One MLB insider thinks SF Giants may blow things up if they have the chance

Coming off a series win against an upstart Pirates team, the Giants can take a sliver of optimism with them into a brutal four-game road set in the unfriendly confines of Dodger Stadium. As the season stands, though, the Giants still have a MLB-worst -48 run differential, so don’t punch their ticket to the postseason just yet. Their big three position players, Rafael Devers, Matt Chapman, and Willy Adames, have all been below average and borderline unwatchable for much of the year, and their staff ace of Logan Webb has had unusually poor results before being beset by a knee injury and landing on the IL.

With these high-priced stalwarts failing tremendously so far, Buster Posey has finally been forced to make a few tweaks to his roster. The biggest change was Patrick Bailey being traded to the Guardians for a pitching prospect and a draft pick. It’s always unusual to see a two-time Gold Glover traded in early May, but in the Giants’ case, they had an excess of catching depth and desperately need more from the plate than Bailey could have given them. Bryce Eldridge and Jesus Rodriguez were called up to provide a youthful injection of talent to a lifeless offense, and Ryan Walker was mercifully demoted to Sacramento, ending a closer experiment that was always destined to fail.

The Giants may quietly want to enter a full-scale rebuild

There’s probably been more significant non-injury related changes in San Francisco than anywhere else in baseball, but if the front office has its way, there may be plenty more to come. One man in the know, Bob Nightengale of USA Today, wrote on Sunday that the Giants would “love” to unload each of Jung Hoo Lee, Devers, Chapman and Adames if given the opportunity. They are all owed $85 million, $226.5 million, $125 million, and $161 million, respectively, so moving any of them would be easier said than done, let alone all of them.

Still, the thought that the Giants will be exploring trading those guys over the next few months is a neon sign indicator that they finally have come to terms with the fact that this roster is uncompetitive. Letting young guys like Casey Schmitt, Eldridge, Rodriguez and Daniel Susac figure things out at the big league level while trading veterans to improve the farm system would be a much more sensible approach than losing 85-90 games with the slow, un-athletic, underperforming group they currently employ.

Two veterans playing on expiring contracts, Robbie Ray and Luis Arraez, will surely be out the door. They may even listen to offers on Webb, to the chagrin of many fans. As for the other four mentioned by Nightengale, there may be a few teams at least vaguely interested in Lee or Chapman if the Giants are willing to eat some of the money owed to them – it would just depend on whether they’re more interested in getting prospect capital back, or unloading as many millions as they can. Knowing this ownership group, the latter is the more realistic scenario.

It’s all but a given that Devers and Adames, as things currently stand, are completely unmovable. Adames has been worth almost half a win below replacement level, drawing walks at less than half the rate of his previous career-worst and straddling the Mendoza Line, to go along with some embarrassing miscues in the field. Devers has picked things up slightly over the past week but is owed by far the most of the bunch, and his bat speed and strikeout percentage have both been trending in the wrong direction in each of the past five years. It’s too early to say Devers is “washed”, but it’s not too early to say that his best years are certainly behind him. They have both done better as of late but their early season struggles are still cause for concern.

Posey and GM Zack Minasian haven’t held back from making bold trades that no one saw coming, but even they will have a hard time finding a way to fully blow up this roster. As has been the case all season, they’ll have to continue to hope from improved play from their cornerstones and hope the emergences of Eldridge, Rodriguez, Susac and others aren’t accompanied by too many growing pains. Neither the front office or even manager Tony Vitello control their own destinies at this point – it all falls on the shoulders of the guys out on the field. If they turn things around and have an epic next six weeks, perhaps the narrative shifts completely – but that’s a big if.

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