Thinking About the Trade Market

Upcoming Winter Meetings have me thoughtful...

Photo by Stacy Revere | Getty Images

The MLB winter meetings draw nigh! And while Giants’ fans maintain a frenzied Judge Watch, as Giants’ President of Baseball Ops Farhan Zaidi has maintained repeatedly this winter, there are more ways to skin a roster than simply the free agent market. Indeed, if the goal is to get younger, more athletic, and better defensively, the free agent market isn’t a particularly reliable avenue of success, given that all of the players there have already spent at least six years in the majors, and are moving closer to the gravitational pull of “post-30.” Horrors!

I was on KNBR last week (shameless self-promotion), and one of the questions my friend Kerry Crowley asked me was whether the Giants’ farm system was in a place to help them upgrade the major league roster via trade at this point. “Ah ha!” I thought to myself. “This seems like a great way to repurpose my answer into new There R Giants’ content” (Editor’s note: please don’t click on the above link! Nothing to see there, move along, just continue reading)!