San Francisco Giants Shopping Matt Cain

Andrew Baggarly of the San Jose Mercury News reports that Giants GM Brian Sabean is shopping Matt Cain to get a feel for what Cain would bring on the open market.  I don’t like this development at all.  The strength of the Giants’ rebuilding team is their starting pitching, and now they are looking to trade their No. 2 starter who appears to be on his way to the best year of his career?  It just doesn’t makes sense. 

Sabean’s contract runs out at the end of this year, and I suspect he is willing to pull out all the stops to get the Giants a winning season and himself a contract extension, the Giants’ future be damned.

I don’t think the Giants should consider trading Cain until Tim Alderson and Madison Bumgarner have established themselves as solid major league starters and there is a log-jam in the Giants' starting rotation.  That isn’t going to happen until 2010 at the earliest.