Weekend BP, 6/28-6/30

Good morning, McCoven!

We are entering the most depressing time of the year for a team in the midst of a will they-won’t they commitment to rebuilding. The time where literally the only thing of note about the team is who will be leaving. If you do a Google news search for the Giants this weekend, I guarantee that the only thing you will find (aside from the Friends parody video) are articles dissecting all of our favorite players and talking about why teams should or shouldn’t take them from us.

I get the logical reasoning behind why the good players should be traded, I know how rebuilds work. I would even go so far as to argue that most people who don’t like trades are also well aware of why they are necessary, but it doesn’t make it any more fun to have the only players who made the team bearable to watch suddenly be gone. And I get that the goal is to try to build a better team in the future, but it still feels like other teams will gladly pay us Tuesday for a Bumgarner today.

For some, that is exciting. Getting new players, and all that. Forbes even lists it as one of the reasons why now is a good time to become a new Giants fan. But for others, it feels like we’re about to say goodbye to not only some old friends who’ve been with us through the height of the San Francisco years, but to an era. Even if the era of them being playoff competitors is already technically over.

As several of you were discussing the other day, if Madison Bumgarner gets traded, it will be the end of a home-grown ace era that started nearly 15 years ago with the rookie season of Matt Cain, flew dangerously close to the sun with Tim Lincecum, and had one of the most iconic playoff performances we may ever see with Bumgarner. And that being over is kind of depressing to a lot of people.

Or maybe you have optimism for the rebuild, and it gives you hope to see new blood on the team. But coming from a background of sports fandoms with life-long (for me) championship droughts before this decade, followed by a decade of abundance, I don’t take it for granted that I’ll ever see another one. Then again, I’m a pessimist now, so your mileage may vary.

Now that I’ve been depressing enough for an entire weekend, I’d like to congratulate Hunter Pence on being voted the AL All Star Team’s starting DH. And though it goes against my better judgment to be happy for any DH on any team ever, I am extraordinarily happy for Hunter, his family and all of his many fans. What a remarkable journey he’s had since last year. I’m so proud of him.

I hope you all have a good weekend! You are free to either stay here, or hop back and forth between the game threads and recaps, but this will be the BP for the weekend.