SF Giants trading Casey Schmitt this offseason would dredge up Adam Duvall memories

Once this MLB season ends and the offseason begins, the SF Giants have one imperative: get pitching by any means necessary. President of baseball operations Buster Posey said the team will explore all avenues, whether it be free agency or trade, to do this and given the team’s reluctance to spend big in free agency on pitchers the last decade or so, the trade route may be a likely path.

I’ve read and heard other journalists or people who follow the team say that San Francisco could trade from its wealth of young shortstops to acquire a pitcher and that’s not a bad idea. However, even though it seems like the Giants might have too many promising young shortstops between Josuar Gonzalez, Luis Hernandez, and Jhonny Level, they may want to wait a bit for these guys to develop a bit more before they trade one away.

Plus, if the Giants really want a solid starter in a trade, the team they’re doing business with may very well want quality big league talent now, not some lottery ticket that might pay off in five years. Jung Hoo Lee could be a player the Giants dangle in trade talks but his contract may very well scare off other teams. Casey Schmitt on the other hand is not on an expensive contract and is coming off a really good year.

I’ve written about the possibility of a Schmitt trade before and while this is purely speculation, and personally it would pain me to see them trade a fellow San Diego State Aztec, if I’m in San Francisco’s front office and the Seattle Mariners offer me a pitcher like Emerson Hancock, who had a 3.57 ERA in 25 starts last season, is the same age as Schmitt, and won’t hit free agency until after the 2030 season just like Schmitt, I’m going to have a hard time saying no.

Schmitt was really good in 2026 but the warning signs for a regression were right there. Still, while trading him would make sense on paper one can’t help but be reminded of when the Giants traded away slugger Adam Duvall back in 2015.

Giants made a mistake with the Adam Duvall trade

The Giants needed pitching at the 2015 trade deadline and they decided to trade Duvall, who had only played briefly with San Francisco in 2014 and showed some promise, along with top prospect Keury Mella in exchange for Cincinnati Reds starter Mike Leake. The trade didn’t work out for San Francisco as Leake had a forgettable 4.07 ERA in nine starts, the Giants failed to make the playoffs, Leake departed in free agency after the season, and Duvall went on to be an All-Star who hit over 30 home runs in a season multiple times in his career and helped the Atlanta Braves win the 2021 World Series.

Like Schmitt, Duvall could play in the infield and the outfield and he also never had an on base percentage higher than .315 in his career, but the dude could hit and it sure would have been nice for the Giants to have a slugging corner outfielder or third baseman like him in the late 2010s.

So Duvall really is a cautionary tale when thinking about the possibility of a Schmitt trade. It’s not completely analogous because in a trade for someone like Hancock they wouldn’t be getting a rental pitcher like Leake, they’d hopefully be getting a guy who could be in the rotation for years, but if Schmitt went on to hit 30-plus homers for Seattle while Hancock had a 4.00 ERA for a few seasons with San Francisco then the trade wouldn’t look very smart at all.

I’ll probably go back and forth in my head this whole offseason on the potential for a Schmitt trade so feel free to go on that journey with me, but the Duvall trade did not work out and trading Schmitt could end up the same way.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow