© Kelley L Cox | 2017 Sep 11
The Giants currently find themselves in limbo. Five and a half games out of first place with the trade deadline a week away, the Orange and Black have to decide if they are close enough to warrant making a win now deal, or going the other way, and conceding the season by moving a big piece for prospects that could help down the line.
Giants beat writer Henry Schulman kicked this quandary around when he joined Tolbert & Lund on Monday. Schulman said he believes San Francisco would need to be more than eight games out not to make a move to win now, but also said that even if they become sellers, he doesn’t expect them to go into full rebuild mode.
“If you’re a real horse trader like Brian Sabean,” Schulman began, “you know it’s tempting to pick up the phone if (Yankees GM) Brain Cashman calls and says ‘Look, we need Madison Bumgarner, we need him badly, because we don’t want to be a wild card. So we’ll give you Clint Frazier and any two of our best pitching prospects for Bumgarner.’
“You know it’s got to be tempting for him, but the Giants don’t live in that world, Sabean doesn’t live in that world. I mean he lives in a world where you have an ownership group that kind of demands that you put a competitive team on the field every year, you’ve got the Warriors arena that’s opening up in 2019, where they’re selling luxury boxes and season seats. I just don’t know that the ownership group has the stomach for one of those three-four year rebuilds.”
Schulman speculates that if the Giants did indeed move a “big” piece, it would be somebody like Andrew McCutchen, or one of their better arms in the bullpen.
“I suspect unless some minds are being changed now, it would be more of a step back kind of thing, where you move a guy like (Andrew) McCutchen who you don’t need to a team who can use a complimentary outfield piece. You move a couple of relievers. Maybe then if you could swing a bigger deal for the future by trading one of your core guys, you do as long as it doesn’t hurt you immediately.
“Unless I hear otherwise, that’s the assumption I’m going on.”
Listen to the full interview below, to hear Schulman on the trade deadline, start from 1:42.