As the trade deadline approaches, the San Francisco Giants are facing two fundamental issues. Firstly, they currently hold the second worst record and run differential in Major League Baseball. Additionally, the Giants’ farm system is in shambles, with each affiliate in either last or second to last place in their division, and with just one player, the now out for the season Tyler Beede, making Baseball America’s Top 100 prospects list for 2017.
The Giants won’t be able to turn things around until they get back into the habit of developing top-tier homegrown talent, according to former Rockies general manager and MLB Network analyst Dan O’Dowd, who joined PCon and Lund Monday morning. O’Dowd says that while he Giants’ current core is made up of homegrown players, and they will need a second wave to come through the system if they want to return to prominence.
“They can’t keep throwing money at their problems without having some younger players come through their system that augments the core that they currently have,” O’Dowd said. “That doesn’t happen overnight. That takes a lot of good drafts and good development to happen. They’re not in an envious position right now within the game.
“The problem the Giants got is they don’t have the younger players coming through their system. “You need a core of younger players that you’ve signed and developed that are ready to spread their wings at the big league level. The (three) most important commodities in the game is young, impactful everyday players, plus pitchers, plus payroll flexibility. The second problem the Giants have is who are those players that are on a good contract that they could attach a bad contract to. You could make an argument — other than the Buster Posey contract, and Brandon Crawford and Joe Panik — there’s really not a good contract on that club that they have and they’re certainly not going to trade those guys.”
Listen to the full interview below. To hear O’Dowd’s comments on the Giants’ lack of homegrown talent, skip to the 2:00 minute mark.