MLBTR's subscriber series previewing each club's deadline activity continues. Next up: the team that has already pulled off what'll probably be the biggest in-season trade we'll get all year.
Record: 44-35 (56.2% playoff probability, per FanGraphs)
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Potential needs: first base, second base, mid-rotation starter, left-handed relief
Two weeks ago, identifying the Giants' biggest priority was simple. The lineup was floundering and in desperate need of an impact bat. Then came the Rafael Devers stunner. All of a sudden, the top half of the order looks strong. They've pitched exceptionally well all season. They have fewer areas that they absolutely need to address than one might expect, since they're still generally viewed as a step below the top contenders in the National League.
First base was the biggest problem into the middle of June. They finally pulled the plug on the scuffling LaMonte Wade Jr. while signing Dominic Smith as a stopgap. Smith has made a strong impression through his first 16 games. More importantly, the Giants quickly convinced Devers to start taking drills at first base. He remains a designated hitter for now, but there's a decent chance he's getting into games as a first baseman prior to the July 31 deadline.
That doesn't preclude an upgrade. Smith has had a strong couple weeks, but he was a replacement level player between 2021-24. He's not someone who firmly stands in the way of an outside acquisition. Top prospect Bryce Eldridge suffered a right hamstring strain in Triple-A just this week (relayed by Justice delos Santos of The Mercury News). He's going to be out of action for at least 3-4 weeks and is unlikely to make his MLB debut before July is out. The Giants could theoretically replace Smith while keeping Devers as a designated hitter.
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Rough news about Eldridge. Hopefully he debuts on opening day next year.
Schmitt will be an upgrade bat at 2B in a few weeks, right around the AS Break when Chapman returns.
What the Giants REALLY need is for JH Lee to swing the bat better and more production from Bailey at Catcher. Adames is coming around. If that happens the lineup will be fine.
I loved the Verlander signing but he can’t buy a win. If he doesn’t get a win soon I could see him retiring mid-season and going home to spend time with his new baby boy.
Once Devers starts playing 1B I could see the Giants flipping Smith somewhere; he’s been great and a nice addition but there’s a big demand for left handed bats.
Time for Buster to get what he can for Matos, Luciano and McCray(very similar player profile to Jackie Bradley Jr, great defender, fast, power but strikes out way too much).
I seriously doubt Verlander retires. He hasn’t pitched badly. He just hasn’t pitched well enough for a team that can’t score runs. Look at Webb. He ranks 8th in MLB in ERA, and yet he’s 7 -5 (the team is only 9 – 7 in his starts). Verlander would be a great addition for a team with a better offense that needs help at the back of the rotation. I’m thinking maybe he should be shopped at the deadline.
It’s way to soon to sell low on Matos and Luciano. Matos has hit better than Ramos did at his age. There probably isn’t room for McCray, though I could see him as 4th or 5th OF, late inning defensive substitution, if Yastrzemski isn’t re-signed for that role. Some team might like McCray.
Yes on Matos. Not so much on Luciano. Out of options, hitting for more power but still not doing it enough and not good defensively. I think there would have to be a seriously good 2nd half from him to justify a 40man roster spot next year. If someone was prepared to take him now and they could get something back, I’d have to be on board with that.
Despite the lack of results, it’s still my belief that it’s too early to give up on Luciano. It’s small samples, but over his age 21 and 22 seasons Luciano had an OPS+ of 69. Ramos saw no action at the MLB level at age 21, but his age 22, and 23 seasons resulted in an OPS+ of 32.
Luciano currently has a .734 OPS over his AAA career. Ramos had a .768 OPS over his career in AAA.
There’s no guarantee of course that Luciano will break out like Ramos. They aren’t going to get much back if they did trade him. I don’t think they should move him for pennies on the dollar, until they know for sure that it isn’t happening for him.
Yeah, I get it. It’s the out of options situation. If he had some I would be more open to persevering. It’s just how long do you carry him before he gets one last shot at it.
The other thing is the defence. He looks well and truly blocked at DH.
I’d still rather see Luciano taking up a roster spot than someone like Wisely. or Meckler. With young guys I like the one with the higher ceiling. Even Dom Smith, though he’s been productive, is not a guy a team needs to keep forcing a trade of Luciano.
He has played 60 games in LF in the minors.
Fair enough. I was more thinking of the unprotected young guy with the roster spot. But I also don’t know how that rule 5 system works.
My minor league watcher guy told me last night he hasn’t been very good defensively in those 60 games. He was painting a pretty dim picture of Marco being around next year. Pretty much just parroted his opinion.
I have no first-hand knowledge, but BB Ref has him playing 527 innings with 106 chances, 99 put-outs, 3 assists, and 4 errors. That doesn’t sound egregiously bad, but it doesn’t let us know how many balls he misjudged, or ran bad routes to, that fell in for hits. It is a new position for him.
Who knows how the Giants feel about him? They’re the best judges because they’ll see the things like OF play, as well as the quality of his ABs. We’ll know next season.
I would like to agree with you on that except I would have said the same thing about ramos before last season for all the same reasons and looking back now that would have been a bad decision
Jean Matrac — Luciano is toast.
Rookie mistake to make a definitive call like that on a 23 year old.
If you need your team to score 5 runs every time you pitch. You are pitching badly.
It’s over.
Wow, how can anyone be so wrong? Maybe stick to the Dodgers because you’re clearly uniformed about the Giants. And maybe check some stats before posting erroneous info, and looking bad.
The pitching isn’t the problem. As a team the Giants rank 2nd in the NL, and 6th in MLB in fewest runs allowed per game with 3.73. It’s the Dodgers that need to score 5 runs per game since they rank 4th worst in the NL, and 8th worst in MLB allowing 4.59 runs per game.
Pathetic take dude, even for a Dodger fan.
Verlander won’t retire, but much of his problems this year are of his own doing. While it’s true the Giants haven’t scored much for him, his misses are so far from the plate that in EVERY outing his pitch count elevates and he has to be pulled. It’s not like he misses a little or is being squeezed by the umps, he just flatout misses the plate so badly that batters aren’t even tempted to swing.
Verlander still has a better ERA than Dean Kremer, Kevin Gausman, Chris Paddack, Michael Lorenzen, Luis Severino, Kyle Hendricks, Bailey Ober, Brandon Pfaadt, Zac Gallen, Lucas Giolito, and Kyle Harrison. As well as a bunch of guys with an ERA of 5.00 or higher like Jack Flaherty, Roki Sasaki, and Lance McCullers.
That’s wild! But he still doesn’t pass the eye test. Giants need to get more out of that 5th spot.
The eye test is BS. The complaints about Verlander would be much less if the hitters could deliver more consistently. The Giants have lost 8 of Verlander’s starts. In those 8 games the Giants have scored an average of 2.25 runs per game. That’s pathetic.
The opponents scored 3.5 runs per game in those 8 losses, with Verlander allowing 18 ERs for a coincidental average of 2.25 runs per game. That’s not bad pitching, that’s a lack of run support. No pitcher is going to win many games with that kind of run support.
last outing wasn’t good overall but for the most part this year he has been a 3-4 inning guy – once he goes beyond that he is done and that is an issue with a starter trying to get wins
Verlander has had 12 starts and has 61.2 IP. That’s an average of 5.1 IP per start. Not great, but clearly more than 3-4 innings.
Plus, look at the scores of his starts that they’ve lost, and how many ERs he allowed:
2-3, 2 ERs
4-6, 4 ERs
4-5, 1 ER
0-2, 1 ER
3-4, 2 ERs
1-2, 2 ERs
2-4, 3 ERs
2-4, 3 ERs.
If the Giants could score runs at the league average of 4.36 per games, optimistically they could have been 6-2 in those games, as opposed to 8 losses. 4 wins is a reasonable expectation, and even just 2 wins would have been better
Verlander, and the rest of the rotation, aren’t the problem. It’s the hitters that aren’t winning games that they could. Verlander isn’t the only victim of their incompetence in scoring runs. And the hitters aren’t showing any encouraging signs that they can turn it around.
he has gone 5.1 inning but he has been stellar the first couple of times through the order and given up almost all of his runs the 3rd time through. The giants seriously do need to score more runs – if they scored the average forget verlander they would have the best record in the league. I don’t see that happening at least until chapman is back, if schmitt, chapman are in the lineup you have chapman, devers, ramos shmitt to go through whereas right now you have wisely and koss in the middle of that which is not good. We will see too what happens if murphy is able to come back, bailey seems to finally be not a black hole but if you can get something out of the backup catcher offensively that would be a big help
Actually, it isn’t the later innings that Verlander has had problems with, it’s the 3rd inning when he has a 10.22 ERA. In the 4th inning his ERA is 3.00, it’s 3.38 in the 5th inning, and it’s 2.84 in the 6th. That suggests more of a statistical anomaly than a lack of ability.
And in about half of the ABs in Verlander’s starts, 132 of 265, they’ve scored 2 runs or less.
So, we’ll just have to agree to disagree. If they could score the league average runs per game they wouldn’t have the best record in MLB, but they would at least be competitive, which they aren’t now.
They’re ranked 16th in runs per game allowed, and 22nd in runs scored. The pitching staff is 11th in WAR, and the hitters are 16th. So it seems logical to me that the hitters are the ones not carrying their weight.
A Willi Castro like player is the ideal fit although a jack of most trades, master of none in particular on the defensive side is probably better suited to play LF when the Giants are at home with Ramos bouncing out to the more difficult RF.. The best of all worlds is Fitzgerald goes down, finds his bat and that his recent issues were due to lingering effects of his rib injury.
He could return as a multi- position bench player who in theory would be capable of playing all OF and middle positions taking spot starts in CF/RF against LHP. While unlikely it would be SUPER helpful if Dom Smith could “fake it” in LF on the road that would allow Wilmer, him and Devers to be in the lineup together when matchups warrant it.
Fitzgerald—if he can curtail the swing and miss—is the ideal super-utility guy. Schmitt is the second baseman as soon as Chapman returns.
I hope Dom Smith can continue, but his history suggests not.
Giants need one more bat. Maybe at first, maybe in the OF. Though Willi Castro would be welcomed, though what would SF have to give up for him?
First is too crowded already.
Outfield bat is the way to go.
the hard part of that is who do you displace. Maybe if you can find a RH bat with power? that would make sense to have a guy that can play right and platoon with yaz and move on from johnson?
Exactly.
Now is the perfect time to trade Eldridge. If Devers is comfortable at 1B for the foreseeable future, Eldridge is a DH only but that is where Heliot Ramos needs to play….. do you think Zack M can convince Perry M to see if Mike Trout would like to head north and make the playoffs? Eldridge, Whisenhunt, Matos and Fitzgerald might get Moreno’s attention.
lol
Hahahaha. Yeah right. Gut the farm system for a great player who’s hurt precisely all the time?
And Ramos will stick in left field. They’re not moving him to permanent DH.
not to mention that Trout is basically a DH now if he wants to stay healthy. They should give Trout away if he asks, not take multiple prospects to acquire lol
EBJ? Extra BJ? That’s a crazy proposal even by comments standards.
EBJ—
God, please stay as far away from the SF Front Office as possible. You are delusional.
oh my god that is the worst trade proposal I have seen since that guy back when that was saying that the giants ought to trade webb and gausman for mitch haniger
Have yet to get an answer.
Is Devers so horrid at 3B that with Chapman out, the Giants are not playing him there and have him locked in to being a very expensive, one dimensional DH when he could fill in at 3B until Chapman returns?
He is learning 1st base for a second dimension. 3rd base is covered with Schmidt, who is doing just fine.
Since he hasn’t played any 3B since the end of last season you probably really don’t want him at Third Base right now
Jacksson13, Yes. Last season Devers was tied for 5th worse, out of 43 qualifiers with a -6 OAA. In 2023 he was tied for 3rd worse, out of 35 qualifiers, with a -8 OAA. By comparison Matt Chapman was best in 2024 with 11 OAA, and Ke’Bryan Hayes was best in 2023 with 18 OAA.
Devers is neither Chapman nor Schmidt and it’s not clear how much if any reps he’s taken in 2025 at 3rd either in spring training or into the regular season. That is the bigger issue and honestly he’s here for the bat, I’d rather him focus on the less demanding position.
schmitt has looked like a gold glover out there – I don’t see why you would want to play devers there if either schmitt or chapman is available
Willi Castro would be a fun addition for them. Castro playing by the Castro.
I don’t see the Giants doing much beyond Devers. Maybe a bullpen arm?
They have the best bullpen in the league
Wondering why Wilmer Flores, who is currently the starting first baseman and 9th in the league in RBI’s, is not mentioned in the 1B/DH discussion?
Or move Flores to 2nd. Unless his utility IF days are behind him.
you have 3 guys right now who would be better defenders @ 2nd on the active roster in koss, schmitt and wisely – plus fitzgerald if he rights himself
Wonder what kind of package it would take to land Marcell Ozuna ?
Get on the phone Buster !
How many DHs on one team?
no thanks – not what the team needs
Power platoon for RF
Purely a rental with no future option.
Jean…3 games series is the smallest of small samples and shouldn’t in any way dictate your decision making. What’s the Giants run differential on the year? How has Devers impacted their offense? More importantly, can’t you reasonably expect the offense to be improved significantly enough that even just 1 or 2 more bats may actually impact their chances enough to be clear buyers? Seems like a Grichuk type could be huge for them along with a 1b/DH rental upgrade to D. Smith could put them in the running for a top team in the NL mountain. Smith shouldn’t be expected to continue being the answer. Too bad Ari is in the same division because a Grichuk/Naylor package would be ideal. Coming from a Padre fan with an outside perspective and one who is very disappointed that SF has been able to close the gap on my Padres and even the damn Dodgers
Exactly half way through the season for the Giants, I’m thinking they shouldn’t be buyers. Maybe a limited sell on guys like Yaz and Verlander, with the aim of retooling for 2026. But I doubt they can find enough hitters at the deadline to take advantage of their pitching this year.
That Marlins series was a wake up for me. They came into SF in last place with a -90 run differential, allowing 396 runs against. Only the A’s, Nat’s, and Rockies had allowed more. They left in 4th place with a -78 run differential.
When the best pitcher on the staff, a guy with a 152 ERA+, and a top 10 pitcher in MLB has a 9-8 team record in his starts, another bat is not going to be enough.