© Jayne Kamin-Oncea | 2018 Aug 15
The Giants may have watched their playoff hopes slip away last weekend, when they were unceremoniously swept by the last place Cincinnati Reds, scoring a grand total of six runs in the three losses.
The question now is where do the Giants go from here? With a number of aging stars and a depleted farm system, San Francisco could look to move one of their big pieces in exchange for prospects this offseason. They could alternatively look to add to their current core, either by making a splash in free agency or via trade.
Longtime Giants beat writer Andrew Baggarly broke down all these possibilities when he joined Rod Brooks and Marcus Thompson on KNBR Monday. In his opinion, Baggarly thinks the Giants would be well served trying to trade first baseman Brandon Belt for a starting pitcher.
“The major move is Bumgarner,” Baggarly began. “If they really were to start from scratch then it’s obvious, you trade Madison Bumgarner, you trade the year of control that you have on him for next season, and you try to reload with young players and get as much as you can for him. I don’t think the Giants are going to do that.
“They haven’t done it with any of these guys that are their accomplished big time stars, that their fans embrace and love. So I think that barring that, it makes no sense to do a teardown because, what are you going to trade (Buster) Posey? He’s making $22 million a year, you’re not going to get anything for him, and probably eat money.”
Bumgarner, 29, will enter the final year of his contract in 2019. The Giants’ ace hasn’t been as sharp this season since returning from a broken pitching hand in spring training. Though boasting an impressive 3.05 ERA, Bumgarner is currently on pace for a career-low strikeout/walk ratio (2.15), and his highest WHIP (1.296) since 2010.
“Now the one thing I think that they can do is they need more starting pitching. They’ve already put in a quarter of a billion dollars into Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija, and they’re about halfway through those deals, and they won’t have Cueto at all next year, and we don’t know what they are going to get from Samardzija. I think it’s important they find out what he has in this last month, so they know just for planning purposes where he stands. But they can’t go out and spend more on starting pitching when they’ve already spent as much as they have, and they also have that Bumgarner extension looming.”
As as staff, the Giants rank 17th in starters ERA (4.23), and 21st in WHIP (1.37), in 2018.
“So I think it makes a lot of sense for them to look at Brandon Belt and figure out a way that they can turn him into a starting pitcher, whether it’s sending him to the Yankees for like a Sonny Grey coming back or send him to the Royals for like a Danny Duffy, a guy who’s making some money as well, the cash would be about a wash and he’s a guy with a lot of upside who maybe hasn’t pitched as well as he’s able.
Belt, 30, is having another solid year at the plate, with a slash line of .272/.362/.456 with 14 home runs in 90 games. Belt won’t become a free agent until 2022.
“They’ve had quite a bit of success in finding those guys. Go back to the Jason Schmidt deal. They looked at a guy that was under performing with the stuff he had. They don’t hit on every one of them, Matt Moore was a big time miss, but they have some pretty good scouting eyes in their front office who have been there a long time and have done a good job doing this. And I think they’ve got to go out and turn Brandon Belt into a starting pitcher. That’s what I think they should do.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Baggs on Belt, start from 8:15.