San Francisco Giants: The 10 worst Giants trades of all-time

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No MLB organization is immune from making trades that look, especially with the benefit of hindsight, like total duds and the San Francisco Giants are no exception. For every trade that brings in a guy like Jeff Kent, Hunter Pence, and Kevin Mitchell, there are others that were decidedly less great.

When looking at ranking the worst trades in Giants history, we are going to try to not look at too many recent trades because we just don’t know how many of those are going to turn out.

Case in point: there are plenty of folks that were less than thrilled at the Giants trading away stud pitching prospect Prelander Berroa with one scout calling it arguably “the worst trade of 2022”. Berroa could end up being awesome, but he is still at Double-A so the trade needs some more time to bake before we judge it too much.

The worst San Francisco Giants trades of all-time

All of that said, these rankings are purely subjective. Those who were attached to the Giants from decades ago are probably going to feel more strongly about those trades more than the contemporary ones and vice versa. Nevertheless, we took a shot at ranking them anyway. Here are 10 of the worst trades in Giants history.

10. Giants trade Felipe Alou

In the early 1960’s, Felipe Alou was one of the Giants’ more consistent hitters including an All-Star campaign where he posted an .869 in 1962. However, Alou was not pleased with manager Alvin Dark’s rule against speaking Spanish in the dugout during his time with the Giants. Alou would get traded before the 1964 season along with Ed Bailey, Billy Hoeft, and Ernie Bowman to the Braves for Del Crandall, Bob Shaw, and Bob Hendley.

Shaw was a reasonable starter for the Giants after the trade, but Crandall had one bad season with the Giants and was out of baseball a couple years later and Hendley was shipped to the Cubs a year later after getting moved to the bullpen. As for Felipe, he would make two more All-Star Games with the Braves and would play in the big leagues for another decade. Oof.

9. Giants trade for Deion Sanders

Coming off the 1994 baseball strike, the Giants were looking to get fans excited again and they landed on trading for Deion “Prime Time” Sanders to accomplish that. The resulting move back in 1995 was an eight player trade that brought Deion to San Francisco and sent Mark Portugal, Darren Lewis, and Dave Burba.

Deion was okay in his half a season of work with the Giants, but he was granted free agency after the season and the NFL took most of his time after that. Portugal would be a backend starter type for a few more seasons while Lewis and Burba would forge lengthy, if decidedly medium, MLB careers after they left San Francisco.

8. Giants trade for Andrew McCutchen

This is a pretty recent trade to judge, but the results are fairly definitive. Andrew McCutchen is a treasure and it is perfectly understandable that the Giants wanted to take a shot at bringing him in at the time. So, the Giants traded for Cutch before the 2018 season by giving up Bryan Reynolds, Kyle Crick, and $500,000 in international bonus pool money.

McCutchen wasn’t bad per se in 2018 as he hit 15 home runs with a .778 OPS, but the Giants would end up shipping him off to the Yankees at the end of August of that year. Crick put up a couple decent relief seasons for Pittsburgh, but Reynold was the real prize as he has turned into one of the better young hitters in baseball which is decidedly less than great when all San Francisco got was part of one meh season from McCutchen.

7. Giants trade Jack Clark

Jack Clark was a mainstay in the Giants’ lineup in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s and his mix of power and ability to get on base earned him a pair of All-Star nods and even some down ballot MVP vote love. However, he also was a tough guy to get along with and often complained about the weather in San Francisco. Before the 1985 season, Clark was traded to the Cardinals for Jose Uribe, Dave LaPoint, David Green, and Gary Rajsich.

Uribe hung around for a while as a light hitting, but strong defending shortstop, but the other three players were gone from the roster by the start of the 1986 season. As for Clark, he would play another eight seasons including two more All-Star appearances including the 1987 season where he slashed .286/.459/.597 and 35 homers on his way to a top 3 MVP finish.

6. Giants trade Bobby Bonds for Bobby Murcer

While his son, Barry, had the more storied (and controversial) career, Bobby Bonds was quite the offensive force in his time. During his seven seasons with the Giants, Bonds hit .273 and hit 186 home runs and stole 263 bases while playing Gold Glove defense. However, the Giants traded Bonds to the Yankees for Bobby Murcer after the 1974 season.

Murcer played pretty well in his two seasons with the Giants, but Candlestick Park frustrated him tremendously given how it diminished his power and he was traded to the Cubs before the 1977 season having not come close to matching Bonds’ production. Bobby, on the other hand, would bounce to several teams over the next six seasons and post multiple excellent seasons before he retired.

5. Giants trade Orlando Cepeda for Ray Sadecki

Sadecki pitched pretty well with the Giants over the next four seasons including a pair of sub-3 ERA seasons. However, any thought that Cepeda was declining before the trade was quickly squashed as he won the MVP for the Cardinals in 1967 and would go on to post an. 804 OPS and hit another 136 homers over his remaining eight seasons. He was eventually put into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999 by the Hall’s Veterans Committee.

4. Giants trade away Zack Wheeler

Again, another modern trade that we are pretty confident was a bad one. The Giants were reeling from Buster Posey’s ankle injury back in 2011 and they needed a bat. While they were still leading the division, they needed a bat and Carlos Beltran was a hitter with a strong track record that also happened to be available. So, at the end of July, the Giants traded pitching prospect Zack Wheeler to the Mets for Beltran’s services.

To be clear, Beltran was quite good when he was on the field for the Giants as he slashed .323/.369/.551. The problem was that he was hurt too much to make enough of an impact to justify the cost as a wrist injury cost him a chunk of time. Beltran would then hit free agency after the season and sign with the Cardinals and make three ASGs elsewhere. As for Wheeler, he has turned into one of the best pitchers in baseball over the last four seasons. Not great….not great at all.

3. Giants trade for AJ Pierzynski

This trade is mentioned a lot by Giants fans when listing the worst trades ever and frankly, they are justified in doing so. Back during the 2003 offseason, the Giants found themselves in need of a catcher with Benito Santiago in the twilight of his career. So, they got with the Twins and acquired AJ Pierzynski for Francisco Liriano, Joe Nathan, and Boof Bonser.

AJP was serviceable in his one season with the Giants with a .729 OPS, but was far from a long term solution as he signed with the White Sox the following season after being non-tendered by the Giants and went on to a long career elsewhere. Joe Nathan would become a six time All-Star closer with the Twins and Rangers and Francisco Liriano would finish in the top three of the ROY voting in 2006 and have a 14 year career on the mound with a handful of teams.

2. Giants trade Gaylord Perry

Yeah…this one still hurts. Gaylord Perry needs no introduction thanks to his illustrious 22 year career on the mound. The first 10 of those seasons were with the Giants and he posted a 2.96 ERA with 1606 strikeouts in almost 2300 innings pitched including 125 complete games. However, the Giants felt as though they needed Sam McDowell and his lauded fastball more and they traded Perry and Frank Duffy (more on him in a second) to the Indians for McDowell.

There was no denying McDowell’s raw stuff, but there were signs during the latter part of his time with the Indians that he wasn’t quite right. He was then bad in his first season with the Giants, got moved to the bullpen, and was out of the league altogether by 1976. As for Perry, he would win a pair of Cy Youngs after leaving San Francisco (including the season immediately after the trade) and his career would result in getting inducted into Cooperstown in 1991 after striking out 3534 batters and winning 314 games in his career.

1. Giants trade George Foster for Frank Duffy

We have reached the summit of our worst Giants trades of all time and fittingly, it is the one that Giants fans young and old use to measure all trade badness. George Foster was oozing with offensive potential, but somehow found himself on the outside looking in when it came to the Giants’ depth chart, so they traded him to the Reds for Frank Duffy and Vern Geishert in 1971.

Duffy would play (badly) in 21 games for the Giants before getting shipped out in the aforementioned Gaylord Perry deal and Geishert never played for San Francisco at all. As for Foster, he would become an integral part of the Reds’ “Big Red Machine” teams in the 1970’s including winning the MVP award in 1977 after slashing .320/.382/.631 with 52 home runs. He would finish his career with 348 homers and 47.1 fWAR. Yep, that is definitely deserving of the top honors.

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