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Nunez trade value diminishing during injury absence

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For fans of bad baseball teams, there’s no better time of year than the month of July.

After watching their favorite teams fail to live up to expectations for three months and counting, fans can at least take comfort in the rapid approach of Major League Baseball’s trade deadline.

The trade deadline serves as a season-defining date for so many teams, as certain clubs (the good ones) use it to acquire assets who they hope will lead a World Series charge while others (the bad ones) use it to add prospects who are expected to lead a playoff push when a team is better positioned in the future.

This season, the San Francisco Giants are a bad baseball team. Even after ripping off a season-long six-game win streak, the Giants remain 19 games below .500 and are armed with the second worst record of all 30 franchises.

It didn’t take the Giants long to find out they were this bad. By the beginning of June, San Francisco slipped behind the San Diego Padres to fall into last place in the National League West, and then dipped even further in the division when the club lost 12 of 13 games in a late June tumble.

But at least Giants fans still have the trade deadline, right?

Sure, the July 31 deadline is still approaching, but the opportunities for San Francisco to scour the market and add to a depleted farm system are drying up like crops in a drought.

Take Eduardo Nunez, for example, the Giants’ starting third baseman and most likely position player to be moved come the deadline. Nunez has been a standout for San Francisco this season, hitting a career-high .299 and leading the team with 17 stolen bases.

Nunez has an expiring contract, plays a position where the Giants have a pair of highly touted prospects (Christian Arroyo, Ryder Jones) and has the versatility to move around the diamond and help teams at a variety of different spots. All of those qualities make Nunez an obvious trade candidate, and with his early success this season, Nunez was playing himself right onto the roster of a contender.

Essentially, all that was left for Giants general manager Bobby Evans to do was wait for the best deal and pull the trigger.

But on June 15, disaster struck for Nunez in the form of a hamstring strain that was supposed to keep him out of action for just a few days. After a one-game return in Atlanta on June 19, Nunez’s hamstring continued to bother him, and the Giants placed him on the 10-day disabled list.

Early in his DL stint, Giants’ manager Bruce Bochy offered encouraging words regarding Nunez’s injury, indicating he’d be back as soon as he was eligible to return. However, San Francisco elected to play it safe, and in doing so, the Giants discovered Nunez’s hamstring still isn’t fully healed.

After sending their third baseman to AA Richmond for a two-game rehab stint, the Giants received word that Nunez needed to be removed in the late stages of the first game. Now, there’s no timetable for Nunez’s return.

For a Giants organization in desperate need of quality prospects and future impact performers, Nunez represented a scarce resource on the team’s roster: A tradable asset. While it’s unlikely the Giants would have netted a significant haul in exchange for the 2016 All-Star, Evans could have flipped Nunez for a prospect with promise, and allowed Arroyo to take over at third base.

In the span of three weeks, Nunez went from a soon-to-be top seller to damaged goods on the clearance rack, and his in-store replacement, Arroyo, is on back order with a hand injury that will keep him out until at least September. Yes, the Giants still have Jones and 29-year-old Jae-gyun Hwang, two players completely capable of managing the hot corner should Nunez be traded, but that’s not the point.

The Giants were supposed to be able to flip Nunez for a prospect or two who could give a fan base hope for the future, and reinforce the narrative that suggests better days are ahead. But at this point, if the Giants want to trade Nunez, they’ll need a desperate team willing to take a chance on an injured infielder who may deal with a hamstring issue the rest of the season.

In other words, good luck.

Pregame notes

  • The Giants’ bullpen has helped key the team’s recent success, as San Francisco relievers have allowed just three earned runs over their last 27 and 1/3 innings. With closer Mark Melancon on the disabled list, Hunter Strickland and Sam Dyson have combined to convert on all three of the team’s save opportunities since Melancon’s injury.
  • Madison Bumgarner is scheduled to make his third rehab start since suffering a shoulder sprain in a mid-April dirt-biking accident. Bumgarner’s Wednesday evening start will take place in San Jose, as he’ll pitch for the Giants’ A-affiliate and face Rancho Cucamonga. Bumgarner threw 62 pitches and allowed seven hits in his last rehab outing, a start for AAA Sacramento.
  • Giants catcher Buster Posey will serve as the team’s designated hitter for the second straight game as Nick Hundley will do the catching. The Giants will start several right-handers in Wednesday’s lineup including Gorkys Hernandez and Kelby Tomlinson, who will start in place of Denard Span and Joe Panik, respectively.