This week's mailbag gets into potential Giants trade targets, long shot front of the rotation trade candidates this summer, players who might retire after the season, and much more.
Todd asks:
Since the Giants have done so much better than expected, chances of them doing something significant before the trade deadline seem likely. Who do you expect the Giants to be pursuing, or at least who should they be pursuing?
The Giants sit at 15-9 with a 47% chance at the playoffs. I agree they'll be looking to upgrade at the deadline.
Offensively, left field and first base seem like potential areas to improve. Heliot Ramos, manning left field, hasn't hit much over his last 200 PA dating back to last year. The Giants have some options in Triple-A, but none that seem clearly better than the likely 2-WAR-ish Ramos. Looking through the various unlikely playoff teams' outfields, I could see Taylor Ward being a decent target. Still, I'm not convinced he's better than Ramos. We'll get to Luis Robert Jr. later in this mailbag.
Bryce Eldridge homered in his first at-bat of the year yesterday, and if he gets to Triple-A quickly and hits well, I could see a fast track to the Majors. The bottom line is that I don't see an obvious position player for the Giants to target - yet.
As I said last week, the Giants will need more starting pitching behind Logan Webb. Landen Roupp and Justin Verlander both pitched well against the Angels over the weekend. Robbie Ray is entrenched salary-wise. Jordan Hicks could wind up in the bullpen, though he would probably not prefer that.
Sandy Alcantara is the name on everyone's lips, and he's back throwing 98 and getting groundballs, though he hasn't actually pitched well through four starts. Sonny Gray could be interesting, though there's no suggestion he'd waive his no-trade clause. Which other pitchers might be available at the deadline?
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Eric Fedde
There better not be any of the M’s Starting Five on that list.
Or else!!!
not being a subscriber I can only see the top of this post but I don’t think the giants have any reason to go after starting pitching. as it is right now there is more argument for getting birdsong a regular starting spot and bringing harrison up and with carson seymour and carson ragsdale and beck and winn all on the 40 man there are way too many internal options for the rotation unless one of those guys were moved for an upgrade. it still seems more likely that if wade continues underperforming and once encarnaceon comes off the IL he underperforms too that you are either trading for a super utility or a a DH type
Birdsong to swap roles with Hicks.
Harrison becomes second lefty in bullpen.
Seymour replaces Verlander. Whisenhunt replaces Ray. Doval gets traded. Wade gets traded. Eldridge gets called up.
These are my wishes for this year.
Sign Tucker next offseason unless Luciano really takes off. Serious contenders !
I think we need to give verlander and ray a little more leash – ray worries me I think more than verlander because even with the WL record and ERA looking good on ray he has some underlying metrics that are more worrisome. I think verlander in the pen could be a good thing later on if he is willing to do it because it would give him the wins he needs for his record but allow him to have more realistic innings limits and when he has had issues it tends to be in the 3rd or 4th inning. I do wonder if something is going on with hicks, his velocity is there but this is the second time out that his command has been spotty at best
Verlander would not get more wins as reliever unless the Giants put him in in the 5th inning, and often. But that would make the starter mad and it’s up to the official scorer anyways. Remember that it’s not a “record” but just a goal of Verlander to get to 300 wins.
Being a Mariners fan, the one thing that bugged me about Ray was his propensity for allowing gopher balls. Seems like he would give up at least one long fly per start. And he would always shrug them off as “just a fly ball.” Yeah a fly ball that counts for a point against you. Hopefully he still doesn’t have that attitude.
oldgfan: I think some of your wishes for this year will come to fruition. If we could only know which ones. Is there such a thing as a crystal baseball?
There is such thing .
They stopped using it in MLB though as all the records were getting shattered.
Old G (and others). Stumbled across a nice young rational guy named Cody. Does a weekly minor league prospect update for Giant fans. Goes through all the main guys performances individually. Does a great job.
Puts the work in so we don’t have too. Worth a look if you want an easy way to track the progress of your boys.
YouTube. Even Year Dynasty Show.
Thanx Fopp !
I’ll scope it out.
I can only see a little also. Can’t get anything free anymore !
nothing’s free in life
Classic cooperhill…
There is still free stuff. You can get bad advice for free. You can give bad advice for free in fact you can give anyone good or bad advice for free. So advice can be free but you better double check who it is from. Oh and in Monopoly you can get out of jail free. Those over used nothing is free or everything is free falls into the bad advice and I gave it for free. This whole post is totally free and if you read this far will you heed my bad advice or wish you could unsee it?
I disagree with the suggestion that the Giants need to look at a Ramos replacement at the deadline. He is no doubt struggling right now. But some forget that he started the season hitting xtra base hits all over but more importantly he wasn’t even in the majors at this time last year. He’s still gaining experience. Like so many young players, not to mention some veterans he needs to lay off bad pitches. More concerned with Bailey’s bat and Wade’s extremely slow start. I believe Ramos will be fine. I also think Shelton is on a hotter seat than Baldelli. At least Baldelli has had some success in Minnesota. Shelton has done nothing consistently with the Pirates.
Mall Santa (John Schneider) should be on the hotseat in Toronto!
Mr. Reinsdorf, your losing more fans every day, please sell the White SOX to somebody who cares about winning baseball games!!
Alonso (.341 / .440 / .681, 6 HRs) is no fluke—his 58.4% hard-hit rate says MVP trajectory.