SAN FRANCISCO — With their star second baseman, Thairo Estrada, out until at least August, middle infield is the spot the Giants are most likely to address via the trade market, president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said Friday, a little over three weeks until the Aug. 1 deadline.
“We’ve got to at least evaluate what we have in the middle infield,” Zaidi said, meeting with a scrum of reporters before Friday’s series opener against the Rockies. “Kind of just keep an eye on the market and see if there’s someone that can be impactful there and weigh that against continuing to give opportunities to Casey (Schmitt) and Brett (Wisely).”
Estrada’s left hand was fractured by an errant sinker from Adam Ottavino on Sunday, delivering the Giants arguably their biggest blow of the season. He has been their most valuable player this season, with 2.6 Wins Above Replacement, according to FanGraphs, and leads the team with 18 steals. Despite a recent downturn, he was batting .272/.327/.434 with nine homers in 70 games.
The Giants’ top internal options are a pair of rookies, Schmitt and Wisely, neither of whom have inspired much confidence in offensive stability. After his scorching-hot start, Schmitt’s batting line is down to .229/.265/.327, a .592 OPS that is now lower than Brandon Crawford’s (.636), who has heated up of late while Schmitt has one hit in his last 25 at-bats. Wisely, recalled on Monday, has raked at Triple-A but hasn’t translated it to the majors, where he is batting .188/.222/.306 in 35 games.
“I know there’s been a lot of talk about the infield,” Zaidi said. “We view it as an opportunity for Casey to start showing some offensive improvement. I think there have been some signs. I think the at-bats have been better lately. And obviously Wisely is getting another opportunity, a guy that we’ve been very high on.”
The best fits on the trade market are Tim Anderson of the White Sox and Paul DeJong of the Cardinals, but the list good options doesn’t go much further than that. Both set to hit free agency this winter, Anderson has been stuck in a season-long offensive funk after years of solid production, while DeJong is enjoying his best season since his 2019 All-Star campaign.
There are other avenues to find improvements before the deadline, namely shoring up their starting rotation. The only two arms assured to start every fifth day are Logan Webb and Alex Cobb, with a mishmash of bulk relievers and spot starters covering the other three rotation turns.
Ross Stripling started Friday night, following Keaton Winn’s second major-league start on Wednesday, and Zaidi said he is more hopeful that the solutions to their starting rotation emerge internally. They still have all the arms they did when the year began, but only two of them have consistently served as starters.
“I think we have a lot of depth there,” Zaidi said. “If you’re talking about kind of a front-of-the-rotation arm that becomes available, I think every team with playoff aspirations is going to have interest. You can always fit that. But I don’t really see us adding starting rotation depth because we like the guys that we have in that category.”
The Giants sustained another longterm injury in the outfield, to Mitch Haniger, but the Giants are more satisfied with their internal group and possible reinforcements coming. Zaidi is hopeful Haniger (forearm fracture) can return at the start of September, while Luis González (back surgery) is beginning to ramp up baseball activities and “could be a factor for us in August” and Heliot Ramos (oblique strain) is hitting well on his rehab assignment at Triple-A Sacramento.
“We’ll have to see how it goes with the outfield the next couple of weeks,” Zaidi said, “but we like the options that we have there.”
At 47-40, 2½ games back of the NL West lead and locked in a virtual tie for the last wild card spot, Zaidi made it clear where the Giants stand a little over three weeks out from the Aug. 1 deadline.
“I think it sort of validated our belief in spring training that this was a good team,” Zaidi said. “We’ve had our ups and downs healthwise and performance-wise, but I think we are a playoff team, a playoff-caliber team.”