San Francisco Giants: Building a trade with the Minnesota Twins

It’s already clear within the Minnesota front office that they’ll have to add to their bullpen. The Twins relief corps ranks 17th in the majors with a 4.09 ERA and has employed a closer-by-committee approach in the early going.

The Giants are better suited than any other sellers to deal bullpen help.

Will Smith has been one of the best closers in baseball, while Sam Dyson, Nick Vincent, and Tony Watson have all been effective in middle relief or setup roles.

The Giants have both top-end solutions (Smith and Dyson) to slot into 8th and 9th inning roles and effective band-aids (Watson and Vincent) to help their middle-relief corps.

A middling prospect or two could bring in Watson and/or Vincent, but you aren’t reading this to see those trades.

Let’s assume Minnesota goes big-game hunting for Smith or the Giants other top-tier trade chip, Madison Bumgarner.

The Twins rotation has been solid but lacks big-game experience, and that would certainly be remedied by adding Bumgarner to the staff.

While Smith and Bumgarner obviously fill different roles, both have the potential to prompt a bidding war.

No other starter will have Bumgarner’s reputation and pedigree, and there probably won’t be a better relief pitcher on the market than Smith. That could drive up their prices and allow the Giants to secure a better return.

On the next two slides, I will construct what I feel are fair deals to bring either Smith or Bumgarner to Minneapolis.