lets consider the Rule IV draft. It went from 50 rounds in 2007 to 40 rounds in 2012 to 5 rounds in 2020 and then up to 20 rounds in 2021. With all the DFA dances that teams do at the back end of their 40 man roster, I'd say minor league roster spots are more interchangeable than ever.

Okay, rant over . . . for now.