When a Bryce Eldridge trade would make sense for the Giants, and why it isn't now

The Yankees won the American League pennant last season, and the Padres have Michael King for one more season. That’s an extremely oversimplified way to describe the Juan Soto trade — the Padres also have Dylan Cease for one more season, and they traded s0me of the Soto return for him — but it’s not incorrect. The Padres have been around for 56 years, and they’ve won as many World Series games in franchise history as the Yankees did last season. We’ll see what King and Cease do for the Padres this season, but the Yankees have pulled ahead in trade return.

Mookie Betts will almost certainly be wearing a Dodgers hat on his Hall of Fame plaque. The Dodgers traded young players and prospects for him, that’s why they’ll get to celebrate yet another Hall of Famer. The Giants probably could have blown the Dodgers out of the water at the time of the deal by offering up Marco Luciano and Joey Bart, maybe with Mike Yastrzemski added to make for snappier headlines in Boston.

Flags fly forever. Hall of Famers wear bronze hats forever. The lesson is that you should always trade your prospects. Always.

Except, hold on, you can do this sort of thing in reverse. Luis Castillo would sure look outstanding in the Giants rotation next season. Bryan Reynolds would look good in the lineup. And, uh, Joey Bart would also look good in the lineup every so often. The lesson is that you should never trade your prospects. Never.

It would appear as if there’s some nuance here, and it’s relevant because our own Andrew Baggarly reported that the Giants weren’t willing to trade their top prospect, Bryce Eldridge, in potential deals for Garrett Crochet or Kyle Tucker. The Giants’ refusal to include him wasn’t a surprise, but it’s a good excuse to talk about when it makes sense to trade a can-miss-but-probably-won’t prospect.

We’ll break it down into different scenarios.

Scenario 1: Of course you trade the prospect. Don’t be a fool

The rarest scenario of them all. This is where a team has a young player on a Hall of Fame path, and he’s under contract for another couple seasons, at least, but they’re still looking to trade him. When the Nationals traded Juan Soto away, he was under contract for the next two-and-a-half seasons. Every team should have considered him. Every team that was even pretending to compete should have made an offer for him, just in case.

Yes, you trade an Eldridge-type prospect for that kind of player, and you don’t look back. MacKenzie Gore made 32 starts for the Nationals last season, and he’s already a league-average starter with the potential for more. C.J. Abrams made the All-Star Game as the Nationals’ starting shortstop last season, and James Wood might end up being the best player the Padres gave up. Doesn’t matter. They had a Hall of Famer under team control two-and-a-half years (ultimately trading away the final year of that control), enjoying not only his production, but the opportunity to showcase the city, the franchise and the clubhouse culture.

Years ago, I sifted through the prospects mentioned when the Marlins were looking to trade a 25-year-old Miguel Cabrera. The only prospects that would have helped the Marlins “win” the trade were Clayton Kershaw and Matt Kemp, and the Dodgers are definitely glad they didn’t give them up. But if they had, their consolation prize would have been … a 25-year-old Miguel Cabrera. He won two MVPs with the Tigers, and he even got to watch pitches for them in the World Series. The Dodgers would have given up the best pitcher in franchise history, but they would have had one of the best hitters in franchise history.

Always trade for the Hall of Famers in their mid-20s. It’s the most obvious baseball truism there is.

Scenario 2: You probably trade the prospect

The timing is perfect. The fit is perfect. The player might or might not be a future Hall of Famer, but they’re definitely on a short list of favorites to win the MVP or Cy Young next season. Maybe you’ll lock them up, and maybe you won’t, but read those first two sentences again.

When the Red Sox wanted Chris Sale, he was one of the best pitchers in baseball, and they were contending. He would make fewer than 125 starts for them over seven seasons, but the timing and fit were perfect for the 2017 Red Sox. They’d eventually win a World Series with his help.

The White Sox got Yoán Moncada, who was one of the best prospects traded by any team over the last two decades. If they still want him, he’s currently a free agent. Even if he turned into a Hall of Famer, though, the Red Sox wouldn’t have regretted the deal much. Their roster was World Series-caliber without Sale, and it was even better with him. The timing was perfect. The fit was perfect.

Scenario 3: It’s close. It’s very, very close

The timing is slightly imperfect. The fit is slightly imperfect. You’re leaning no, but you’re strongly considering the trade. There’s just one nagging concern you have.

The nagging concern might be the contract status of the star you’re trying to acquire. He might be a free agent after the season is over, which means a potential six years of contributions are exchanged for six months of contributions. The star might be an imperfect fit for the roster, clubhouse or ballpark. You might have to displace a solid player already doing just fine at a position. The top prospect the other team is asking for might be major-league ready at a position that’s wide open. Or maybe your team has a chance to contend, but they’re not exactly odds-on favorites.

Before the Dodgers traded for Betts, they had a reputation for hugging their prospects a little too closely. That’s because they would always have one nagging concern about the players dangled in front of them. They didn’t want to give up a chance at the next great homegrown core for anyone other than the perfect fit, who turned out to be Betts.

(They also traded Yordan Alvarez for Josh Fields, so pobody’s nerfect. That might have been the best trade Farhan Zaidi ever made for the Giants.)

Scenario 4: Probably not

You don’t have one nagging concern. You have two. Or three. Maybe even more. And it makes it easy to turn down the offer.

This is where the Giants were with Kyle Tucker in a possible deal involving Eldridge. Tucker had just one more season left on his contract. He was a left-handed hitter who wasn’t guaranteed to thrive at Oracle Park. The Giants roster wasn’t just one All-Star away from being an obvious championship contender. While it’s a stretch to say that Eldridge is major-league ready, there isn’t a long-term fixture in his way when he is.

There are always reasons why a can’t-miss prospect can miss, so keep in mind that Eldridge also comes with concerns, from his own left-handedness to the relative rarity of ultra-tall hitters with long major-league careers, and he plays a position where an average bat won’t be enough. He’s still a fantastic prospect, though, and when the concerns started stacking up for Tucker, it wasn’t a complicated decision.

Scenario 5: Nope

This is when teams are trading decidedly imperfect players and asking for the prospect. Garrett Crochet has a Cy Young arm, but he also has a lengthy injury history. He made 32 starts last season, but he didn’t pitch into the fifth inning of any of them after June 30. That was by design, but it’s still a concern for a team looking to ride a wagon train of horses to the World Series.

These conversations don’t go very far. Yes, the Giants might have been able to get more value for Bart if they considered the imperfect fits every offseason, but they also could have done a trade that sent Kyle Harrison away for Jonathan India or Eloy Jiménez, which would have made for an even trickier offseason than the current one. Sometimes the birds in the bush are laying eggs. And sometimes they’re delicious pheasants, ready to be shot and star in a decadent, gourmet meal. Not sure exactly what’s what in those metaphors, and I should stop writing these articles before lunch, but you get the idea.

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There are a few players around the league you would trade Eldridge for. There are thousands and thousands of players you would not. Listen with open ears. Reject with an untroubled mind. It was the obvious decision for the Giants this time, even if it doesn’t have to be the next time.

(Top photo of Eldridge: Lachlan Cunningham / Getty Images)