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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The Hardball Times ranks Giants farm system 26th

This morning, Matt Hagen posted his rankings for each Major League team's farm system on the Hardball Times. Hagen is decidedly pessimistic about the Giants system, ranking them in the bottom 5 of the league.

Hagen thinks that the system is bottom heavy (which is true; most of the premium talent is in the low minors right now) and doesn't see very many high ceilings in the bunch.

It appears that only Wheeler will fit in my top 100, and, yes, that does account for Belt, who I am far from sold on. It also appears that San Francisco only has three players who will appear in my top 200, despite having some low-level depth to work with.

It is pretty surprising that he is so down on Brandon Belt. Most prospect watchers have him as the Giants top prospect and among the top prospects in the league after his breakout season. The other player that he is really down on is Thomas Neal, who was ranked 9th, while most have him in the 3 to 5 range.

If Hagen is right, things look much less bright for the future as the current players age and there is little in the minors available to replace them. I am much more optimistic about some of the guys in the system, but I am far from an expert in picking out Minor League talent that will perform at the Major League level.

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Giants Link Round-Up

All of the Giants links fit to print.

PaapFly: "Jeff Suppan is no Joe Posnanski" I wonder how he feels about this pickup. Actually I don't because this line sums things up nicely.

Imagine for a second you were collecting baseball writers. You already have Joe Posnanski, Bill James, Rob Neyer, Joe Sheehan and Jayson Stark. But you want a little just-in-case insurance, you know, just in case. Maybe, along the way, one of them gets writers block, or maybe one breaks both hands and can’t type. You already have Murray Chass lined up in the stable, and a couple others like him. Then, in an effort to beef up your complete and utter lack of depth, you hire on the Bleacher Report. This is essentially what the Giants have done.

Sully Baseball: A great video giving MLB some tips on how to appeal to a younger generation. What makes it better is he says that we need more Giants.

Baseball Monk: The monks talk about how loaded the National League is in pitching right now. I couldn't agree more, after years of offense the pendulum has swung towards pitching and it special with the number of great arms out there.

Splashing Pumpkins: A quantitative look at Giants skipper Bruce Bochy. He did everything right in the playoffs it seemed but I agree with the conclusion here that his overall effect on the team was probably a wash with great decisions cancelled out by the boneheaded ones.

22Gigantes: If you need more reasons to hate the Dodgers here is another one: Tommy Lasorda disses the Giants.

When the Giants Come to Town: The top 50 prospects (plus a bunch of Honorable mentions). First few detailed scouting reports are out too: #1 Brandon Belt, #2 Zach Wheeler, #3 Thomas Neal and #4 Gary Brown.

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