The Giants’ youth movement continued on Wednesday, when the club officially called up top prospect Marco Luciano to provide help to San Francisco’s sputtering lineup.
The Giants’ struggles and Luciano’s call-up are also coinciding with the approaching trade deadline, where it looks like a no-brainer that San Francisco will have to buy aggressively if they hope to remain in the postseason picture.
That fact has some asking if Luciano is being brought up to showcase for other teams, and be used as a trade chip to acquire a current star. Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly explained why that notion doesn’t make sense to him on KNBR Wednesday.
“I don’t really think the showcase thing makes sense,” Baggs began. “There are times when teams will request to see a player play a different position, to see if they can do it in the big leagues. That’s happened sometimes at the trade deadline. I don’t think that’s the situation here.
“I don’t think a team is going to say ‘Well, we’re interested in Marco Luciano but we want to see him in a week against big league pitching.’ That doesn’t really happen like that very often. Because if he doesn’t succeed, and he’s got less of a chance of succeeding in the big leagues than he does at Triple-A just because the pitching is better in the big leagues, then the Giants wouldn’t really be showcasing him in a positive way, potentially.”
Luciano was a solid Double-A player and only played at Triple-A for six games. If you want teams to think he’s good, letting him play against lesser competition in the minor leagues would be a better way to raise his stock, as opposed to having him face big-league pitching before he’s proven he’s ready.
“I think if you want to showcase him, you’d leave him at Triple-A where he can play Albuquerque, which is halfway to the moon, and keep hitting the ball there,” Baggs concluded. “I don’t really buy that so much. I think this is a move to try and spark a roster that definitely needs a spark.”
Listen to the full interview above. You can listen to every KNBR interview on our podcast page at knbr.com/podcasts or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Catch Murph & Mac weekdays from 6 – 10 a.m. on KNBR 104.5 / 680 and streaming live on KNBR.com.
