As Robbie Ray makes SF Giants debut, is the ‘cavalry’ arriving too late?
The Giants are bolstering their rotation, but only after starting the second half with four losses in five games.
LOS ANGELES — Earlier this month, when Farhan Zaidi appeared on KNBR, the team’s flagship radio station, the Giants’ typically jovial top baseball decision-maker took a menacing tone. If his club kept trending in the same direction, “we’re going to have to think about selling and seeing some younger players,” he said.
The Giants were four games under .500 at the time and three back of playoff position. Since dropping four of their first five games out of the All-Star break, they’ve fallen a season-worst six games under water and five games back of the final National League wild card, behind six other teams.
With Robbie Ray set to take the mound Wednesday at Dodger Stadium for his first time in a Giants uniform and Alex Cobb right behind him, this was supposed to be the turning point in the season, the long-awaited arrival of rotation reinforcements that could reinvigorate a second-half push to the postseason.
Walking into the visitors’ clubhouse Monday afternoon, Ray was greeted by a team playing some of its worst baseball of the season with its playoff hopes in free fall. According to FanGraphs, the Giants’ chances of making the postseason have plunged to 13.8%, down from 26% as recently as the All-Star break.
“You can’t help but know where we are (in the standings),” manager Bob Melvin said Tuesday after his club’s 5-2 loss in Los Angeles, failing to eclipse three runs for their seventh game in a row. “There’s some other teams separating a little bit. We’re dropping further back. We’ve talked about the cavalry coming, but we need to do it now. We’re going to have to wear this one today and come out and win a game tomorrow because the more we dig a hole for ourselves, the tougher it’s going to be for us.”
The Giants have not owned a winning record since the second-to-last day of May. Since pulling within a game of .500 on July 5, they have gone 4-9 to sink back to their lowest point since May 14, when they were also six games below .500.
Besides red-hot rookie Tyler Fitzgerald, who homered for the fifth straight game in Tuesday’s loss, the rest of the Giants’ lineup is batting .149 since the All-Star break. The team has not scored more than four runs since July 12 and is averaging a paltry 3.47 per game since the start of July.
“We just need to start scoring some runs,” Melvin said. “We’ve moved things around (in the lineup) a little bit. We’re five games in. We’ve done some good work with the lineup the way it is. It’s not looked that way since the second half started. Tyler’s really the one guy who’s swung the bat really well.”
When all Melvin can do is shuffle the deck chairs, then maybe it is time to consider Zaidi’s comments.
The Giants have a handful of players who would surely draw interest from other teams, but almost to an individual, each one comes with asterisks that might reduce their potential return. The most notable of all would be Blake Snell, who’s past four starts should be enough to show opposing scouts that he’s back in second-half form.
Snell, however, possesses a $32 million player option for 2025, the same circumstances that scared off teams from Carlos Rodón two summers ago. Should his performance backslide or if he were to suffer a catastrophic injury, opting in would be an easy decision and leave any team acquiring him on the hook for his salary.
Snell, at least, has some tape to show contenders he could help with their postseason push. While Ray and Cobb have no shortage of experience, neither will have much if any time to showcase themselves before Tuesday’s deadline. Concerns over how much both veterans can contribute following surgeries and extensive rehabs will likely limit the prospect haul either could demand.
The Giants could make some moves in the same vein of shipping away Austin Slater and designating Nick Ahmed for assignment. Without Ahmed (who was scooped up by the Dodgers on Wednesday and inserted into their lineup), the Giants created more playing time for Fitzgerald and Brett Wisely and have been rewarded for it.
But without Slater, Melvin has still struggled to find opportunities for Luis Matos, culminating Wednesday in the 22-year-old outfielder being optioned back to Triple-A Sacramento so that he can play every day. If they want those reps to come at the major-league level, it would presumably require moving on Michael Conforto, who will be a free agent at the end of the season, or Mike Yastrzemski, who could be nontendered if the club determines he is not worth a raise from his $7.9 million salary.
Between their continued struggles at the plate, it’s not clear how much either veteran would fetch on the trade market.
If the Giants are set on selling and want to acquire assets, it would likely require moving somebody like Matt Chapman, Camilo Doval or — gasp — Logan Webb. The latter is not an option the front office is considering — why would they with their homegrown ace locked up at a below-market rate through 2028? — and while the others come with All-Star credentials, they also have their flaws.
Any contender acquiring Doval likely already has its own closer, and Doval hasn’t proven he can find success in non-save situations. Chapman has been the most valuable third baseman in the majors, according to Baseball-Reference, but like Snell has a complicated contract with a cascading series of player options.
With his job security more precarious than any point in his tenure, Zaidi went all-in this offseason to mold the Giants into a contender, but they find themselves in a similar position approaching the trade deadline as the past three seasons. The group of players as currently assembled has given little reason to further invest in the roster, and there are few clear assets to sell off should they go in the other direction.