Brian Sabean on why the SF Giants didn’t make a move: “I don’t know how good we are”

The MLB Trade Deadline has come and gone and the SF Giants are left with nothing from the big day. Not one single acquisition. No Ben Zobrist, Chase Utley, Emilio Bonifacio, Alex Rios, David Price, or Gordon Beckham. The only thing the Giants got from this trade season was Jake Peavy from the Boston Red Sox.

If you were like me, hopeful until the very end that Giants GM Brian Sabean would get somebody, even if just another terrible second baseman, you were probably pretty disappointed come 1:00 PM PST yesterday. The general consensus is that the giants would make at least one more. But Sabean made it clear he was not going to make a bad trade.

He also had this to say to Andrew Baggarly of CSN Bay Area:

“Answering it the only way I know how, I don’t know how good we are,” Sabean said. “I don’t know how close we are, close to winning the division or even the wild card” based on recent performance.”

I don’t know how good we are. That pretty much sums it up. And it makes sense.

The Giants have been terrible this season. I mean, perhaps the worst team in baseball at times. Yes, they’ve had some bad luck with injuries, and yes, it’s clear they are capable of being the best team in baseball, and at times, have looked like it. Fans always fall back to the beginning of the season when the Giants were the hottest team around. But friends, May was a long time ago. We’ve now been equally as bad as we were good, and frankly, at this moment, this team stinks.

Trading for a Bonifacio or even an Utley isn’t going to change that. Yes, it could add momentum and re-engergize the clubhouse, but there are just too many holes to fill. What if Matt Cain doesn’t come back? What if Pagan comes back but is hurt for the remainder of the season, or Brandon Belt?

Those three guys, healthy, can make as much difference as any one we could have picked up. But the truth is, it’s very clear Sabean and Bochy probably don’t know what team they have because they haven’t been consistent. If they make the playoffs, could they win the World Series? Absolutely. Could they finish last in the division? That’s a possibility, too, and I think that is why Sabean stood pat.

Old advice often tells us silence is the answer. “No news is good news.” “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”

I think, heeding that advice, Henry Schulman sums up yesterday perfectly.

So, Giants fans. Sabean isn’t say the season is over. But he is being realistic that you can’t play like the Giants have played and have a good enough chance at the playoffs that you go out and start selling off pieces of the farm for a rental player.

And, if history repeats itself, it’s never been the “trade deadline” moves that make or break this team. The Giants will go after players before the waiver deadline, and those piece will come A LOT cheaper to the Giants who may not even be able to stop the bleeding before the season ends. Lower-risk.

Oh the good new side, the Dodgers also didn’t make any moves yesterday, so if we’re competing with them for the division, we at least know what we’re up against…and so do they.