The Giants only made one significant deal at the trade deadline two weeks ago, shipping off fan-favorite Eduardo Nunez to the Boston Red Sox for two pitching prospects. San Francisco’s well-below .500 record made them sellers for the first time in nearly a decade, but the organization elected to not to trade any franchise cornerstones, instead moving a player that will be a free agent next offseason.
That doesn’t mean that other teams weren’t interested in San Francisco’s stars, however, as CEO Larry Baer shared with Tolbert & Lund on Thursday evening. Baer indicated that at least a couple young managers inquired about both Buster Posey and Madison Bumgarner, but stated that the organization never considered involving either in a trade.
“We have gotten calls on Buster, Madison,” Baer said. “The calls come in that doesn’t mean we take them seriously. Look, nobody really knows how to assess our behavior in this situation right? Because we haven’t been in this situation in like a decade or so. In terms of getting off to such a bad first half that you get buried. There are a lot of new general managers out there, so they might call Bobby and say, ‘what would it take?’ So we’ll get those calls.”
Baer also gave an update on the status of Brandon Belt who had concussion symptoms after being hit in the head with a curveball on August 5, and was placed on the 7-day disabled list. Given Belt’s lengthy history with head injuries, don’t expect to see the first baseman any time soon.
“We’re really going to take it slow with Brandon,” Baer said. “The science now from everything we’ve learned, there’s so much more out there about concussions — and it’s thankfully not nearly in our sport what it is in some of the other sports — but there’s so much out there. What we’ve learned about it is that it’s a jolt. It’s not necessarily a serious blow, but any kind of jolt when you have a concussion history is a big deal potentially. I don’t want to put a timeline on it but I would say later rather than sooner. Just to protect Brandon and make sure that he’s 100 percent for sure. The problem is you can be feeling better — as we’ve seen with Brandon and Joe Panik — you can be feeling better and saying ‘I’m ready to go,’ and you’re not ready to go. So we’re going to be very, very cautious.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Baer’s comments on the trade deadline, skip to the 3:30 mark. To hear his comments on Belt, skip to the 8:40 mark.
