Giant Decision in the Bay

Photo Via: https://sfgiantsphotos.mlblogs.com/

By Alex Horton

Yesterday I talked about how the Boston Red Sox are in a predicament sitting only a couple games out of the Wild Card and what they should be at the deadline buyers or sellers. Well there is another team across the country that entered the season with the complete opposite mindset than the Red Sox. They decided to rebuild and unfortunately have become the best team in baseball in the month of July. Winning 15 of their last 18 games, leading the lead in hits, runs, extra base hits, RBI’s and scored a league high 6.8 runs a game in the month of July. Lets talk about the San Francisco Giants.

The Giants were supposed to be bad this year. Losing was on the agenda and the rebuild was to be in full swing. Madison Bumgarner was possibly going to get traded and reliever Will Smith was more than likely going to be moved at the trade deadline. The season started off as it should have, losing games left and right. But somebody must have pissed off Bruce Bochy in his final season as a manager and he lit a fire under the ass of his team. The Giants sit at 51-50 good enough to be only 2 games out of the NL Wild Card. They have one of the best bullpens in the entire league and well they are winning games they shouldn’t be. Coming from behind, not letting blown saves stand in their way. They just recently swept the Rockies in a four game series, beat the Cardinals and Brewers in back to back series, and just recently took 3 of 4 away from the lowly New York Mets. Last night they beat the cubs 5-4 to open a 3 game series. Looking ahead at their schedule and if they can continue on the pace they are one there is no reason to not expect the Giants to make the playoffs. They play the Los Angeles Dodgers 7 more times and they won’t see them again until September. So what do the Giants do? Do they decide to push the chips into the middle of the table and go for a playoff push maybe make the Wild Card and try to recreate some magic in a odd numbered year? And where do they go if they are going to be buyers? Do they add another bat to the lineup? Or do they add another arm to go along side MadBum? Or do they become sellers and become a yard sale of all odds end talent. They have plenty of bullpen arms to sell, especially the cream of the crop for mentioned Will Smith. They would likely try to get a haul for Madison Bumgarner, not to mention they have some position players that they could trade in the likes of Joe Panik, Evan Longoria, and Brandon Belt as guys who could possibly be inserted into a lineup and give it a little more depth. All of those guys have playoff and World Series experience.

To be completely honest with you MadBum and Bruce Bochy deserve to have a voice in this, for what they have done for the Giants organization, and all they’ve been through. I understand this is a business, but this is Bocheys’ last season as a manager before he retires. I would love to see the Giants say fuck it and go all in. To get to the playoffs and make another run, the baseball fan in me would be rooting for them the entire time. But like I just said it’s a business. The return they would get for a 29 year old Madison Bumgarner and the assets they have in the bullpen may just be too much to hold out on. Now if they don’t get any decent offers for MadBum off the bat then maybe they turn the tables and start buying. Just like the Boston Red Sox only time will tell and the Deadline is almost a week away… Tick Tock.