SF Giants: Five players who will be hard to trade

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Brandon Crawford #35 of the San Francisco Giants gets ready before a pitch. (Photo by Daniel Shirey/Getty Images) /

Hard to trade SF Giants: Brandon Crawford

It wasn’t long ago that Brandon Crawford seemed to be one of the premier shortstops in the game. His Gold Glove-calibre defense and solid performance at the plate made him seem like a lock to be a Giant for quite a while.

Well, he has been a Giant for quite a while now and has helped the team win two World Series championships, but he sharply declined in 2019, hitting .228/.304/.350 with 11 home runs and 59 RBI. This came on the heels of a 2018 All-Star Game nod and made the Giants realize that they have yet another declining veteran on their hands.

Crawford is set to make $15 million per year over the next two years before he becomes a free agent. Just like Posey and Belt, not many teams are going to be eager to touch that kind of deal.

The emergence of Mauricio Dubon makes things interesting because there is a possibility that he could become the starting shortstop sooner rather than later depending on how Crawford does once baseball resumes.

Dubon is athletic enough to handle the position and is on the rise whereas Crawford is on the decline. The changing of the guard may not happen this year, but it could occur sometime on the horizon.