Underperforming players still owed a lot of money: Austin Riley, 3B ($132 million), Sean Murphy, C ($30 million)<\/p>\n
Players they might consider:\u00a0Willy Adames, Matt Chapman<\/p>\n
You might remember Riley as a young go-getter who was constantly making All-Star Games and such. In a recent article<\/a> detailing his slump, however, The Athletic commenters weren\u2019t as charitable:<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cHe\u2019s killing this team right now\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cHis approach at the plate looks lazy and uninspired\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cHas he had a vision exam? Would love to know\u201d<\/p>\n \u2022 \u201cget a haircut and shave !\u201d <\/p>\n Well, that last one was certainly uncalled for. But you get the idea: Braves fans are past the point of being sentimental. You\u2019ve been there with your favorite Giants. And if you think the Braves\u2019 front office is sentimental, remember they essentially swapped Freddie Freeman out for Matt Olson after winning the danged World Series.<\/p>\n So if they\u2019re looking for a shortstop, and Adames, with $155.7 million left on his contract, is available, and they\u2019re convinced that Riley needs a change of scenery, at the very least \u2026 bingo bongo, you got yourself the start of a deal, baby.<\/p>\n Except there are complications stacked upon complications with a lot of these scenarios, so start there. Adames and Chapman have full no-trade clauses, so even if the Braves are interested in either of them, if they don\u2019t feel like going to another team, they don\u2019t have to. This is also the case with a few of the other players on would-be trade partners.<\/p>\n \n Austin Riley has underperformed the last two seasons in Atlanta. Would the Braves be interested in a change-of-scenery deal involving Riley and either Willy Adames or Matt Chapman? (Kevin C. Cox \/ Getty Images)<\/p>\n While Riley-for-Adames makes sense on at least some abstract level for both teams (a younger player in Riley, with Casey Schmitt moving over to short), it\u2019s still ludicrous and far-fetched, of course. Just like Ray-for-Haniger. (Mike Yastrzemski is making a little more money than the Braves might want to pay him next season, if you really want to get weird.)<\/p>\n On a more realistic note: The Braves could look to target Chapman instead, and if they aren\u2019t sure about their willingness to pay for Chapman\u2019s remaining $100 million, Sean Murphy\u2019s remaining salary would be a possible offset. He\u2019d be a fine complement to the assortment of young Giants catchers, buying them time if they need it, especially defensively.<\/p>\n Seattle Mariners<\/p>\n Underperforming positions of note: 1B (29th), 3B (24th)<\/p>\n Underperforming players still owed a lot of money: Luis Castillo, RHP ($43 million), Josh Naylor, 1B\/DH ($81.2 million)<\/p>\n Players they might consider:\u00a0Matt Chapman, Rafael Devers<\/p>\n Acquiring Luis Castillo wouldn\u2019t just be a way to help offset Chapman\u2019s contract; he\u2019d be exactly the kind of comeback candidate the Giants would want to round out their rotation after doing \u2026 something more to it. Perhaps a lot more to it. Regardless, it\u2019s not hard to envision a rotation with Castillo in it (and Casey Schmitt starting at third).<\/p>\n That\u2019s boring, though. And Dipoto doesn\u2019t do boring unless he has to. See ol\u2019 Josh Naylor up there, making all sorts of clams? Now match that with the next section, where the Mariners are 29th out of 30 teams in offensive production from first base. If the Mariners aren\u2019t going to get anything for their money, why not pay twice as much for Rafael Devers and get some production out of the position? No, that doesn\u2019t make sense to me either, but Dipoto does his own math, don\u2019t worry about it.<\/p>\n Naylor has a full no-trade clause, and I can\u2019t imagine he\u2019d be thrilled to play at Oracle Park. He might also have trouble making friends<\/a>, who\u2019s to say? If he were on any other team but the Mariners, it wouldn\u2019t be worth bringing up, but we\u2019re talking about the original architect of the Ray-for-Haniger deal. He\u2019s an ideas guy.<\/p>\n Philadelphia Phillies<\/p>\n Underperforming positions of note: 3B (30th), SS (29th)<\/p>\n Underperforming players still owed a lot of money: Aaron Nola, RHP ($98.3 million), Trea Turner, SS ($190.9 million)<\/p>\n Players they might consider:\u00a0Willy Adames, Matt Chapman<\/p>\n The Phillies\u2019 lineup is horrible right now. They have the best starting pitching in baseball by WAA, and it\u2019s not that close, but they also have the 29th-least productive group of position players. Most of their everyday players haven\u2019t just been below average, but in the bottom fifth of all players. If they had even the Giants\u2019 lineup, they might win 100 games this season.<\/p>\n They\u2019re also over the luxury tax, so they wouldn\u2019t just be on the hook for however many millions the Giants are sending over, but the penalties on top of that. Luckily (?), they have concerning contracts of their own, namely Nola\u2019s and Turner\u2019s. Nola\u2019s biggest problem \u2014 allowing home runs \u2014 might be something the Giants are willing to work with.<\/p>\n Turner is two years older than Adames and has almost $50 million more left on his contract. The Phillies could shake things up, save money, get younger and get the higher producing player this season. Perhaps there would be other parts going back and forth, a Robbie Ray here, an Andrew Painter there, things of that nature. Get creative. There are no wrong answers, here, especially considering that it\u2019s the people taking your jobs who will eventually have to deal with the messiest parts.<\/p>\n There\u2019s a lightning round of teams that almost have matching players, but not quite. The Boston Red Sox will pay Masataka Yoshida and Trevor Story about $50 million next season combined, but it\u2019s tougher to stuff two players on a roster that wants to get a lot younger. The New York Yankees don\u2019t owe Ryan McMahon that much, and the Miami Marlins paid down the back end of Giancarlo Stanton\u2019s contract enough to make him a relative bargain in his twilight years. Also, he hates the Giants<\/a> and would never allow himself to be sullied by this franchise.<\/p>\n Also, please note that the St. Louis Cardinals can just, like, afford all these players. Their biggest contract is Dustin May, and he\u2019s an impending free agent. If they want a Devers, they can simply opt to trade for him and pay his salary. Chapman is so Cardinals-coded it hurts. They might give him a bonus on top of his existing contract, just as a gesture of goodwill. They can trade for both of them and Ray, too. Heck, see if Harrison Bader still has a condo there.<\/p>\n The chances of any of this happening? Low. Really, really low. The Giants\u2019 trade deadline will have some more predictable action, and that should be enough for everyone involved. Still, it\u2019s forever possible to point to the Ray-for-Haniger trade and shrug your shoulders. Remember when that happened? Maybe one of those will happen again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Saturday afternoon, Robbie Ray made what was almost certainly his last start as a San Francisco Giant,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":787773,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[363,2329,99],"class_list":["post-787772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-mlb","tag-san-francisco-giants","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=787772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/787772\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/787773"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=787772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=787772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=787772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Austin](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/GettyImages-2276431070-scaled.jpg\")
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