San Francisco Giants Trade Speculation: Top 5 Candidates to Win a World Series

It’s that time of year again. We get to see what blockbuster deal Brian Sabean has up his sleeve that’s so good the Giants will finish the rest of the season undefeated and sweep every postseason series causing the tectonic plates below San Francisco to shift once again.

As you can see, even after Giants won their first World Series, I still enjoy ripping Brian Sabean. But now that Barry Bonds, Steve Finley and Armando Benitez are all behind us—leaving Barry Zito, Aaron Rowand, Mark DeRosa—most of our energy would be better spent trying to figure out who’s going to be the Cody Ross and Javier Lopez of 2011.

We’ve narrowed the list down to five candidates. The best choice is the one we're probably going to see wearing a Yankees or Red Sox uniform next week. 

Ramon Hernandez

As things continue to fall apart for the Reds in the NL Central, the Giants may be getting closer to finding their temporary replacement for Buster Posey. Through 57 games, Hernandez is hitting .308 with 10 home runs and a .508 slugging percentage. He plays decent defense behind home plate and has plenty of postseason experience from his early years in Oakland. True, nothing good ever came out of those years, but the Giants can’t afford to nitpick.

Given that he’s 35, the Reds won’t be too keen on keeping him around that much longer now that his best years are behind him, and the Giants know that any ancient catcher they sign this year will be staying in the same luxury apartments Brad Penny rented during the last two months of the 2009 season.

Aramis Ramirez

He’s been one of the most productive third basemen in the game for the last decade and after an uncharacteristically average season in 2010, he’s back in form hitting .301 with 18 home runs and a .850 OPS. He beat the Giants twice this year with a game-winning single off Sergio Romo (no easy feat) and a game-tying home run against Brian Wilson (pretty damn impressive).

The postseason has been a different story. Ever since Game 4 of the 2003 NLCS, he’s had a playoff average of .072 with no RBI and a .14 OBP. He’s awful, which isn’t surprising given that he plays for the Cubs. The Giants can’t afford for him to continue his Randy Winn impersonation in October if they want to achieve the kind of clutch hitting they used to bury their opponents during last year’s championship run.

Ramirez has already reiterated his promise to block any trade due to his ardor for the Cubs and the city of Chicago. Given that the Cubs are 34-56 and will likely pay $2 million to buy out the final year of his contract, the longest he’s looking to stay in the North Side under those circumstances is two months.

I’m sure his wife and kids won’t mind living in a Motel 6 in the North Beach district with free Internet just until the Giants win their second World Series title. Then he can go back to eating those delicious deep dish pizzas that make all those hellacious seasons at Wrigley Field seem like an afterthought.

The biggest drawback of bringing Ramirez to San Francisco is playing him at first base and moving Brandon Belt to left field. That’s a defensive downgrade on two different corners of the field that might prove costly. 

Carlos Beltran

If there’s anything that Beltran’s time in New York has taught us, it’s that you never pay a player based on what he did in a single postseason. For example, 2004 is still paying for Carlos’ weekly visits to the Nordstrom Spas in lower Manhattan and his lifetime pass to Six Flags. 

Ever since signing with the Mets in 2005, Beltran hasn’t come close to putting up the same kind of production he did in Houston and Kansas City, and he never really lit it up in the postseason either. Remember when he struck out looking with the bases loaded to end the 2006 NLCS?

But it’s still plausible that a trade to a playoff contender might have the same effect on him as it did seven years ago. Players usually tend to perform their best right before they become free agents. It’s the main reason why Jose Reyes has become a nightmare for every pitcher and every catcher in the National League. Since Beltran is in the final year of a $116 million contract, another big postseason might make a general manager dumb enough to sign him next year.

You just hope that general manager isn’t heavy, bearded or named Brian Sabean. 

B.J. Upton

Maybe it’s just the desire for a speedy outfielder, but aside from his ability to occasionally knock a baseball over a fence, I just can’t see why the Giants would consider trading for him. He’s currently hitting .234, lower than both Aubrey Huff and Miguel Tejada, and is sporting an abysmal .316 OBP.

It’s hard to fathom why so many “baseball experts” couldn’t figure out how Cliff Lee could shut down the unstoppable Rays offense, which had three starters hitting below .200 for the season, and struggle so mightily against the Giants in the World Series.

BJ’s basically a Pat Burrell/Emmanuel Burris hybrid. He hits around 20 home runs while striking out 350 times, and he puts up 40 steals, which is roughly how many times he gets on base per year.

So, what makes him better than Pat and Manny?

A shinier forehead? 

Jose Reyes

He was the answer to the Giants’ biggest hole at shortstop and leadoff in the offseason. Now he’s just a luxury they can’t afford.

After Buster Posey went down for the season, Brian Sabean’s chief concern was to find someone who could swing hard at a fastball without grounding it weakly to the pitcher. Usually when Jose hits one, it goes through the little gap between second and third or the one between left and center field. That’s awesome, but what the Giants really need is a player who can send one into the big space between the scoreboard and the center field wall.

Reyes is great at sparking rallies and driving pitchers insane on the basepaths, but the caveat in his game is that unless there are two or three guys that can hit behind him, he’s as valuable as Marvin Bernard and the Beta VCR Felipe Alou left in Bruce Bochy’s office.

Chances are he’ll stay with the Mets, sign a seven-year contract with another team in the offseason, struggle with injuries and come to the Giants sometime in August 2018.

So, assuming that Brian Sabean makes all the right moves before the July 31st deadline, this is how the batting order would look like:

Yungo                                                                                                                           

Jeff Keppinger                                                                                                                          

Pablo Sandoval                                                                                                                    

Brandon Belt                                                                                                                          

Carlos Beltran                                                                                                                       

Ramon Hernandez                                                                                                                    

Nate Schierholtz                                                                                                                  

Brandon Crawford/Freddy Sanchez platoon                                                                                

Pitcher

The only real weakness (assuming Andres "Yungo" Torres finally gets it together and Freddy comes back sometime in late August) is the pitcher spot. Well, actually….wait. Bumgarner and Vogelsong are both hitting better than most of the guys on the bench.

Aren’t you happy you root for this team?