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

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.