The harsh reality Giants face with latest trade deadline rumor

On Monday, word came out from several big MLB reporters that the SF Giants are listening to offers on a number of their players ahead of the trade deadline. While that doesn’t come as a big surprise, there is a harsh reality that could stand in the way of the Giants trading some of these players away.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported that the Giants were listening to trade offers for a lot of their top players except for Logan Webb. Then Buster Olney of ESPN reported on social media that the Giants are open to offers for Matt Chapman, Rafael Devers, and Willy Adames along with pending free agents Robbie Ray and Luis Arraez.

While Ray and Arraez should be pretty easy to move since they are going to be free agents after the season, moving any of the “big three” contracts is going to be a challenge. Chapman, Devers, and Adames are all signed to long-term deals and it’s hard to see many teams being willing to take on those contracts.

Really the only way San Francisco will be able to get another team to agree to a trade for any of those three players is if the Giants agree to pay down some, or even most, of the remaining money on their deals. That is going to be tough to swallow after the Giants committed so much money to those three guys, but if Buster Posey, the front office, and ownership are looking to rebuild then that’s the only way to make it happen.

Giants will have to part with money or prospects to move big contracts

The Giants could also potentially include some prospects in deals for those three if they wanted to move them. It wouldn’t be ideal to send their veterans along with one of their young shortstops like Jhonny Level but that would probably be the only way to get other teams on board if ownership was really averse to paying down some of the deals.

It’s remarkable that this is where the Giants find themselves just a year after the Devers trade. Maybe three or four years down the road this seemed like a distinct possibility but the fact the Giants are already thinking about selling off the three guys they built their lineup around shows just how monumentally things have blown up in the team’s face.

Maybe if the Giants play better baseball the next month and a half and at least get within shouting distance of .500 that will change the calculus of the front office. But if these struggles continue or even get worse then it’s tough to see how the Giants can confidently move forward with this core group of players.

A rebuild may be long overdue in San Francisco and some might argue this season has been a blessing in disguise. If the Giants really do want to rebuild though it’s not going to be easy and will come at a cost either in the form of money or prospects and potentially even both.

Add us as a preferred source on Google

Follow