Looking back at the Giants’ past activities as judge, the Yankees come to town originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – For seven minutes on December 6, 2022, Giants fans thought Aaron Judge – or arson – was heading home. But Judge actually isn’t the former MVP on the other side this weekend who came closest to wearing orange and black.
Five years before they pursued Judge, the The Giants bet everything on Giancarlo Stanton, who was coming off a 59 home run season that earned him the National League MVP award. The previous front office had hoped to pair Stanton and Shohei Ohtani to end the disappointment of a 98-loss season, but it quickly became clear that Ohtani preferred the American League and ended up signing with the Los Angeles Angels. Stanton’s pursuit became much more serious.
The Giants and Marlins went so far as to agree on the details of a trade — outfielder Denard Span and prospects Andrew Suarez and Jacob Gonzalez were headed to Miami — but Stanton used his no-trade clause to block deals for the Giants and St. . Louis Cardinals, who were making a similar effort.
“Our agreement with the Marlins to acquire Giancarlo Stanton, subject to his waiver of the no-trade clause, will not move forward,” the Giants said in a statement that week. “We understand the Marlins and Stanton are exploring other options.”
At the time, the Giants feared that Stanton Force your way into rival Los Angeles Dodgers, and his agent later admitted that his preference was to play for the Dodgers, Chicago Cubs, Houston Astros or New York Yankees. After being traded to the Yankees, Stanton explained his reasoning at MLB’s annual winter meetings.
“(The Marlins) went to San Francisco and the Cardinals and made deals with them,” he said. “So I was open to listening to them, but these weren’t my teams. They’re great people. It was great meetings and a great organization and culture, but it just wasn’t a good fit for me.”
Stanton and his representatives headed to New York, which initially disappointed the Giants but ended up working out. Stanton has played more than 110 games just twice since that trade, totaling 8.5 wins above replacement in seven seasons in pinstripes. The Giants opted for Andrew McCutchen and Evan Longoria, the previous trade proving expensive, but at least they weren’t committed to Stanton’s contract. At the time, the Giants were willing to take on almost all of the remaining $295 million.
In the years since, that bag has been purchased by others, including two stars who played at Oracle Park this week. The Giants pursued Bryce Harper after Farhan Zaidi took over the baseball operations department, and their 2022 offseason plan was predicated on the arrival of Judge, who flew to San Francisco and met with Brandon Crawford, Logan Webb and Rich Aurilia, among others, at Oracle Park.
On Wednesday, Judge and Stanton hit third and fourth in the Yankees’ lineup at Angel Stadium. The man in front of them has also been a target of the Giants, and could be again in a few months.
O Office led by Bobby Evans pursued a trade with Stanton to try to add a superstar bat to the heart of a lineup that always seems to lack star power, and in 2022, Zaidi took a similar approach at the trade deadline. He talked to the Washington Nationals about Juan Soto, but much to the Giants’ disappointment at the time, they didn’t come close to matching San Diego’s offer. Their most attractive prospects got off to a bad start in the minors.
“We all see these prospect rankings and a lot of them are done in the off-season. Certain prospect rankings are updated during the season, but current year performance is very important in how the industry views these players,” Zaidi said at the time. “Illness or poor performance – which is the reality, as we have seen with some of our players – can really impact your value in the short term, even if you are still very optimistic about your long-term prospects.
“Even from a public relations standpoint, I think when you’re talking about trading a star player, a franchise player, you don’t want to say that the second or third best player you have is hitting .175 in A-ball. a small challenge in situations like the ones we find ourselves in this commercial deadline, but it does not affect our vision of our system in the long term.
Looking back, it’s a fascinating turning point for the organization. The Giants probably could have matched the best players in San Diego’s offer, including Marco Luciano and Kyle Harrisonwho ranked among the top 20 minor prospects at the time, but lacked the depth to keep up with the Padres, who sent three top 40 prospects and a hard-throwing right-hander along with MacKenzie Gore, a young lefty who was once considered the best left-handed pitcher among the smallest.
One of the players who could have been a centerpiece at the time was Luis Matos, then just 20 years old but batting just .177 in High-A. Heliot Ramos was struggling at Triple-A and Patrick Bailey had a sub-.700 OPS at High-A.
Zaidi was hampered by a series of injuries and ineffectiveness in the minor leagues that, at the time, looked like they could set the organization back years. Two seasons later, Bailey looks like a key player, while Matos and Ramos have helped turn things around this season.
Players who would have I invented a Soto package now it may be here to stay, although the Giants may still have preferred to try. Soto is a future Hall of Famer, and with a .999 OPS and 15 homers, he teamed with Judge to give the Yankees perhaps the most dangerous lineup in the league.
The Giants are left wondering what could have happened and if they are ready to go through all this again. Two years after Judge cashed in, Soto is set to be the best player on the free agent market.
