The San Francisco Giants entered play Sunday on the edge of playoff contention.
Los Angeles currently holds a 6.5-game lead over the Giants in the National League West race, while Bruce Bochy’s men are six games back of fellow division-rivals Arizona for the second wild card spot.
Their playoff odds aren’t great.
FanGraphs pegs the Giants’ current playoff odds at 4.5%. The same website has San Francisco with a 0.5% chance to win the division, a 3.9% chance to win the Wild Card and a 0.1% chance to win the World Series.
Armed with a veteran-heavy MLB roster, the organization is in definite win-now mode and could use some upgrades.
They’ve already made one move geared towards creating financial flexibility in order to add more pieces.
The Giants flipped Corry Gearrin, Austin Jackson and prospect Jason Bahr to the Texas Rangers for a player to be named later.
Removing Gearrin and Jackson from the books, at the cost of Bahr, helped the Giants get further under the luxury tax line.
The organization is reportedly looking to make a similar move with outfielder Hunter Pence.
USA Today’s Bob Nightengale wrote the following in a USA Today article on July 24:
“Yet, to jump into the trade market, they insist they need to shed a contract. They are shopping right fielder Hunter Pence and packaging him with a prospect to shed Pence’s $18.5 million salary.”
Trading Pence is easier said than done.
His salary isn’t exactly cheap, especially for a player sporting a -0.6 fWAR, a 53 wRC+, the second-lowest walk rate (5.5%) and the highest strikeout rate (27.6%) of his career.
It helps that, per Spotrac, Pence is on an expiring contract, but that’s about it. His production and salary might make it tough to move.
The Giants may need to surrender a notable prospect from their farm system in order to move him.
That doesn’t necessarily mean parting with Joey Bart or Heliot Ramos, but another top prospect in the upper echelons of the organization’s system would make sense.
San Francisco’s prospect pipeline isn’t anywhere near as plentiful as the Padres, Rays or White Sox’ system, but they’ve got some quality prospects.
If the San Francisco Giants are going to flip their veteran outfielder to create more flexibility, these three trades could make sense.
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Hunter Pence and outfield prospect Alexander Canario to the Detroit Tigers for reliever Louis Coleman
At first glance, the Tigers don’t exactly stand out as the most likely candidate to absorb Pence’s salary.
They’re no longer the high-spending club they were just a few years ago, but Detroit has parted with some significant salary in the last year, with Justin Verlander, J.D. Martinez, Ian Kinsler, Justin Upton, Anibal Sanchez and Andrew Romine coming off the books.
Still, Detroit should consider absorbing Pence for the rest of the season to add a prospect.
They’ll have added financial flexibility of their own if Al Avila can find takers for Jose Iglesias, Mike Fiers, Francisco Liriano and Leonys Martin.
The Tigers should get creative with adding prospects, and Canario is exactly the kind of upside play Detroit should be going after.
Prospect evaluators are split on where he stands among San Francisco’s top prospects.
FanGraphs has him as the third-best prospect in the Giants’ farm system, while MLB.com’s MLB Pipeline has him at 13th.
What both agree on is that Canario has promising bat speed and that he’s a ways away from the Majors.
A outfielder by trade, FanGraphs wrote the following about the prospect:
“He’s a high-variance prospect with, as early looks indicate, a huge ceiling.”
Canario is the kind of lottery-ticket-esque prospect to be packaged alongside Hunter.
Considering he’s still just 18 and in Rookie-Ball, San Francisco could conceivably be more willing to part with him as opposed to a prospect close to the Majors like Steven Duggar, Shaun Anderson or Tyler Beede.
Pence in Detroit
With the Tigers, Hunter Pence wouldn’t start games on a consistent basis.
Given the state of the rebuild in the Motor City, the organization needs to give the likes of JaCoby Jones, Victor Reyes, Christin Stewart and Mike Gerber as many looks as possible in the two outfield spots not occupied by Nicholas Castellanos.
Detroit could either designate him for assignment right away or use him sporadically to beef up his trade value (relatively speaking) some in August before eating the rest of his salary and trying to pawn him off for a PTBNL to a contender seeking a no-risk bench option.
Louis Coleman
Louis Coleman seems an obvious trade candidate for the Tigers in the sense that he’s a rental and at 32 isn’t a long-term piece for Detroit.
With a 3.64 ERA, a 4.18 FIP and 9.1 strikeouts per nine innings, the right-hander could help a contender as an extra bullpen arm.
However, he’s walking 4.25 batters per nine frames.
That metric might make it a bit harder to move him, so flipping him in this Pence swap ensures the Tigers not only get some kind of value for a player they signed to a minor league deal last winter, but also create more innings for younger relievers like Victor Alcantara, Zac Houston, Paul Voelker and Zac Reininger.
In San Francisco, Coleman would bring more experience than the likes of Ray Black and Tyler Beede while also serving as an upgrade over internal options such as Pierce Johnson and Josh Osich.
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Hunter Pence and outfielder Chris Shaw to Toronto for Marco Estrada
If the Giants are going to climb back into the playoff picture, they’re going to need better starting pitching.
San Francisco’s starters currently rank 21st in fWAR.
Estrada hasn’t been perfect this year, but he’d be a definite upgrade over some of Bruce Bochy’s other options.
Estrada might not replace any of Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, Derek Holland or Dereck Rodriguez, but he’d be a more proven and consistent option than San Francisco’s options to fill in for the group not named Andrew Suarez.
Marco Estrada in 2018: 89.2 IP, 1.1 fWAR, 1.32 WHIP, 7.03 K/9, 2.51 BB/9, 4.72 ERA, 4.61 FIP, 4.92 SIERA.
Jeff Samardzija in 2018: 44.2 IP, -0.2 fWAR, 1.63 WHIP 6.04 K/9, 5.24 BB/9, 6.25 ERA, 5.45 FIP, 5.94 SIERA.
Ty Blach in 2018 (in the rotation): 60.2 IP, 0.4 fWAR, 1.60 WHIP, 4.45 K/9, 3.41 BB/9, 4.90 ERA, 4.22 FIP, 5.00 SIERA.
Chris Stratton in 2018 (in the rotation): 96.2 IP, 0.6 fWAR, 1.44 WHIP, 6.80 K/9, 3.35 BB/9, 4.93 ERA, 4.31 FIP, 4.78 SIERA.
Given Estrada’ production this year, Toronto may find it difficult to move him for anything more than a lottery ticket.
They’d essentially be paying for Shaw with the difference between Pence and Estrada’s salaries (Estrada is making $13 million this year per Spotrac), but the first baseman could be a part of Toronto’s future lineup.
He’s blocked by Brandon Belt at first base in San Francisco, and with the Jays could be the long-term successor to either Justin Smoak or Kendrys Morales.
Shaw’s age (24) and upside also fit with the next Jays core, which could very well be in place by sometime next season.
The likes of Vladimir Guerrero Jr. and Bo Bichette could join a Major League roster that includes Marcus Stroman, Teoscar Hernandez, Aaron Sanchez, Brandon Drury, Billy McKinney, Ryan Borucki, Randal Grichuk, Lourdes Gurriel Jr., Devon Travis and Aledmys Diaz.
All those players are 25-27. Add in the likes of Dwight Smith Jr., Anthony Alford and Dalton Pompey and Toronto all of the sudden has a burgeoning core on their hands.
Shaw would only help the team in its quest to unseat the Red Sox and Yankees atop the division.
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Hunter Pence and Sam Dyson to the St. Louis Cardinals for Dexter Fowler
Yes, this seems like the most unlikely scenario of the bunch, and it doesn’t help much San Francisco too much in terms of saving cash, but the move could pay dividends for both clubs.
(Side note, Fowler has a no-trade clause according to Spotrac. Hunter Pence has 10-and-5 rights, so both would have to accept the trade).
From San Francisco’s perspective, they’d clear some money by flipping Dyson.
He’s nowhere near as vital to the bullpen as Will Smith, Tony Watson or Reyes Moronta and is sporting a rather pedestrian 3.84 FIP and 0.1 fWAR.
Plus, the Giants also have Mark Melancon on hand and will get Hunter Strickland back at some point.
Removing Dyson’s $4.425 million salary (per Spotrac) from the equation will certainly help things some, while Fowler provides a long-term outfield solution for San Francisco.
He hasn’t gotten off to the best start since joining from the division-rival Cubs in free agency, but Fowler accumulated a 7.1 fWAR from 2016 to 2017 and could benefit from a change of scenery after struggling with a -1.2 fWAR this year.
From San Francisco’s perspective, Pence, Andrew McCutchen and Gregor Blanco are all free agents at the end of the season and they’ve already jettisoned Austin Jackson.
That leaves the 2019 outfield mix as some combination of Gorkys Hernandez, Austin Slater, Steven Duggar and Mac Williamson.
If Fowler can rebound, the Giants will have an outfielder to build around while still maintaining some financial flexibility as the contracts of McCutchen, Blanco and Nick Hundley come off the books following the World Series.
St. Louis Cardinals’ perspective
For the Cardinals, they add a solid relief arm to a bullpen mix that is, well in need of just that.
Seemingly in an effort to change things up, St. Louis flipped Sam Tuivailala to Seattle and designated Greg Holland for assignment.
They also added Chasen Shreve and Giovanny Gallegos in a deal with the Yankees for first baseman Luke Voit and international bonus slot money.
Shreve and Gallegos should help, but the fact remains that even with Tuivailala and Holland, the Cardinals’ bullpen sat 25th in the league in fWAR and 27th in strand rate.
Dyson would certainly help, and considering he’s controllable for the next two years (per Spotrac) he could help provide long-term help for a group that could lose Bud Norris this winter to free agency.
What’s more, clearing the decks of Fowler’s deal would potentially allow the Cardinals to reinvest that money over the winter, whether it be in the outfielder, or elsewhere on the free agent market.
If you were the Giants, which deal would you make?
Drop a line on either Twitter (here or here) or in the comment section with your thoughts.
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