If anybody needed to hear this news, it’s the Atlanta Braves… but what might San Francisco have in mind?
It’s a rumor… but an awfully enticing rumor that has to have the attention of the Atlanta Braves.
It’s also surprisingly early in the process to hear a team declaring that some of their major league team members might already be available via trade, but here we are in late April and Ken Rosenthal is reporting exactly that:
Also: #SFGiants telling teams they are willing to talk about some of their veteran relievers right now. Believe they have arms at Triple A who could perform at roughly same level. Bumgarner, Smith more likely to move closer to 7/31. Could be best starter and reliever available.
— Ken Rosenthal (@Ken_Rosenthal) April 20, 2019
So there’s multiple aspects to this:
- Who’s available?
- Would the Braves be interested?
- What price would be extracted?
Let’s try and guess together.
What’s Happening in San Fran?
The 1st and most obvious question isn’t even one of those listed above: it’s the ‘Why?’ question… why are the Giants already in sell mode?
Taking the tweet from above at face value, it could be a mere matter of making space for talented youngsters to arrive. That might be the case… or maybe it’s a matter of the Giants looking for ways to help their beleaguered farm system and save money in the process.
The San Fran opening day payroll was pegged by the COTS charts site (baseball prospectus) at $170 million and change.
That’s an awfully large payroll for a team that isn’t expected to win much.
Already, they’re 8-13, have lost 3 straight, are losing to Pittsburgh as this is being written, and shortly will be facing the Yankees and Dodgers.
Thus another possible interpretation of that Rosenthal tweet could be that bullpen performance simply might not matter much for them and thus the Giants might want to dump what they can while the bullpen is still doing well.