MLB Trade Deadline: Are the San Francisco Giants Done Dealing?

The San Francisco Giants landed the prize of the MLB trading season yesterday when they sent Single A top pitching prospect Zack Wheeler to the Mets in exchange for Carlos Beltran. This is the trade that Giants fans were hoping for all season, and Brian Sabean came through.

There are, of course, grumblings from a certain segment of the Giants fan base, the ones who were alluded to as the lunatic fringe at one time by Sabean. The overwhelming majority of Giants fans understand that this is a special team with a window of opportunity to be legendary. The offense is weak and the pitching is great so an offensive upgrade like this one could be the difference maker come October. 

Most fans understand that when an organization has such an obvious strength as the Giants do in pitching and such an obvious weakness as the Giants do in offense the solution is to give up some of your strength in order to somewhat balance out the weakness. The Giants were able to do that in the Beltran trade without sacrificing a known pitching commodity.

Zack Wheeler is a special kind of baseball player. He was a number draft pick and strikes out more than nine batters per nine innings. He has pitched this season at Single-A San Jose and by all accounts he is about three years away from pitching in the major leagues.

A lot can happen in three years.  Wheeler could continue to improve and become the ace of the Mets rotation for many years to come. Wheeler could regress and never pan out similar to what has happened to Tim Alderson since his trade to the Pirates. The Giants could also win another World Series in that time with an anchor in the lineup like Carlos Beltran this year.

I trust that Brian Sabean and his team know what they were giving up and that it was absolutely a risk worth taking in order to try to do something that hasn't been done by a National League team in 36 years—repeat as World Series champions.

Is Sabean done dealing, though?

It would be easy for Sabean to sit back and watch now that he made one of the biggest deals of his career, but the man doesn't work like that. Sabean is acutely aware of the shortcomings at catcher and shortstop and if he can make incremental improvements at either position in the coming days, he will. Giants fan Mike Hilliard pointed out to me this morning that there are concerns about Eli Whiteside that go way past his weak bat. 

In the Giants recent series in San Diego, Whiteside argued with the home plate umpire that he had caught a ball in the dirt on a swinging strike three that he clearly had not caught. The speedy Everth Cabrera of the Padres was streaking down to first base as Whiteside argued and when he finally decided to throw the ball to first it was too late. 

That would have been the final out of the inning; instead the Padres would string together a bunch of two out hits and take the lead in the game

Last night in San Diego, Whiteside collided with Matt Cain on a short pop-up in front of the plate. Whether someone called for the ball or not is not what I am addressing; that stuff happens all the time, it's part of the game. When the ball hit off Cain's glove, obviously in fair ground and scooted into foul territory behind Whiteside, Whiteside chose to pout over not catching the ball, standing there with his shoulders hanging.

Cain scurried to retrieve the ball but the batter, Shane Victorino scampered to second base and eventually scored. The Giants won both of these games or I imagine there would have been more made of these mental lapses and extreme examples of  lack of good judgment.

There have been grumblings all trade season that Ramon Hernandez of the Cincinnati Reds was going to be available in a trade. If that's the case and the price is right, I would expect Sabean to jump at the opportunity to add Hernandez, a veteran to this team.

The Giants won't be making another major trade in the coming days, but sometimes those peripheral deals like Ramon Ramirez and Javier Lopez make a big difference in the long run.