The San Francisco Giants’ Front Office Is Counting The Minutes To Midnight

The San Francisco Giants have multiple pieces they could move before the August 2nd trade deadline between Joc Pederson and Carlos Rodon. However, they also have players like Austin Slater, Mike Yastrzemski, Darin Ruf or Luis Gonzalez that have some team control and could possibly sweeten the deal for a contending team that would be willing to include higher ceiling prospects in order to fortify their team.

Since taking over as the Giants’ President of Baseball Operations, Farhan Zaidi has kept his moves relatively quiet until they happen. It’s hard to get a read on what he’s going to do at any given time. Two distinct advantages Zaidi has approaching this deadline is talent and the clock.

With additional Wild Card spots, the window for contention is open for more teams than in years’ past. This could also be said for the Giants. One thing that the Giants’ front office has been demonstrated over the course of Zaidi’s tenure is they deal in reality.

While the Giants presently have the prospect capital to add someone like Juan Soto, they also have potential generational talent in their farm system. They have found themselves at an interesting crossroads.

They can sell the farm and hold onto Rodon and Pederson, while adding Juan Soto. This obviously makes the Giants a much better team on paper, but it does not guarantee a playoff spot, let alone a World Series run. However, the prospect capital it would take to get Juan Soto would be tremendous.

The Giants would have to part with at least three of their top five prospects in order to obtain Soto. On the other hand, this may mean that the Giants value other players in their system more than the general public realizes. With the exception of Kyle Harrison, two of the Giants’ top three prospects were signed by the preceding front office.

It is very likely, that Zaidi does not have the same evaluation of Bobby Evans/Brian Sabean era picks and believes he can find better supplementary talent for Juan Soto via the draft or free agency.

The truth is, Zaidi’s rebuild has been obscured by the Giants’ early success. When Zaidi took over it seemed a rebuild would be in full effect, yet the Giants ended up being competitive, making the rebuild more of a retool.

Looking at the pipeline, there are players like Casey Schmitt and Grant McCray who are slightly older than prospects like Marco Luciano or Luis Matos, but they have the Zaidi midas touch. Zaidi has a reputation for identifying talent and developing Major League contributors from all rounds of the draft, not just the top. Therefore, there’s a good chance we don’t really know who the potential impact players outside the the Giants’ top ten prospects are at the moment.

Considering the fact that Zaidi and company have been able to assemble competitive teams without spending a lot of money or trading away a lot of prospects, the way they maneuver around this trade deadline will be something to monitor.

As the deadline approaches and teams start to get impatient, the Giants may be able to squeeze better prospects out of buyers if they choose to sell some assets. If the Giants are buyers, it is almost certain that they will wait until the very last possible moment to make their move.

The San Francisco Giants are sitting right at .500 and 4 games out of the final Wild Card spot the day before the trade deadline. With a critical home series against the Los Angeles Dodgers forthcoming, it seems that the Giants penchant for torture not only applies to their on field play, but front office seems to enjoy torturing Giants fans as well.