As is the case with many teams in this wacky 2024 Major League Baseball season, it’s very difficult to say what the San Francisco Giants should do at the trade deadline.
By any objective measure, it’s been a disappointing season in the City by the Bay. The Giants are 41-44, even after a 5-2 week, and sit three games behind the St. Louis Cardinals for the third and final National League Wild Card spot. But also… it’s only three games! Shouldn’t the Giants still consider themselves buyers?
The short answer is that we have no idea. Because so many teams are still in the hunt, a large number of teams could swing the deadline in either direction based on their projections for their future. And the Giants are most definitely among those teams.
With that in mind, let’s take a look at some Giants who need to be prepared to change cities this summer, on both ends of the buy-sell spectrum:
Matt Chapman, third baseman
After a slow start, Matt Chapman has quietly turned on the jets this season. After going 0-for-4 to drop his season OPS to .586 on May 10, he’s slashing .276/.380/.491 over a 43-game stretch. If he keeps going like this, Chapman is going to earn himself a significantly better free-agent contract than the one he signed with San Francisco.
And therein lies the problem. When it comes to deciding whether or not to trade Chapman, the Giants have to not only project where they will end up in the standings, but where Chapman’s numbers will land and what that equates to in terms of his free agency prospects. Because if the market is any better than last season’s all-time stinker, players like Chapman will be set up to make far more money.
There are a lot of teams that could use a two-time Platinum Glove third baseman with a 115 OPS+. In the event the Giants decide selling is necessary, Chapman will be one of the first names Farhan Zaidi floats to opposing general managers. And while it would be sad to see the Chapman/Bob Melvin redemption story come to a close, it’s a better ending than missing the playoffs with Chapman still around.
Michael Conforto, outfielder
Michael Conforto is a classic lefty-hitting outfielder who probably would find a lot more offensive success if his home ballpark wasn’t Oracle Park. Not only is right-center field there a country mile, but the marine layer and frigid nighttime temperatures practically stop well-hit balls in midair.
The expected stats tell a similar story. Conforto’s 2024 wOBA is a mediocre .313, but his xwOBA is a much better .335. And he’s got one of the league’s biggest differentials between SLG and xSLG, at .427 and .477. He’s one of the most victimized hitters in baseball, and reasonable minds can infer that much of that likely comes from his home ballpark.
Even so, Conforto is producing a 108 OPS+ as a platoon bat, and that’s better than a lot of contenders currently have on their rosters. If he could just get himself to a place where lefties fare better (*cough* Yankee Stadium?), he’d have a chance at a big second half. And as a true rental, even with an $18 million 2024 salary, acquiring him shouldn’t be too much of a burden for contending teams.
Marco Luciano / Walker Martin, shortstops
If things swing dramatically in the opposite direction, the Giants have to be aggressive in buying. They’ll need to pile up some wins in July to justify it, but the goal for this season was always to secure a playoff berth. That justifies that 2021 wasn’t a total fluke and more importantly, shows Zaidi has been moving this organization in the right direction.
So if the Giants can stay within two to three games of the last NL Wild Card spot, they need to acquire impact players. At least one middle-of-the-order bat and perhaps another starting pitcher, depending on what happens with Blake Snell and Robbie Ray. And if you’re going to trade for premium players, you have to be willing to give up a premium prospect.
Marco Luciano is about as intriguing a player as the Giants could trade right now. At this time a year ago, he was San Francisco’s consensus number-one prospect and just about to sniff his first big-league service time. But it’s been a mixed bag since then, and his prospect ranking has declined since then. With Brett Wisely proving himself at the big-league level, the Giants could view Luciano as expendable and sell him while his value is still reasonably high.
However, Luciano might not necessarily be a shortstop long-term, and there’s a world where the Giants still view him as indispensable. If that’s the case, they’d have to look into finding a new home for 20-year-old Walker Martin. MLB Pipeline ranks Martin as the Giants’ fifth-best prospect and although he might not fetch the same return as Luciano, he’s their best position player to package who might be on the table.
