A Shortstop Trade That Does Make Sense for the Giants

Lately, I have been looking at the Jose Reyes trade because that seems to be the dream target for many Giants fans. I have looked at the numbers and it just doesn't seem to make sense with any deal for him starting with Zach Wheeler and likely costing some more talent.

If there was a middle infield trade target that I thought did fit, it would likely be the Orioles J.J. Hardy. If Hardy is healthy, he is a very valuable player and should be available at a much more reasonable cost than Reyes.

For this, I will run through the same exercise that I did previously.

Hardy is projected to do pretty well over the remainder of the season (if he's healthy), with a 2.2 WAR, a large portion of that coming from his glove. He is owed a reasonable $4.2 million this season, which would give him a surplus value of $6 million and, on top of that, MLB Trade Rumors has him projected to be a Type A Free Agent next year, which gives him another boost of $5 million in value.

Here is the breakdown:

J.J. Hardy
Year	Sal (M)	WAR	Val (M)	Net (M)
2011	$4.2	2.2	$10.2	$6.0
FA Picks			$5.0
Total	$4.2	2.2	$15.2	$11.0

The rumored cost of Hardy would be along the lines of a B prospect. According to research done by Victor Wang, that breaks down to about $5.5 million in expected value. For the Giants, I have used Thomas Neal as an example and my estimates came out to a value of $8.2 million, so I think it is pretty much in line with what we should expect.

Thomas Neal
Year	Sal (M)	xWAR	Val (M)	Net (M)	NPV
2011	$0.0	0.00	$0.0	$0.0	$0.0
2012	$0.4	0.54	$2.8	$2.4	$2.2
2013	$0.4	0.54	$2.8	$2.4	$2.0
2014	$0.4	0.54	$2.8	$2.4	$1.8
2015	$1.1	0.54	$2.8	$1.7	$1.2
2016	$1.7	0.54	$2.8	$1.1	$0.7
2017	$2.26	0.54	$2.8	$0.6	$0.3
Total	$4.0	3.2	$16.9	$12.9	$8.2

Based on this analysis, a trade for J.J. Hardy would be a net positive in value for the Giants. This is also dealing from an area of depth for the Giants, who have a bit of a crowded outfield and no real place on the big league club for Neal.

If Brandon Crawford isn't the answer at shortstop, maybe Hardy could be the option that the Giants go after to bolster one of their obvious weaknesses.

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