The San Francisco Giants were neither buyers nor sellers at the trade deadline, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t have the opportunity to make a big move.
Giants general manager Bobby Evans joined Gary & Larry on KNBR Thursday morning, and confirmed that teams inquired about the availability of Madison Bumgarner and other big names before the trade deadline. Evans told those clubs that the big lefty was off the table.
“We got calls very early on relative to some of our guys that just aren’t available including Madison,” Evans said. “We made that clear up front that they wouldn’t be available, so that was an early on decision and really didn’t create much of a stir of ongoing return calls.”
Bumgarner, 29, will become a free agent after next season, and will be in line for a substantial multi-year deal. Bumgarner missed the first two months of the season with a broken pitching hand, but has been solid since returning, posting a 3.06 ERA and 1.2 WHIP in 10 starts.
Evans also explained why the Giants stood pat at the deadline, when asked if they were close to making a deal.
“It was a different trade deadline for us,” Evans said. “Close is a relative term and we had certainly some good options that we pursued. I think the deadline was different just ’cause you’re either very much in the thick of it or not in the thick of it, and we were kind of in between. And yet the record doesn’t tell the whole story because the division is still relatively close and the wild card’s still relatively close.
“For us it was going to have to be the right deal to add, it was going to have to be the right deal if we were going to subtract, so from our standpoint there were things that were closer or more interesting from the adding standpoint than there were from the subtracting standpoint, but nothing ended up being the right thing for us. Often times because the ask and the relative request was not comparable to how we saw the value.”
The Giants (55-54) currently sit five games out of first place in the NL West with 53 games remaining.
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Evans on the trade deadline, start from the beginning.