Of course I don’t trust Sabean, but standing pat is the worst long run strategy of all. As long as he’s our GM, he has to keep making moves. Not doing anything simply isn’t an option.

The only thing the Giants have going for them (kind of) right now is pitching. I wouldn’t trade away one of the best pitchers on the staff just so we can get one big hitter. The Giants have a payroll of over $100 million dollars. I say stick it out while rebuilding and wait to the offseason to get hitters. I wouldn’t reccomend totally rebuilding though. If they do trade Cain, I would try and get prospects for him instead of one good hitter.

although I would word it differently. Under SOME circumstances anyone should be traded. I would’ve traded Barry Bonds in his prime if it netted me Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine, and Chipper Jones. However, under REALISTIC circumstances, I would never trade Matt Cain.

I certainly wouldn’t trade Cain during the season. That would be a horrible move. If I were to do something like that, it’d be during the offseason. Of course, I voted not to trade Cain at all.

Logically, there are situations where it could make sense but emotionally NOOOOOOOOOO

I’m watching the game on ESPN right now and Steve Phillips is spouting off about steroids again. MUTE!

What was the last high-profile trade Sabean made that worked? Jason Schmidt? Let’s just say it’s been a while. Since the ‘02 post-season, Sabes been in something of a trading rut (though that ’03 team was pretty darn good). Ponson, Hillenbrand, that one catcher. Yeah, he managed to pawn Matt Morris off on someone, but rarely have his recent big trades actually added something to the team. I’m not opposed to trading Matt, per se. I think the financial reasons alone are compelling.

However, Matt should be an insanely valuable commodity (young, durable, gets strikeouts, under club control, doesn’t know how to win, etc.) and the team should be expecting a fine ransom in return. Does Sabes understand the value of young starting pitchers? He gave up two young MLB pitchers for Sir Sidney! Furthermore, Sabean is not good at evaluating the types of players – young hitters – that we should be getting in return. This gives me pause.

This is all to explain my reasoning for going with option two. It is naive to suggest that Sabean’s very existence shouldn’t cloud my view of whether or not he [Sabean] should trade our second-best player. If the right package comes along, fine. Is Sabean – he of The White Flag Trade, The Exile of Matt Williams and The Stealing of Jason Schmidt – still savvy enough to get a sufficient bounty in return? I guess the upshot of this post is to wonder whether or not Brian Sabean is still an effective GM.

Per Schulman:

But the fact is, he [Baggarly] wrote a rather jarring paragraph that said the Giants are dangling Matt Cain to other teams to gauge his trade value. I ran that by a very high-level source with the Giants, and he said, “Absolutely false.”

I wouldnt trade Matt Cain for al of King Midas’ silver

The only way I’d be in favor of trading Cain would be to receive an equally talented young hitter under team control AND offer the opportunity to get rid of some long term guaranteed money.

It wouldn’t be a deal so much for this season as it would be for the next two.

Something along the lines of:

Cain & Rowand [+ maybe other parts]

for

Quentin & Contreras [+ maybe other parts]

I figure taking back Contreras’s cash this year would help offset the Rowand cash and Contreras might be useful in a back of rotation / long relief role if he can get some stuff figured out…. (AAA #s look OK)

this may have been mentioned before in some of the many threads on this topic, but here is a theory that has been bouncing around my brain for the past couple of days:

Hypothesis: Sabean is putting all the cards on the table, in plain view, not in an attempt to pull off a trade, but rather to justify why he WON’T pull off a trade.

First of all, never underestimate the power of the media… When the story first broke that Cain may be on the block, it was right after his best outing of the year. So, one day the headlines are about his toughness and win, and then the next news cycle is about his availability. And now today, there is a report that Cain isn’t being shopped, further deepening the “mystery”… Do I need to even speak about how PR driven sports is? (ie see the quick response to Lowry’s agent) The “conflicting” sources both are supposedly from the Giants front office, and may in fact very well be the SAME SOURCE. Why? To keep the story alive, to generate buzz, to pique our interest.

He has done this before (ergo, the cynicism).

Supposedly Sabean said he would drop the precondition that the new big bat would have to be under team control beyond this season. Really? That is just piss poor business judgment (not even marginally, I mean crackhead desperation stupid!!)… Unless, it’s complete bullshit. Who, of any finite means, walks into a car dealership and announces “I have a mountain of cash and I’m buying a new car today!!!”

Sounds like a buzz generator to me, specifically aimed at the “Lunatic Fringe” that Sabean is all too aware of, and now probably needs to bring into his tent if he wants to make the case that he is indeed handcuffed. Otherwise, he knows damn well that the screams for his head will only get louder (and still be heard over his car engine as he races down I-80 in September). There isn’t a chance in hell that with these antics, Sabean is going to generate a list of offers or ideas from other GMs that aren’t off-the-chart ridiculous.

For Cain, there is no single player, or package of players that will be made available that equal or exceed his value.

He will not make a stupid trade (ergo, the optimism), but he may make the case that the process is not yet ripe, and may require his presence in the offseason to pull something off.

On the other hand… (nevermind)

The problem is we need a middle of the order bat to make this a watchable offense. In order to acquire someone to be a middle of the order bat, we’ll probably have to trade someone. The belief is the only two (maybe three) people who have any value in a trade are Lincecum and Cain, and maybe Sandoval. Of the three of them, only Cain makes sense to trade when looking at both the short term and the long term. Also, trading Sandoval isn’t likely to get a return that trading Cain or Lincecum will get. Here’s the problem.

The Giants are 20-23 right now. They aren’t too far removed from .500, and they’ve been over .500 for a good bit of the early season. It’s possible that one (or two) hitters is all it takes to get them over .500 to stay. If they fall out of contention, though, then a fire sale is more possible. But in May, a fire sale makes no sense.

If the Giants are to get into contention for the playoffs, Cain will be a part of that run. So trading him for a hitter would only serve to weaken their biggest strength. Can anyone really see Pucetas or Ramon Ortiz adequately filling Cain’s shoes? Me either.

What if they trade him for ML ready prospects? With the need for a middle of the order bat, most teams aren’t quick to rely on a fresh callup to provide the pop in the middle of the lineup. It’s not particularly likely the team will find someone to move Molina out of the cleanup spot, no matter how ML ready a prospect is. It’s possible, but I wouldn’t expect a fresh callup to be a 3-4-5 guy that could make the offense watchable.

So what about taking a longer-term look at the future? What if Cain were traded for prospects from another team, and not expecting them to be a middle of the order guy right now? Would that actually make the offense watchable? I’d guess not. And if the reason we’re discussing moving Cain is for a middle order hitter to make this offense not suck so bad, then trading him for non-middle prospects doesn’t solve the problem we face right now.

So the question we need to ask is, is it really worth it to move Cain at this point in time? Many of you are smarter than me, so maybe you’ve got a better perspective, but from where I’m sitting, I don’t see moving Cain at this point as a good idea with the expectation of fixing the offense.

Would anybody go for if Sabes traded Cain in a deal similiar to the one Beane made wth Haren back in 07? I mean a bunch of near MLB ready prospects? One bat isnt’ going to do it. But if we can restock the upper minors…..hmmmm?

A straight up fair trade for the Giants would be dumb, because they would just lose games 4-3 instead of 2-1. Trading Cain for the equivalent hitter (23 y.o probable all star under contract!) is just treading water, talent wise. “Balancing” the team by trading pitching for hitting doesn’t actually make it better.

So the only good trades are:
1) Trade Cain for a bag o prospects (a la Haren or Santana, although the situations aren’t equivalent)
2) Absolutely RIP OFF another GM by trading Cain for 2 of what he’s worth (Uggla + Hanley Rameriez for example).

There is roughly “none” chance of either of those happening, so, don’t trade.

At least wait until the off season when we know more about Bumgarner/Alderson ‘toeing the rubber in the city in 2010’

Should we trade Matt Cain? Probably. We’ve got Bumgarner and Alderson in the starting rotation by 2011 at the latest (and probably 2010), and Zito is locked up forever, so we might as well use him. Four of five rotation spots are covered for a very long while, and Cain only has two years left on his deal. If we can’t turn Sanchez into a good #5 starter in two years, that’s pathetic, and we’ve got a few decent prospects in the minors anyway. Bottom line, Cain is a high-value player in our deepest spot in the system. We’re going to have to trade someone, and Cain looks like the best candidate.

Do I trust Sabean to trade Cain? No. Joe Nathan and Francisco Liriano were the last two high profile pitchers to go for a position player, and we got A.J. Pierzynski. That was one of the worst trades of the decades, and probably one of the worst in franchise history. I would expect Cain to go for an above average position player and maybe another prospect if Sabean can box another team into a corner, which I don’t see as likely. Given the fact that I don’t trust Sabean to make any sort of worthwhile trade, giving up a rotation that goes Lincecum-Bumgarner-Cain-Alderson-Zito is not worth it.