Giants Stay Quiet at the Deadline

As many expected, the Giants stayed very quiet during the final hours of the non-waiver trade deadline Thursday. In fact, most of baseball was pretty quiet outside of the Ken Griffey deal and Manny Ramirez getting shipped to LA. I am a little disappointed the Giants couldn't unload Randy Winn and get something halfway decent in return, but not at all surprised. Winn seemed like the one logical piece the Giants have that could have made sense for a team like the Mets. As far as trade targets, there was an article out of the San Jose Mercury yesterday that confirmed that the Giants and Rangers were discussing a potential Hank Blalock deal as the Giants had scouts in Texas watching him over the last week. However, Blalock was just placed on the DL after getting injured a few days ago, which killed any potential trade in the works. The name that was mentioned regarding who the Rangers were targeting from the Giants was Jonathon Sanchez. If that was the case, I'm glad no deal was made. Although he has struggled in July, Sanchez has busted out this season and finally shown some of that potential he has. Though there wasn't any deals made Thursday, that doesn't mean the Giants still won't unload a few veterans before the August 31'st non-waiver deadline. If Winn and maybe Omar Vizquel or Dave Roberts can heat up over the next few weeks and some team suffers and injury or gets desperate, the Giants may still be able to clean some house, but I'm not expecting it.

Even though Ray Durham was the only veteran dealt before Thursday's deadline, the Giants need to stick to the plan of playing the younger players more and more over the last 2 months of the season. Nate Schierholtz is once again dominating in Fresno (.314 avg, 15 hr, 65 rbi, .931 OPS in 88 games) and he really needs to be playing everyday in the big leagues. If the Giants need to turn Winn into a part time player at this point, so be it, but Schierholtz needs to play. The Giants offense has gone stone cold over the last couple weeks. They haven't even scored a run in the last 23 innings which is nearly 3 full games without a run. Add that with the fact that they're 7-16 since June 30th, and I'd say it's time to mix things up a little. I do realize calling up Schierholtz and playing him and Fred Lewis over Dave Roberts and Randy Winn would be sitting 14 million dollars on the bench, but Lewis and Schierholtz are the better options for this team at this point. I like Winn, and I expect him to be back next season and play a big role with this team, but Schierholtz is more than ready, and the Giants need to find a way to give him a legit look this year.