San Francisco Giants: Five Best Potential Trade Partners

The Milwaukee Brewers

Current Record: 32-29 1st in NL Central

Playoff Odds According to FiveThirtyEight: 28%

Ahh yes, the Brewers. The current leader of the NL Central, one of the biggest shocks in baseball. They already have a lot of young guys up and contributing. They are contending, so they likely won’t want to trade away Ryan Braun. If it comes to a “win-now” upgrade addition for them, great candidates are Johnny Cueto and Eduardo Nunez. The Giants and Brewers already have a trade history from last season. But now the roles could be reversed.

Johnny Cueto could likely be the main piece they attempt to trade for. It will likely come down to who offers the best prospect package for Cueto. If you’ve seen some of the prospects mentioned throughout this article, the Brewers would likely have to offer one of Lewis Brinson, Corey Ray, and Josh Hader to land Cueto. If they go with one of them, as Giants, I beg for Corbin Burnes as well. Burnes was a 4th round draft pick, but a top 50 prospect according to most last season. He’s already made his way up to AA. A very nice 3.5/1 strikout-walk ratio on top of a .86 WHIP across all levels screams “Get this guy.”

The Brewers may be smarter in the way they go about adding. I don’t think the pieces they have are enough right now, but they may not want to dump the farm system to compete with the Cubs just yet.

Next: What the Giants should do with their first three picks in the draft

In Conclusion

There are multiple solid trade partners for the Giants, but these seem to be the best five. I would hope for any of these other than the Brewers. The others frankly have some better prospects to offer, and a few more MLB ready prospects as well. My bet is we get at least one trade with the Yankees, and maybe another with the Astros. You could also throw the Cubs in there for a lower level acquisition, but that feels relatively unlikely.