Baseball '09, Volume X: The Trade

Trades. The shifting of a reality. One day, a player is not playing for you; the next day, he is, and the narrative is changed.

It isn't to say that the future is changed; once a trade is made, a potential future without the player no longer matters, no longer exists, alternative history novelists and quantum mechanics be damned.

I can't say that with a straight-face; of course the other futures still matter. Sci-fi alt-histories are sweet.

There is a little shock of excitement to see the trade rumors begin to fly, to see which ones come true and which do not pan out. I can't possibly explain why this appeals, except to refer to the larger scope of the appeal of baseball, the strategies of team-building or the quest for instant success, the allocation and expenditure of resources, depending on whether your goals are short- or long-term. Economists might find much to love in this.

And on a more visceral level, when your team makes a big change, you can't help but think happy thoughts and that surely the new guy will be the next coming of Will Clark, Willie Mays, and Christy Mathewson all rolled into one. Unless your team is Oakland, and then you think Well, there goes Matt Holliday. Here come three more prospects. Guess we'll wait until 2011 again.

The Giants needed some sort of momentum shift today. Coming off the All-Star break, we went 3-7 and fell two games behind the Rockies in the wild card race, losing 2 of 3 in Colorado over the weekend.

Today it was announced the Giants traded minor league pitcher Scott Barnes for Ryan Garko, a power-hitting first baseman from the Indians who played his college ball in Stanford. He will play his first game for the Giants tomorrow night, and it just so happens I have club level tickets, so stay tuned for a report.

I don't know much about Garko, but I like what I hear. Young, good hitter, the possibility of signing him to a longer term contract--I would hate for him to be a half-year rental, because I don't think we are quite close enough to World Series caliber to make a deal for a hired gun, as it were. Besides, look at how Holliday the hired gun worked out for Oakland; he failed to clean up that town so was shipped out into the sunset.

The interesting thing is that we have a prospect, Jesus Guzman, tearing up the minor leagues with his bat. Apparently we decided a guy named Jesus was not our savior for this season. Garko is older, more polished, apparently better defensively.

Plus, everyone knows Buster Posey is going to be our savior next year, and it would be selfish to expect more than two saviors on one team, Tim Lincecum being another messianic figure.

In any case, this trade either gives us the time to develop Travis Ishikawa or Jesus Guzman further in the protective shadow of Ryan Garko--assuming he proves capable of casting said shadow--or possibly using Guzman as trade bait for further help, possibly in the pitching rotation that has shown vulnerability behind Lincecum and Matt Cain, our two all-conquering All-Stars. Ishikawa would not be trade bait; I could see Guzman being attractive to teams looking for hitting.

But more importantly, we are buyers, not sellers, before the July 31st trade deadline. That in itself is exciting, because the Giants are trying to improve. That feels like personal validation.

This is the time to decide which way the team and the season go. Seriously, at this point, things could go either way; we could challenge for a playoff spot, or we could fade. There have been great memories so far, and more hope and expectation than I predicted before the season.

I'm looking forward to watching the rest of the narrative.