The San Francisco Giants have been expected to be sellers all season long, but a late run at the wild card just before the July 31 deadline has changed things.
Giants president Farhan Zaidi wouldn’t go either way when it came to the Giants’ status as sellers or not, stating that assessments would continue over the next ten days.
“It’s impossible to say what the next 10 days are going to present, both in terms of what our opportunity to contend is going to be and continue to be and what opportunities the market is going to present,” Zaidi said, via Chris Haft of MLB.com.
Zaidi added that a Bumgarner trade would “upset” the Giants’ hopes of delivering a successful swan song for retiring manager Bruce Bochy.
It does not sound like Zaidi is eager to trade Bumgarner, and Bumgarner doesn’t sound like he wants to leave. Couple that with the Giants winning 15 of 18 to move back to .500 — and within 2.5 games of the second NL wild card — and Zaidi has a very difficult decision on his hands. Trading Bumgarner at this point would probably be best long-term, but it would also upset the fans and a clubhouse full of players that surely believes they’ve found something and can keep it going for the rest of the season.
