SAN FRANCISCO -- In his first trade deadline as president of baseball operations for the Giants, Farhan Zaidi made five different moves involving 13 players, three of which were finalized so late that they leaked out after the deadline had passed. It was such a frantic hour that Joe Panik initially celebrated with veteran teammates who had been told they were staying before realizing that Zaidi had also traded for Scooter Gennett, who would be his replacement.
But 2019 wasn't a pure sale. Zaidi held his two best chips, lefties Madison Bumgarner and Will Smith, reasoning that the team's improved play in July and then-manager Bruce Bochy's pending retirement were worthy of giving the group at least a fighting chance down the stretch.
Five years later, Zaidi again is trying to thread the needle, only this time he sees a much more apparent reason to be optimistic about the next two months.
Stay in the game with the latest updates on your beloved Bay Area and California sports teams! Sign up here for our All Access Daily newsletter.
"It's been a long road to get our rotation to the place it's in now, and we feel like we have the best rotation in baseball," he said Tuesday. "When you have starting pitching like that, it can get you on a roll."
Zaidi is betting big that his preseason plan was correct. This roster always was put together to make a second-half run behind a strong starting staff, and after holding Blake Snell at a time when starting pitchers brought back shockingly large returns, the Giants will move forward with what on paper is as strong a rotation as any.
Alex Cobb was dealt to clear a spot for rookie Hayden Birdsong, who soon will return from the minors to join Snell, Logan Webb, Robbie Ray and Kyle Harrison. The Giants also sent Jorge Soler, Luke Jackson and the remaining $30 million owed to them to Atlanta. They dealt for Mark Canha, sending minor league pitcher Eric Silva to former GM Scott Harris and the Detroit Tigers.
San Francisco Giants
The lineup will look different in the second half, and it will be remarkably young. But as he thought about what to do before an important deadline, Zaidi kept coming back to that pitching. His belief in the group was bolstered by Ray's dominant debut and then a four-game sweep of the Colorado Rockies that included 52 strikeouts, 15 from Snell, who was his best potential trade chip.
"Seeing us play that way in this last weekend, we looked at each other a lot and I think the big thing that stood out to people watching us and to really everybody, was just how good the starting pitching was, how dominant it was," Zaidi said on the latest "Giants Talk." "Then you start envisioning a team that can really get on a roll."
The Giants will need to build on that momentum, and do so quickly. They were two games under .500 on deadline day and four games out of a wild-card spot. Zaidi admitted to checking FanGraphs' playoff odds far too often, and those say they have about a one in five chance of reaching October.
It was raw math that could have inspired the Giants to sell. Or, if they felt so strongly about this rotation, perhaps they should have bought more, upgrading a lineup that often hasn't looked up to the challenge. Zaidi chose the middle ground.
The Soler and Canha moves give manager Bob Melvin more flexibility and open up the DH role for Marco Luciano, who was activated Tuesday. But Zaidi kept his pitching intact.
"To me, it was all about finding opportunities for our young players. When we've played well, when we have gotten hot, it's been because our young players have given us that spark," Zaidi said on "Giants Talk." "We went into this trade deadline saying, look, we can go get a couple of veteran guys, and we did that with Mark Canha, or we can create opportunities for some of the guys internally that we think can be just as impactful or more impactful down the stretch than a veteran we might go trade for.
"That was really the premise. Some of the work you're going to do is going to be adding someone like Mark Canha, who is a great fit for our roster. Some of what you're going to do is going to be opening up opportunities for our young players. That's where I think you saw a little bit of a mix."
The Giants are hopeful the pitching ensures the plan is a strong one. But it also is a big risk.
Snell can walk for nothing at the end of the season. Ray can, too. Matt Chapman, who quietly is among the league leaders in WAR, also has an opt-out clause.
It's possible that the Giants will play better baseball over the next two months, still fall short of the postseason and watch some of their best veterans depart in free agency, once again leaving them with multiple holes to fill. They cut into their deficit over the weekend, but most of the teams they're chasing bolstered their rosters at the deadline, and while they no longer felt Soler was a fit, the Giants did send him to a Braves team that's one of the ones they're trying to chase down.
It is an uphill climb over the next 54 games, but the Giants believe they have an advantage. Zaidi said that on just about any day the rest of the season, his side should have the starting pitcher edge. Ultimately, that was too much for him to give up on.
"That's a pretty good place to start any baseball game," he said. "Again, it's going to take that run. Our guys know it, we know it, and again, I think the common thread when you see teams get on the run is just pitching that gives you a chance to win every day."
Download and follow the Giants Talk Podcast