I remember someone asking Pedro Martinez the classic question "what is the secret to your success?" He said "I'm not afraid to fail." I remember really liking that answer at the time. Buster Posey is not afraid to fail. He made a big splash—right away—with the Willy Adames signing. Then he traded away the team's young hot shots for Rafael Devers well before the trading deadline. Blockbuster deals, both of them. Neither one of those moves, unfortunately, has helped the team. The Giants aren't any better right now than they were last year. Or the year before. Or the year before.
Buster can see what the rest of us are seeing. This 2025 team is going nowhere fast. What does the Modern Executive do in Today's Baseball Landscape at the Trading Deadline? Well, pivot to "sell" mode, obviously. It's an ugly reminder of the ruthless economics of the game.
Our PoBO made a bunch of last-minute deals that clearly signal "throwing in the towel for this year." The flip side of that is "stocking up for next year." So, let's look at the deals.
Tyler Rogers went first. The Mets parted with three players. 27-year old RH reliever José Buttó is in his fourth season and can take a bullpen spot immediately. 24-year old rookie RH Blade Tidwell was a 2022 2nd round draft pick from Tennessee. He's been a starter in the minors. Carson Whisenhunt was taken in the same round. Lefty OF Drew Gilbert is also from Tennessee but is still in the minors. He'll be 25 next month. Rogers is headed for free agency and at $5.25 M/yr there was a good chance he wasn't going to be re-signed for 2026. I'm bummed as I'm a big fan of the quirky submariner. He's been with the organization since he was drafted in 2013.
Camilo Doval went next. The Yankees parted with four players. Doval, like Rogers, originally signed with the Giants. He's been in the system since 2015. He's still arb-eligible and isn't a free agent until 2028 and currently making $4.5M. All-Name Team candidates Trystan Vierling and Parks Harber head the list. RH Vierling, 25 in October, is a 2022 3rd-round pick from Gonazaga. He's a starter and in the minors. Harber is a 1B/3B who played at Georgia and NC State. He's 24 next month and in the minors. 17-year old lefty hurler Carlos De La Rosa is the biggest unknown of the bunch, and 23-year old Jesús Rodriguez (C/3B/1B) rounds out the quartet of FNGs. We all know Doval and have a love-hate relationship with the talented but mercurial righty. He can be electric and he can be maddening. He'll be fun to watch if the Yankees are in the playoffs!
Finally, fan favorite Mike Yastrzemski was traded to the Royals. That one I could see coming. He's also a free agent next year and was most likely not coming back, especially at $9.25 M/yr. The Giants get minor league reliever Yunior Marte. He's a righty who turns 22 next month. (This in NOT the Yunior Marté who was on the Giants in 2022 and currently with the Phillies.) Yaz was a solid player, a good guy, and well-respected around the league. The connection to his famous grandfather was pretty cool, too.
Buster isn't fooling around. He's not afraid to pull the trigger and re-make the team. It hurts in the short-term, but what hurts worse is a lousy ballclub. Let's hope we see improvement going forward.
--M.C.
p.s. Buster PLAYED with all three of the guys he traded! He caught both Doval (2021 debut) and Rogers (2019 debut). Yaz joined the team in 2019.
10 comments:
Also, Sean Hjelle was cut loose (DFA). The tallest player in baseball is no longer a "giant" ha-ha-ha.
I do not get trading Doval. At all.
With still 2 years of control for Doval, and Rogers already gone, seems like a demoralizing move for the team. Especially guys like Adames who Buster supposedly promised a competitive team. Although so far Devers has not done so well, he must be disappointed as well, and probably wishes he were still back in Boston. I live in South Florida and the Marlins are behind the giants in the wild card. The Marlin's fan base is not one that comes out to many games as former owners had a tendency to dismantle winning teams. They kind of took the money and ran. But I can tell you know that the Marlin's fan base right now is more optimistic about the Marlins chances than the SF giants fans I see on line about the team. For those who have seen giants teams further back, make it to the playoffs, it seems as if with 2 months left a sell off is a bit premature, (except of course for the trade deadline), But just as a team can lose 12 of 14, games the could come back and win 12 of 14 games. How did this team, in March and April, have such a horrible road schedule, often against really good teams and come out with such a good record? That suggest that the talent is there, yet the whole team seemed to slump at once. The same way they could all get hot at once. If we were 10 games under 500, I could see trading more than the guys that are going to be free agents, but we will see how the Doval trade works out. Sure like having that guy on our side, even if he screws up every once in a while. On the other hand, hoping that it all works out. Also good pitching is hard to part with. The Braves have had so many injuries to their pitching staff, that they have not been able to recover. The giants relief core, has been what has kept them in so many games. I am a strong believer that a strong relief core is often key for making it to the post season.
Farhan Zaidi was in the same spot the last few years. He had a decent team on the fringes of the playoffs. He got a lot of criticism for "standing pat" at the Deadline. The fans were all hollering "fish or cut bait" and he did nothing. Either decide to be a seller or a buyer, don't sit on the sidelines. I felt like that was the message.
It was a defensible strategy, certainly. Hanging on to your guys and hoping internal improvements will be enough is thoughtful and conservative. Nothing wrong with that. But none of those teams made the post-season of course.
Buster is tuned in to that. He's not going to take the same approach. He's going to be more aggressive. I also think Ownership has Buster's back and so he feels free to act. FZ probably had to submit everything in triplicate. Buster has more of a "carte blanche."
Closers are always worth more at the Deadline. Funny how good teams need closers! If a closer is that important, why don't they already have one? How can they already be good if they don't? And if they are already good, do they really need one?
Nutty stuff. But at the Deadline, people get nutty. Buster did OK. He traded the right people at the right time. Let's hope we get some talent out of it.
I think guys like Chapman and Webb and Devers and Adames are big boys and they know that this is on them. They didn't play well enough. Buster is sending them a message that he expects something better.
The Dodgers sent starter Dustin May to the Red Sox and one of the guys they got back was James Tibbs. He was the former 1st-rounder the Giants traded to Boston for Devers!
Michael Rosen on FanGraphs has this to say about KC trading Marte to the Giants for Yaz:
The Yastrzemski side involves a bit more risk. Marte, the A-ball pitcher going back to San Francisco in exchange for Yaz, has posted impressive statistics over an 82-inning sample this season. In May, Eric assigned him a 40+ FV, noting his projectable 6-foot-5 frame, a repeatable delivery, and a fastball that can touch 97. He also noted to me that Marte’s ability to zone his fastball has improved in the months since that May write-up.
The Giants already didn't stand pat with the Devers deal, and trading Yaz and Rodgers was justified. Not so Doval. They got Yankees prospects ranked in the double digits. They should have got 3 in there top 10 with at least one in their top 3. Good teams often don't have stud closers because there aren't enough to go around. Trading a young guy under team control with that kind of arm should get you much, much more than several prospects. I have much lower expectations for this management's success than I did 2 days ago.
I'm not so sure. People have gotten less for better players. I think the Giants did fine. I don't think Doval has a track record to command a Top 10 player, much less a Top 3. He's an elite talent, to be sure, and he's under team control. But he's showed enough variation year-to-year to lower his asking price.
If he'd been traded before last season they could have gotten something like the A's got for Mason Miller which was San Diego's top SS prospect (who's 18!).
Ryan Helsley, who went from the Cardinals to the Mets, was the other top NL closer on the market, they got the Mets #5 in return (Jesus Baez) plus 2 pitching prospects. Tyler Rogers (expiring contract) netted them Butto, who already has relief experience, and 2 other prospects. That strikes me as a better deal than for Doval, with no expiring contract or money considerations to push them into it. Unless one of those guys the Giants picked up can step into a closer role, right now, Giants management has declared the season over.
I think the biggest problem with Doval is that, given TV closeups, he looked unconcerned. That is, "looked" not "was." "Tranquilo." But that led many fans to assume that he was unconcerned. But I don't think that was ever true. Not stomping around and scowling like Rod Beck or sporting an intimidating beard like Brian Wilson. Well, I hope Giants fans can watch him perform well in the playoffs.
In this case, they traded quality for quantity, a mark of crappy general managers. You have a lump of gold and you trade it for three lumps of dirt. True, one of those lumps might be a diamond and the other two might be silver. Or you get one gold and one piece of jade. Or maybe you just get three lumps of dirt. I just do not see how trading Doval for a couple of lumps of dirt makes the team better, except in the kinda-sorta-hope-one-or-two-of-these-guys-works-out kind of way.
Well that's pretty much the whole deal, ain't it? Kinda-sorta-hope-one-a-them-new-guys-is-good?
I'm not so sure quantity is bad. Quality is highly variable. Doval could be Fireman of the Year next year or back in AAA trying to cut down his walks!
There's no doubt that these "sell" moves are saying "2026" instead of "2025."
It sucks, no doubt. But it's the truth. This team played itself out of contention.
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