What deadline deals would you rather the Giants had made instead?

Since the trade deadline passed, the question I’ve been asked the most is “Why didn’t the Giants trade Madison Bumgarner?” The second-most asked question posed to me has been “Why did they hold on to Will Smith?” There haven’t been any reports from beat writers or national writers indicating just exactly what the Giants were offered for either player, so my default answer has been, “They didn’t get the right deal.”

In Bumgarner’s case, I’m basing that answer on the idea that he has more value to the Giants as a Giant than as a trade chip. Smith would seem to have more value as a trade piece than a Giant, on the other hand, and his presence on the roster would indicate more that this was a buyer’s market and not the seller’s market we had presumed a month ago.

Still, nobody’s perfect and I’m often wrong and there are a lot of really smart people out there who are far more entrenched in analytics and understanding that the relationship between surplus value, on-field success, and fan revenue / interest is completely irrelevant and should be completely ignored in favor of a cold calculus that sees baseball players as nothing more than discrete event generators.

While plenty of fans are happy or even relieved by the modest moves the Giants made — which mostly acknowledged the need to sell in order to reload while still adding a piece for 2019 just in case the run continues — there are a great number who are upset that the Giants didn’t trade every player on the roster, even if it meant getting back nothing of value for this year or beyond.

We should be thrilled that Mark Melancon waived his no trade clause and had his entire contract picked up by the Braves, but I know there are people out there who wanted the Giants to do that with every player under contract. So, here’s an open forum for the community to weigh in and really point out the front office’s fatal errors in judgment.

After the last few days of reading comments and national writer articles, I’m actually very curious to know what a responsible, rebuild-driven trade deadline by the Giants should have looked like. What’s the lowest values people would’ve accepted for the likes of Bumgarner, Jeff Samardzija Will Smith, Tony Watson, Reyes Moronta, Brandon Belt, Brandon Crawford, Buster Posey, Evan Longoria, Kevin Pillar, Pablo Sandoval, Joe Panik, and Stephen Vogt?

What was your dream trade deadline for the Giants?