Giants need relief help, and Chapman could be the answer.
Giants are on the hunt for some relief help, but is flame-thrower Chapman the answer?
NEW YORK — Ask Giants executive vice president Brian Sabean to profile the kind of relief acquisition the club will target to bolster the bullpen down the pennant stretch and into the playoffs, and he describes a dominant presence with strikeout stuff.
He describes a pitcher who could handle a full inning, without regard to matchups. He describes “not just the average Joe,” but a “meaningful piece” who amounts to much more than “just a body.”
He can’t mention Aroldis Chapman by name. That would be tampering. But as the Giants arrive at Yankee Stadium to begin a three-game interleague series on Friday, and with the Aug. 1 non-waiver trade deadline 10 days away, every subliminal message tells you that the
front office would like nothing more than to add the Yankees left-hander and his very genuine 103 mph fastball to their bullpen stable.
“I don’t know how things will shake out,” said Sabean, indicating that G.M. Bobby Evans is operating off “the premium list and the next list.”
Although the Giants have done well with secondary additions in the past — Sabean cited the contributions by right-hander Ramon Ramirez and left-hander Javier Lopez after being added at the deadline in the World Series-winning 2010 season — the current focus is on the small number of potential difference makers.
“The real dilemma is how you upgrade, and it has to be meaningful,” Sabean said. “It can’t just be a body.”
It’s been a maddening season for the Giants bullpen, which tops the major leagues with 18 blown saves and saw the first fractures in the Core Four when Jeremy Affeldt retired after last season. Right-hander Sergio Romo just returned after missing three months with an elbow tendon strain. Lopez (.353 on-base percentage vs. lefties) is having his worst season as a Giant, and Santiago Casilla has blown five of 26 save chances, losing his composure a few times along the way.
Romo, Lopez and Casilla will be free agents after the season.
The pertinent question: If the Giants do nothing, would Sabean be comfortable with Romo and Casilla as his late-game relievers in a pennant stretch and playoff series?
“You know, it’s a good question,” Sabean said. “Usually, bullpens get on a roll like a rotation or a lineup. They’ve got the experience. They’ve been there before. Then you lean on that. Now having said that, we know how busy (the front office is) looking for some help.
“But it’s not just going to be the average Joe coming in here, I’m thinking, it’s going to be a meaningful piece. But the competition for premium people is going to be really stiff, and it already is.”
What kind of reliever would most help the Giants bullpen? Left-handed? Right-handed? Experience vs. stuff?
“The (way the) game’s played now, you want swing and miss (relievers) if you can,” Sabean said. “We got away for a long time, and to their credit, with a lot of contact relievers. But the game’s kind of changed in front of us. That wouldn’t preclude you from getting someone as such, but, selfishly, you’d want somebody who can really get through a (clean) inning.”
Chapman doesn’t just check those boxes. He causes the entire page to combust.
Of course, Chapman also has a significant mark against his name. He served a 30-game suspension under MLB’s Joint Domestic Violence, Sexual Assault and Child Abuse policy after being investigated for allegedly choking his girlfriend and emptying eight shots from a firearm into the garage of his Davie, Florida, home on Oct. 30, 2015. Police declined to file charges in the case.
Would the Giants, who just won Team of the Year at the Sports Humanitarian of the Year Awards on July 12, consider acquiring player who has served a suspension for domestic violence?
CEO Larry Baer would not flatly rule it out.
“Whether it’s steroids or domestic violence, they get fully investigated by Major League Baseball, and there’s a report, so we just have to process that and understand that, on any player,” Baer said. “We’ll get it and add our own thoughts to it. There are players ... that we perhaps have stayed away from. We’ll see. I won’t talk about a specific player, but I’d say we’ll look at him, and we’ll make a determination.”
The Giants are casting their usually wide net while contacting potential trade partners, and as a consequence, are being linked in various media reports to relievers on several clubs believed to be interested in unloading parts:
The Brewers have closer Jeremy Jeffress (2.29 ERA, 23 saves) and left-hander Will Smith (2.12 ERA in 20 games), who has thrown well since returning June 3 from a torn knee ligament.
A Giants scout was monitoring the Phillies, who could move breakout closer Jeanmar Gomez and hard thrower David Hernandez.
The Giants are known to like Arizona right-hander Daniel Hudson, who hasn’t put up numbers that match his power stuff. The Diamondbacks also have right- hander Tyler Clippard, the kind of funky piece to which manager Bruce Bochy often gravitates as he seeks a diversity of arm angles and looks. Bochy likes Clippard so much that he appointed him to the N.L. All-Star team in 2011.
The Angels figure to be sellers, and although neither right-hander Joe Smith nor closer Huston Street has been particularly healthy or effective this season, both are pitching now and have established track records for getting big outs late in games. Street, if he throws well over the next several days, could emerge as an option because he’s owed $9 million next year (plus a $1 million buyout on an option for 2018) and could come at a lower cost of prospect talent.
The White Sox (Zach Duke, Nate Jones), Royals (Peter Moylan, Luke Hochevar) and Tigers (Justin Wilson) are casting themselves as buyers, but a rough week could change their perspec- tive. Same for the Mariners (Steve Cishek).
Aside from Chapman, the Yankees also hold the second most dynamic bullpen presence potentially on the trade market in lefthander Andrew Miller. But Miller is under contract for another season, and New York G.M. Brian Cashman has said he would not move him unless he is overwhelmed by the return. Although Chapman would be a pure rental, the Yankees figure to get a significant return for him — especially with so many contenders (Cubs, Nationals, Rangers, Indians, perhaps Red Sox), some with deeper farm systems to plunder, looking to upgrade their bullpen.
Would the Giants consider trading players off the active roster, something they have been loathe to do in the recent past?
“It’s tough. Would you say never? Probably not,” Sabean said. “I don’t know if you can rule it out. That would be a talking point, for sure. ... You know you’re going to hurt somewhere. It’s just how much pain you want to take.”
The Giants know another kind of pain: When you blow an October game in the late innings, as they did in Game 6 of the 2002 World Series at Anaheim, it has a tendency to bleed into the next day.
“The thing you have to do late in the season, especially the playoffs, you have to win the games you’re supposed to win,” Sabean said. “And if you end up letting a game get away, it’ll cost you.” For more on the Giants, see the Giants Extra blog at blogs. mercurynews.com/Giants. Follow Andrew Baggarly at twitter.com/extrabaggs.