On Tuesday, the San Francisco Giants decided to give some of their younger players an opportunity on the roster. Austin Slater and Nick Ahmed were designated for assignment to make room for Brett Wisely, Tyler Fitzgerald and Luis Matos. At 45-47, the Giants are ten games behind the Los Angeles Dodgers for the National League West lead. They are 2 1/2 games back of the final NL Wild Card spot with the Pittsburgh Pirates a half game behind them. Even in a tight postseason race, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi isn’t pushing for urgency to make a trade to separate the Giants from the rest of the other teams.
“When I look at our team, we have pretty solid players at every spot on the field,” Zaidi said to Shayna Rubin of the San Francisco Chronicle. “We have a rotation that’s getting healthier and a bullpen that’s done a nice job. So nothing jumps out as a spot where we need an emergency plug-in.”
Farhan Zaidi Has Faith in Giants Youth Movement
Barring any injuries or a complete collapse between now and the deadline, Zaidi is downplaying any need for a major deadline acquisition. Matos, 22, will take Slater’s role in a platoon with Mike Yastrzemski in right field. Wisely, 25, and Fitzgerald, 26, will share time at shortstop in place of Ahmed.
“You always hope you can move in that direction,” Zaidi said. “We talked a lot about wanting to give some of our younger players coming up opportunities and adding athleticism to the roster. The best place to do that is to have the young guys come up and earn roles.
“As much as anything, it’s a vote of confidence in those guys. There are guys who have been a little bit on the up-and-down shuttle between here and Sacramento. Hopefully, this is an opportunity for them to feel like they don’t have to look over their shoulder and continue seeing the positives from them.”
Aside from the youth movement, the Giants have received strong production from their position players. Patrick Bailey continues to do well behind the plate, LaMonte Wade Jr. is playing solid first base and Matt Chapman is hitting well and playing plus defense at third base. In the outfield, Ramos continues to go on a tear as an All-Star. Michael Conforto is hitting .289/.391/.658 over his past 15 games. Although, Jorge Soler has produced average offense as the DH, Yastrzemski has underwhelmed all season.
Pitching Has Been a Disappointment
The Giants rotation is going through a collapse through the first half of the season. Their 4.44 ERA is the sixth-highest in the majors whereas the starters 4.53 ERA is the seventh-highest. However, the rotation health is slowly improving. Blake Snell returned from the IL and made his best start of the season. Robbie Ray and Alex Cobb are currently on minor league rehab assignments that could see them activated after the All-Star break.
“Our rotation, which has probably been our biggest issue for us, we’ve got a slew of guys coming back,” Zaidi said. “When you think about having Blake and Robbie Ray and Cobb back, we might not have enough spots for everyone who is pitching well for us. So we might need to figure out how we sort through all of that.”
After signing Snell and Jordan Hicks to work with Logan Webb, the Giants put together a rotation with multiple in-house promotions and bullpen starts. Injuries to Tristan Beck, Keaton Winn and Kyle Harrison have challenged their depth on different occasions.
Banking on this production from different unproven assests is a risky option. However, there is still the opporuntiy to trade for impact players who might come available.
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