© Neville E. Guard | 2018 Apr 3
Five and a half games out of first place in the NL West with five days remaining until the trade deadline, there is one question on every Giants’ fans mind: buy or sell?
KNBR’s Drew Hoffar and Kevin Frandsen asked that very question to Giants CEO Larry Baer on Thursday afternoon. Baer was pretty straightforward with his answer, saying that the Giants want to be buyers if they can get a deal done, and that selling isn’t something that’s in this club’s “DNA.”
“I would say that it’s pretty clear to us that we’re not in a seller mode,” Baer said. “Now we may make a move to clear space to then make another move to add. If you have to move player ‘y’ to get player ‘x’ you could do that, so that’s not to say that we wouldn’t move a player.
“We’re not really walking in the room — I suppose anything can happen between now and July 31 — but we’re not really walking in the room sort of scratching our head buyer vs. seller. We want to improve the team and we want to drive to get there in the end of September and be a playoff team, and then go from there as we’ve done in the early part of the decade. That’s what we want to do.”
Baer indicated that moving a bullpen arm may be the Giants’ ticket to adding another piece.
“We’re going to be a buyer if we can be a buyer. Desire versus being able to execute are two different things. As you’ve seen it’s been a pretty early market, a lot of guys have moved early. Analytics I think are changing approaches pretty dramatically. I think the biggest sort of learning piece to what’s happened so far is the very high premium put on bullpen arms. The good news with (Hunter) Strickland coming back, is we feel like we have a pretty good bullpen. Can it always get better? Yes, but we feel like it’s pretty good and pretty deep.
“We think we’ve got some length in the bullpen, and that seems to be what people are looking for. So then the question is where else do you shop, and there are some good players who may be available, but we’ll see.
“It’s really not in our DNA to sell. Even last year we certainly didn’t sell. I mean there were some players that left when it was clear we weren’t going to get into the playoffs that we traded for some really good development people we feel.”
Lastly, Baer mentioned that even if the Giants stand pat, the returns of Evan Longoria, Joe Panik, and Strickland should give the team a much needed boost.
“We have a shot and we want to take that shot,” Baer said. “Every game’s important obviously and we know the task ahead. The good news is we play inside the division a lot in the last 60 games, so we’re going to have to grind hard…With (Longoria) back we’re looking at three important pieces coming back. It sounds trite to say it, but you could say that maybe our trade deadline moves are Longoria, Panik, and Strickland.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear Baer on the trade deadline, start from 7:50.