Whelp. It’s over! For good or bad, a new path lies ahead.
And what did the Giants end up with? A sort of halfway path in which the majority of the club remains intact, but without much addition to help for a stretch run and only marginal upgrades to the overall talent level of the system.
First of all, the deals:
Darin Ruf was traded to the NY Mets for J.D. Davis, LHP Thomas Szapucki and minor leaguers LHP Nick Zwack and RHP Carson Seymour
Curt Casali and LHP Matt Boyd were traded to Seattle for RHP Michael Stryffeler and C Andy Thomas
RHP Trevor Rosenthal was sent to Milwaukee in return for OF Tristan Peters
For a variety of reasons, the approach ended up being a mixed one. The Giants managed to send away three different players on the IL, two of whom ended up never playing for the franchise at all — that’s different! The Casali deal seems pretty clearly aimed at getting Joey Bart more playing time the rest of the way, but they avoided a full strip, down and kept several seemingly valuable players on expiring contracts. There’s a few things to say here, but let’s start with the talent coming in.
Starting with the Ruf deal, the Giants got a sort of younger version of Ruf in Davis, another right-handed hitter who doesn’t have any real natural defensive position, though he’s played a decent 1b. Davis had big seasons offensively for the Mets in 2019 and 2021, but he’s struggled to maintain consistency this year, and his last 50 games have been particularly bad, as this rolling OPS chart suggests:
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