Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports
“The conversations are happening,” Farhan Zaidi said last week, explaining that while so much is uncertain in this year’s trade deadline, the same types of chats are going on among front offices.
Those conversations, though, have to be different for the Giants than they were a week ago.
Seven days ago, San Francisco was 8-16 and fresh off a gut-wrenching 7-6 loss to the Angels, Tommy La Stella’s home run off Trevor Gott devastating a team that had dealt with so much bullpen devastation. Fangraphs placed the Giants’ playoff odds at 3.3 percent. Kevin Gausman looked as sure to be dealt as Madison Bumgarner did last June. Ditto for Tony Watson and whomever else the Giants could extract value from.
And just like July 2019, the weather got hot and the Giants caught fire. They haven’t lost since that nadir, rattling off six straight to hit the season midpoint at 14-16 and, if the season ended today, a part of the expanded playoffs. Fangraphs has catapulted those playoff odds to 31.5 percent. A bullpen that was leaking has been patched. An offense that already was showing signs of being powerful has firmly hammered that billboard into the ground. Defense that was a major problem has been minimized. A catching position that offered little offensively has been revolutionized by the future arriving early. (Or on time. Or too late.)
The Giants have a three-game Oracle Park set with the Dodgers beginning Tuesday before heading to Arizona for three that will conclude their pre-trade deadline schedule. The Dodgers are again the NL West powerhouse, the Diamondbacks a team the Giants just casually swept at home. A three-game losing streak or what would be a nine-game winning streak can swing a team’s direction in any season — but especially in an abbreviated 60-game campaign.
“Sometimes it seems like one game or a three-game series takes on an added element of importance. I wouldn’t say that all games are equal, I’ve never believed that,” Gabe Kapler said Sunday, asked about the series with the Dodgers. “But I will say that our job is to stay especially focused on the step right in front of us.”
Which is true, but the Giants also know what the standings look like. They know a team that raced through July last year, going 19-6, persuaded the front office into retaining Bumgarner and Will Smith, even if Zaidi offloaded lesser bullpen pieces. Teams that are headed for the playoffs rarely subtract — although it’s worth considering last year’s Drew Pomeranz deal that landed Mauricio Dubon.
Gausman is a righty version of Pomeranz, electric stuff that plays remarkably out of the bullpen but trying to establish himself as a starter. Just like Pomeranz, Gausman is on a one-year deal that will be appealing to just about any team across the league. The Giants have a rotation led by Johnny Cueto, who is due $21 million next year and thus would be harder to move, along with Logan Webb, Tyler Anderson and Trevor Cahill, another wild-card trade chip. All are pitching well, while Drew Smyly may have been most impressive before getting hurt and Jeff Samardzija is rehabbing his way back.
The Giants have depth. It is feasible Zaidi and Scott Harris could turn Gausman into a younger piece who’s ready to help while still keeping an able rotation intact and sending a message that they’re contending.
It is also feasible that there are enough hazards to making trades during a pandemic, in which teams’ bubbles do not want to burst with COVID, that this deadline will be much quieter than a normal season’s.
“Everybody’s sensitive to the challenges of any player movement right now,” Zaidi said over Zoom on Thursday. “But I think front offices are going through their usual due diligence and then probably going to layer on the complexity and difficulty of the times we’re in right now later on.
“But the kind of table setting for the trade deadline, the conversations are happening like they would have in any year. It’s just hard to answer the question of whether that materializes into the same number of trades we’re used to seeing.”
In recent memory at least, we’re used to seeing the Giants become sellers. Could furthering this run turn one of their own prospects into a helpful bullpen piece?
It is not every season they have a chance at a postseason run, but the Giants are uniquely knowledgeable about the damage any team can do when it qualifies for the postseason. It is not every season the Giants have an MVP candidate, and that is exactly what Mike Yastrzemski has been through the first half. The contributions are coming from everywhere — they’re averaging seven runs a game during the current win streak without the help of Donovan Solano, who’s 6 for his last 32 (.188). Sure, there are some fires that will grow colder (Wilmer Flores), but there is plenty of reason to think the lineup has become legitimately one of the better ones in baseball.
Perhaps Yastrzemski does not continue his MVP pace and takes a step back, baseball’s WAR leader (2.2) reverting to merely being a very good player. But perhaps the bullpen continues righting itself and Gott more resembles the reliever he was last year, the former Giants closer last in WAR (negative-1.2) through the first half.
There are plenty of reasons for the Giants to bank on further progress from a group that is on the upswing. There are not quite as many reasons to believe this run is a mirage in an unseasonably warm San Francisco summer.
Which puts Trader Farhan in a vastly different spot than he was a week ago.
“I believe in this club,” Kapler said Sunday. “I believe in the resilient nature of this club. I believe in the offensive strides we’ve made, obviously the starting pitching has been one of the strengths of this club. I just believe in our capability from every angle right now.”