The Giants had questions leading into the trade deadline. Here are the answers

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As the San Francisco Giants drunkenly fall down the stairs toward another trade deadline, it’s time to check in with the questions they had leading up to it. About two weeks ago, it was a given the Giants would add at the deadline. They were contenders, after all.

Since then, they’ve been awful. When they beat the Phillies on July 8, just three weeks ago, they were nine games over .500. They’ve gone 3-11 since then, losing close game after close game. It’s not a team that fills you with confidence, especially if the question has to do with a “missing piece” that can make them whole. It’s felt like 26 missing pieces over the last two weeks.

The Giants still might be buyers, though. And they had some internal solutions to test out before they went out and traded for new players, so we would be remiss if we didn’t check into the progress those players have made toward convincing the organization that they’re part of the solution.

Question that needed to be answered before the deadline: Will the Giants need a starting pitcher?

Answer: Yes

The Giants started the season with a pitching surplus, and there’s nothing the baseball gods hate more. As always, enjoy the pitching surplus while it lasts. Because it won’t. Eventually, your team will need pitching in the worst way, and some scare quotes will turn your pitching surplus into a “pitching surplus.” Now that a lot of those potential starting options have ERAs of 4, 5 or 6 — some of those in Triple A — you’re right to wonder what we were thinking.

The tally used to count the pitchers in the “surplus”  included at least one pitcher (Carson Ragsdale) who was just designated for assignment. This doesn’t make the Giants incorrect for trading Kyle Harrison for Rafael Devers, but they’d sure like to have Harrison back on loan for a few months. Carson Whisenhunt was never supposed to be the answer, and if you were secretly wondering if he would be while watching his debut, you have your answer.

A Mitch Keller-like starter would help the Giants. (Justin K. Aller / Getty Images)

The good news is that there are starting pitchers out there. The bad news is that one of them is Mitch Keller, a guy who couldn’t pitch into the third inning against the Giants, of all teams. Still, this isn’t the worst market for a team looking for back-end rotation help. If the Giants were playing as poorly as they have been and in need of a true ace, it would be easy to tell them to forget it. A mid-rotation starter is such a reasonable ask, though. Just don’t give up the Fernando Tatis Jr. for this version of James Shields, and it’s an easy, painless way to make the team better.

Question that needed to be answered before the deadline: Can the Giants find another left-handed reliever out of their internal options?

Answer: They might have actually done it, by Jove

Before the season started, a Giants executive asked me a rhetorical question: When that bullpen door opens up, who do you hate to see come into the game? The answer at the time was nobody. It was a stacked bullpen on paper, even if it had only one left-hander.

Cut to the middle of the season, and there are more than a couple answers to that question. There’s no telling which Camilo Doval is going to appear in any given outing, and Ryan Walker has had an absolutely brutal season. Even a guy like Erik Miller, ostensibly having a fine year in terms of ERA and run prevention, has been weird. He has almost as many walks as strikeouts and a strikeout rate that’s been cut in half, despite no apparent drop off in velocity or overall stuff. The Giants could use another reliever. They could probably use two.

And they might have found one? I didn’t think much about the addition of Joey Lucchesi to the 40-man roster at the time, as I figured he was just there as a stopgap, but he’s been excellent. I’m always curious about the left-handed starting pitchers who suddenly begin missing bats in relief, even in a small sample, and that’s what Lucchesi is doing. The ink on his Baseball Savant page is mostly red (the good kind), and it’s delightful to hear Mike Krukow say the word “churve” over and over again.

Lucchesi has still faced just 63 batters as a Giant, so let’s not talk about him like he’s Josh Hader just yet. But that’s enough of a sample to get a scouting report and some impressions, and if he’s not a pitcher who can get major leaguers out, he’s sure doing a convincing impersonation of one right now. He’s been impressive enough that the Giants might want to focus on right-handed relief at the deadline.

Question that needed to be answered before the deadline: Is Casey Schmitt the answer at second base?

Answer: Reply hazy, try again

The simplest answer is that, no, Schmitt didn’t seize the starting second base job and run with it over the last month. He’s done so little, in fact, that the Giants are using Brett Wisely more often as the strong side of a platoon.

Still, Schmitt has become a more discerning hitter at the plate this season. Even if he’s not a walk machine yet, he’s working counts and swinging at strikes. Plate discipline is the only part of his game that’s kept him from being a regular, so the 48 at-bats in July aren’t as important as the process, and I’m still impressed with the process. There are potential trade targets who might have more immediate and predictable value, like Ozzie Albies or Brandon Lowe, and you could talk me into a few of them, but let’s see how expensive they’ll be first.

The Giants just might stick with Schmitt and Wisely at second, saving their prospects and focusing on other, more pressing areas of need. They probably should.

Question that needed to be answered before the deadline: Is Rafael Devers steady enough at first base to acquire a DH-only-type hitter?

Answer: Yeah, don’t overthink it

Rafael Devers has looked like a new first baseman over the last week, mostly because that’s what he is. He’s unsure about placement and footwork, timing and responsibilities, and all that is going to take is time. Time and experience. He hasn’t had his biggest screw-up yet, and he’ll keep making smaller screw-ups until he gets there. That’s what happens when a player is learning a new position.

In the meantime, if the perfect middle-of-the-order bat becomes available, but he’s limited to DH, the Giants could still entertain the idea. They’d prefer not to do that for a variety of reasons, but they’re not limited. Similarly, if there’s a chance to get a bat at a position that’s filled by a superior defender — think catcher and third base — they can do so without worrying about a logjam.

Get another hitter, and it’ll all sort itself out, in other words. Devers has shown enough to make the Giants feel comfortable with that plan, at least.

Question that needed to be answered before the deadline: Is the catching situation shaky enough to be a deadline priority?

Answer: No

Patrick Bailey has emerged from the swampy mists of doom and become just a regular ol’ catcher with the bat now, which is a good thing. After a .441 OPS in April, he’s had a .623 OPS in the three months since. That doesn’t sound like much, but a defensive catcher like Bailey with a .650 OPS is someone worthy of a long-term extension, not someone who should be replaced at the trade deadline.

When it comes to the backup spot, the Giants could just stick with Andrew Knizner. They also have former Dodgers backup Austin Barnes in Triple A, and they just signed former Dodgers top prospect Diego Cartaya, who will likely go to Sacramento, too. They’re probably not looking for more moves on the catching front, and they shouldn’t be.

Question that needed to be answered before the deadline: Why do the Giants hate me?

Answer: I don’t know, friend. But it’s probably because of something you did.

The likeliest trade deadline result for the Giants is nothing but kicked tires and half-baked proposals. This would be a very, very easy deadline for Buster Posey to avoid, and the emergence of Lucchesi has made it even easier. Look for a lot of post-deadline quotes from coaches and executives suggesting the quiet deadline is because they have “confidence in our guys.”

Until then, there was at least some clarity to be found over the last couple of weeks of (very bad) Giants baseball. We’ll see if it changes the deadline approach at all.

(Top photo: Robert Edwards/ Imagn Images)

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