The San Francisco Giants’ Decision to Embrace Prospects at Trade Deadline: A Justified Move

Well, that was anticlimactic.

The trade deadline came and went yesterday, with the Giants sitting on their hands. A top-of-the-rotation starter like Justin Verlander? Pass. Offensive upgrades like Paul DeJong or Teoscar Hernandez? Nope. Rotation reinforcements like Jack Flaherty? Move along.

No, the Giants’ only move was a puzzling trade for A.J. Pollock, an outfielder whose best days are seemingly behind him. He’s hit lefties well in his career, so that’s something, but it’s not a needle-mover in any way.

So the Giants, a team in the thick of contention in a wide-open wild card race, basically stood pat at the deadline while a number of their competitors made moves to better themselves. Most people would consider that an epic failure. A disaster, even.

But I’m here to tell you, most people are wrong. The Giants did exactly what they should have done.

They’re in a weird position, primed to make a run at the postseason yet committed to developing their young core. The system is finally producing contributors at the Major League level, something they’ve been trying to accomplish for the past half-decade, and there are more on the way. For the first time in what feels like forever, their top-30 prospect list is filled with guys other teams would covet. Those are the guys the Giants would’ve had to give up to make any kind of addition this year.

Verlander, for instance, cost the Astros their Nos. 1 and 4 overall prospects, according to MLB.com. A Giants’ equivalent might’ve been Luis Matos and Carson Whisenhunt, or maybe even Marco Luciano. Should the Giants — a team on the rise — have traded their blue-chip prospects for a 40-year-old pitcher near the end of his career who’s owed the kind of money that might severely hamper the team’s ability to add in the offseason? Long question, short answer: no.

The same goes for nearly every player who changed teams yesterday. Guys like Michael Lorenzen would have helped some this year, but is he worth parting with a top-20 prospect? No. He’s just a slight upgrade, and those don’t warrant dipping into the system. At least not this year. No rental was going to get the Giants to budge.

This simply wasn’t the right time, or the right market, for the Giants to push their chips in. For the most part, prospects are too good to use for potential gains that were too short and too middling. They have the long game in mind, and this is the year for developing the players who are hopefully going to form the next championship core. Being in contention and potentially making the playoffs are both bonuses, and the front office seemed to realize this.

It’s not like it was in 2021, when the Giants were on a historic pace and traded two highly regarded prospects for a few months of Kris Bryant. This is a streaky team, equally capable of ripping off 10 straight wins and bumbling to 10 straight losses. You don’t gut the system for a team with that kind of inconsistency. You add if you can, if the price is palatable, like it was for Pollock, who was basically free. But you don’t trade Luciano, Matos, Whisenhunt or Kyle Harrison for the chance at a few more wins.

Far from a disaster, the trade deadline was more like cough medicine. It didn’t go down easy at the time, but ultimately was beneficial. The Giants didn’t empty the farm for over-the-hill starters or barely noticeable players. They’re still in contention for a

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