San Francisco Giants: Building a trade with the Boston Red Sox

The San Francisco Giants will be selling at the trade deadline. As such, Marc Delucchi has been profiling how each contender could build a package to acquire one of their best pieces. Next up, the Boston Red Sox.

Relative to recent history, the last month has been a positive for San Francisco Giants fans.

Since June 1, the team is 17-13, and they are currently in the middle of a four-game winning streak. Earlier this week, the Giants topped off their draft class by inking a top five round prospect to an above-slot bonus. Furthermore, a number of the organizations top prospects have been performing well, including Marco Luciano who’s putting up historic numbers.

Yet, the Giants remain eight games under .500 and they are still not within shouting distance of the first-place Los Angeles Dodgers in the NL West.

The front office knows what to do at the trade deadline. Any veterans with value, especially those destined for free agency like longtime cornerstone Madison Bumgarner and All-Star Will Smith, will be made available to contenders for younger assets.

The Boston Red Sox circumstance is murkier.

Coming off a 108-win season that culminated in a World Series title, president of baseball operations Dave Dombrowski brought back almost the entire core. The one major exception was closer Craig Kimbrel.

As Kimbrel’s free agency drew out into June, the Red Sox remained hampered by an incompetent bullpen, and he has since signed with the Chicago Cubs.

Dombrowski has always been known for his aggressive mindset, and in years past he would not have been afraid to dive into the trade market for a necessary upgrade. However, this year is different.

For one, the Red Sox easily have the weakest farm system in baseball. Dombrowski has never been afraid to trade top prospects for big league talent, but the top-tier talent just isn’t there this year.

Another problem for the Red Sox is their divisional competition. They are eleven games behind the division-leading New York Yankees and 6.5 games back of the Tampa Bay Rays. If the season were to end today, they wouldn’t even be in the wild-card game. Is it worth further depleting the farm system to compete for a one-game playoff?

There is definitely an argument to stand pat at the deadline, but if they do decide to go for it, the Giants will have a number of options for their bullpen.