The Giants have acquired Sam Dyson, embattled ex-closer, from the Rangers in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations. If this trade had happened in the offseason, it would have have seemed like a coup. However, this trade is happening now because Dyson is having the 2017 Giants of reliever seasons.
Warning: This post contains explicit details about just how bad Dyson has been this season.
Dyson is 1-6 on the season, which is impressive for a pitcher who has thrown just 16⅔ innings. He has allowed 31 hits in those innings, including six home runs, and he walked 12, while striking out just seven of the 91 batters he faced.
Think about how unreliable Santiago Casilla was last year. Now imagine it 37 times worse. That’s what Dyson did for the Rangers this year. He’s allowed three runs or more in four of his outings this year — more than George Kontos in 2015 and 2016 combined.
This ... probably isn’t going to fix the bullpen.
However, Dyson was solid the three seasons before that, throwing 187⅔ innings with a 2.45 ERA for the Rangers and Marlins. In true Giants fashion, he didn’t strike out a bunch of batters, with a league-average 7.6 K/9, but there was nothing that indicated he would be anything other than a solid reliever this year. There’s a chance -- a chance -- that the Giants are buying low on an arm that still has some life left.
Dyson is arbitration-eligible after this season, and if he performs well, he won’t be a free agent until after the 2020 season. If he really turns his season around, he might be an attractive trade chip at the deadline, although that seems unlikely. This is a flyer, nothing more, on a pitcher the Giants would have liked to acquire in December.
As for the cost, a general rule of thumb is that if there’s a choice between a player to be named later or cash considerations, the prospect isn’t going to be anyone the organization is likely to miss. When the Giants traded Cody Hall to the Diamondbacks for a PTBNL or cash, they scouted all of the potential players available to them and decided they’d rather have the cash.
So while I’m not excited about the growing pains and accidental irradiation of the rest of the bullpen, there is some upside. There is some potential reward, and the risk should be minimal.
And if Dyson is unfixable, hey, better draft pick.
This season really took a turn, didn’t it?
To make room on the active roster, the Giants transferred Madison Bumgarner to the 60-day DL. That is a procedural move, sure, but it’s also a metaphor. Let that be the story of exactly how messed up the 2017 season became.