SF Giants: Five players who will be hard to trade

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Johnny Cueto #47 of the San Francisco Giants throws a pitch. (Photo by Robert Reiners/Getty Images) /

Hard to trade SF Giants: Johnny Cueto

If you’ve caught on to the theme of this list, then Johnny Cueto does not come as much of a surprise. Yet another veteran with multiple years left on his contract, Cueto missed most of 2019 due to injury but showed flashes of brilliance in a few of his starts late in the season.

He is set to make $21 million in 2020 and 2021, and then $22 million in 2022, the final year of his deal. The Giants signed Cueto back in the 2015 offseason along with Samardzija to try to bolster the rotation.

Cueto started the All-Star Game in his first year with the Giants, but since then he has been limited in his effectiveness due to injury and underperformance, appearing in only 13 games for the Giants over the last two years.

That is such an awful return on investment as of late, and the only way the Giants would be able to get anything for Cueto is if he returns to form whenever baseball resumes. But I fear the Giants may be stuck with Cueto until the end of his deal.

The best-case scenario may be that he stays healthy and pitches respectably and serves as a mentor to some of the younger pitchers like Logan Webb or Tyler Beede who may become staples of the rotation in the years ahead.

So there you have it, five aging veterans with multiple years left on expensive contracts that the Giants would love to get rid of but almost certainly cannot. What a great parting gift from Brian Sabean and Bobby Evans to Farhan Zaidi.