San Francisco Giants Trade Block: What Might it Look Like?

The San Francisco Giants don’t look good right now, and it is time to start considering them as sellers. Even if they become contenders by July 1st, there are still a few pieces worth selling. Here is a run down of how we see the Giants trade block.

When it comes to the trade season, the San Francisco Giants have been buyers as opposed to sellers every season since 2009. In 2013 the Giants decided to “stand pat” and it paid off when they won a World Series the next season. At the time, standing pat felt like the right thing to do. They had a young core, and a group of vets that weren’t too expensive, and had plenty of juice left in them. That’s not the case this season.

The Giants are the oldest they’ve been since 2010, and after the 2010 season we saw the Giants still re-tool big time, and get a younger squad. The average age from their 2010 championship season to their 2012 championship season dropped nearly three years from roughly 30 (29.8), to 27. Now the Giants are hovering at that “nearly 30” average age again. They’re long in the tooth when it comes to position players, especially outfielders, and as the core of the team gets older, they need to be filling in some younger talent around it.

As we explained in an article earlier, it’s much harder to do this through free-agency. Younger players don’t hit free agency very often, and when they do, they command premium price. The Giants can’t afford to add much to the payroll at this point, so they need to get younger and cheaper. You do that by trading for prospects, and closer to MLB-Ready prospects at that rate.

Now we need to look at the pieces on this team and who could we see getting shopped? We’re breaking it into a few categories here:

1. Who they’d be willing to part with
2. Who teams would have to over-pay to get
3. Don’t even think about it
4. What they need in return

Just to be clear, this is not worth taking as actual rumors, this is us playing GM, and what we might do hypothetically. If there is anything of a rumor leading to why we believe that would happen, we’ll state it.

Who they would likely be willing to move

These players are probably going to be the center of trade discussions, and are players they might be willing to part with for whatever reason. Some it’s contract issues, some it’s performance, some it’s what they have in the system behind them, and others it’s a combination of two or more of those things. The bottom line is really no player should be completely shot down. If the Nationals called and asked for Brandon Belt in exchange for Bryce Harper, the Giants would be incredibly stupid to saying no to that. However, Brandon Belt isn’t included in this. Mainly because that trade isn’t realistic, and he belongs in a different category. I digress. Here we go!

Johnny Cueto, RHP, 31

The first thing that should pop into your mind here is, “DUH.” Cueto was likely to opt out, regardless of the season result. Any contender would be stupid to not want to add him to their rotation. He would likely command a prospect haul near that of an Aroldis Chapman to the Cubs type deal. The Giants would be insanely stupid to not take any offers for him.

Matt Moore, RHP, 27

Young and controllable! That’s the reason the Giants got him, and the same reason why others might want him. He probably wouldn’t return anything more than what the Giants gave up to get him, mainly thanks to his performance this year. He’s awful away from AT&T Park. If he starts pitching well though, the Giants are definitely going to get a few inquiries about him.

Eduardo Nunez, INF, 29

Nunez has been swinging the bat much better as of late. He’s got a very good glove when played in the infield, and not in left field. Plus, that speed is insanely dangerous. Much like a hypothetical Moore trade, Nunez would probably return nothing more than what the Giants gave up for him, which is a pitching prospect equivalent of Tyler Beede. Not bad if you think about it. They might be able to flip him for a lefty bullpen piece which they so desperately need.

Mark Melancon, RHP, 35

He’s not young, but he’s elite and is under contract for the next couple years. Contenders need closers, and the Nationals might be in need. The Nationals haven’t been great out of the pen. Someone like the Rangers might be interested in making a swap if they could vault themselves into postseason contention, as Sam Dyson has been as bad as Jim Johnson was to the A’s in 2014. I see this as one of the least likely trade moves, in all actuality. But people will definitely make calls on him.

Denard Span, CF, 33

Span is a good player when he’s on, and no better than a AAA option when he’s not. He can never seem to prolong his one or two game stretches of playing good ball. Usually they’re negated by injury, or his seemingly never-ending days off. His contract isn’t very trade friendly, but the Giants could eat a little of his salary and still get something decent back. A team looking for outfield depth heading into the postseason would likely salivate at the prospect of Span being a fourth outfielder. A player like Span could net a “project prospect” or even a half-way decent lefty reliever, which is more than anything they have in terms of lefty relievers.

Overpay if you want them

These two players are probably seen as significant pieces of the core for the Giants in the years to come. They’re both under 30 and won’t get too much more expensive for the Giants. Their team-friendly contracts mixed with who they are as players could be extremely enticing to teams looking to rebuild. However, the Giants would have to be significantly overwhelmed if someone was to pry either away.

Brandon Belt, 1B, 27

Belt may only be batting .234, but he has a near .800 OPS. Not only is his OPS pretty nice, so is his wRC+, which at 118 for 2017, is tied with Ryon Healy and Jose Abreu, and one point better than Miguel Cabrera‘s. Yes, Belt strikes out a ton, but he’s on base a ton. He also plays in the least hitter friendly ballpark in baseball, so his power numbers don’t look as impressive. For visualization, here is his spray chart with ballpark overlays from multiple hitter friendly parks, whose teams could definitely be upgraded by his addition, and we could see as trade partners with the Giants:

Joe Panik, 2B, 26

Panik is really intriguing. Unfortunately I think his price-tag may have gone down quite a bit since last year. While being the focus of the Tigers and Giants initial trade discussions on J.D. Martinez, Panik had the benefit of the doubt when it came to his numbers. His concussion gave him a whole lot of that. Most people just assumed he’d be back to his All-Star level self at the plate. While the gold-glove defense is still definitely there, Panik’s batting average hasn’t been a whole lot better from what we saw last season.

His batting average has been in a free-fall since May 3rd. The question is this on Panik: who are the Giants convinced he is, and if that’s not the 2014/2015 Panik, are they able to convince other teams that he is that 14/15 version? Panik could still be quite a worthy selling piece though depending on what they can get for him. If they’re comfortable putting Arroyo at second base for the forsee-able future, and they can get something really good in a deal for Panik, I might actually pull the trigger. Panik seems to be the most likely of these two to get traded because he’s still pretty cheap, pretty young, and under organizational control for at least four more seasons. That’s valuable.

What the San Francisco Giants Need

The Giants are needy. They have a few big holes right now, and it’s time to fill them. One of them has virtually been left open since Barry Bonds retired. The others are some needs that are starting to become a little bigger. Here are three big areas of need the Giants should address if they become sellers.

Outfielders + Power Bat

Last week, someone I follow on twitter named Joe Shasky, posed the question of whether or not this was the worst outfield in Giants history in terms of offensive production. Well, I got him an answer. I’ll share it with you all, IT’S NOT VERY PRETTY:

Taking a look at that, it’s just sorted in order of batting average. When you look at slugging percentage and OPS, it’s also the worst. That’s just a nice visual for how bad of a hitting group the outfield is for the Giants this season. A historical worst outfield. They need to be better folks, and they don’t have much of the ability to, nor the prospects ready to make an impact. In my opinion, there is a hole in center and left. If the Giants could address one or both, and either are a power bat, then awesome. But it just has to be adressed. It can’t go ignored for any longer.

A Decent Starter Prospect

The San Francisco Giants haven’t produced a decent starting pitcher in the big leagues, via their farm, SINCE MADISON BUMGARNER! They produced the core of pitchers that led them to the World Series in 2010 and 2012. But it’s 2017 and the most successful pitching prospect to this date has been Ty-Blach. That’s bad. Now I know Tyler Beede is extremely close to being big-league ready, but until he comes up and does something he doesn’t count. To be honest, they could use one or more propsects like Beede in the system. They can probably afford to get a AA, or Adv. A pitching prospect at the moment considering the likes of Joan Gregorio and Andrew Suarez down in the minors as well. Still, for a team that won titles on teams built around pitching, they need a little more of it in their farm, and top quality at that.

Lefty-Bullpen Help

I’m not sure how the Giants bullpen got so un-balanced in terms of lefties and righties, but it’s pretty darn bad. There currently isn’t a lefty pitcher on the roster other than Ty Blach. That’s it, he’s the only one. Osich is there, but he’s still incredibly raw and untrust-worthy. Frankly, they need a proven lefty arm, especially with Will Smith being a significant question mark not only next year, but in the entire future.

Next: Analyzing Arroyo's first big league stint

The bottom line is, the Giants need to prove they are contenders this week, and literally win every-game, or they’re likely done this year. That’s how bad of a position they’ve put themselves in. The idea of trading away some older pieces that aren’t helping the team should be pretty great at the moment anyways. They need outfield help, so they need to trade some pieces away to go get that outfield help, because so far, the system hasn’t proved it has it. If the Giants are going to be sellers, they should probably look at making some trades, even if they hurt parting ways with good dudes. It’s a business, and a results oriented business at that. The results aren’t there, so it’s time to either step up, or get rid of the dead weight. What will the Giants do?