Baseball Musings
Baseball Musings
July 25, 2005
Trade Giambi

Here's a thought to add to the wild speculation going on about trades right now. Why don't the Yankees trade Jason Giambi? His value may never be higher than it is right now. His hot streak is short enough that we don't know if it's for real, but his approach to hitting right now looks like the Giambi of old. The Padres, Mets and Indians all could use a slugging first baseman and have excess pitching. If the Yankees could get a starter and reliever for the first baseman, would you do the trade? Jeter, A-Rod, Sheffield and Matsui offer plenty of offense for a good pitching staff. The Yankees could afford to play Tino the rest of the way and solve first base next season. It certainly would be a bold move on the Yankees part.

I'm assuming that the Yankees would need to send money (especially to SD and Cleveland) to take care of part of Giambi's future salary.


Posted by David Pinto at 11:27 AM | Trades | TrackBack (0)
Comments

Except that Tino's numbers sucks really bad, especially if you look at his hot streak as a fluke. He's been pretty non-existent recently, even before Giambi caugt fire. Maybe if the Yanks got a good CF they could afford to lose Giambi (and I'm not talking about Winn).

Giambi for Griffey? ;)

Posted by: sabernar at July 25, 2005 11:51 AM

Tino's stepped it up a little lately- what with Sierra going down, but I can't see him doing it consistently.

But David's right- Matsui, Jeter and Sheffield *should* be more than enough for any pitching staff. Although with the way the staff is looking lately, they need to score as many runs as humanly possible.

Posted by: Pete at July 25, 2005 11:58 AM

Giambi is not old, this is no fluke, this is the way he has played his entire career when he is healthy. He's just... back.

Posted by: affont at July 25, 2005 12:16 PM

The guy is due appx. $70m over the next three years (incl. $5m buyout for '09 & $8m of signing bonus). Even if Giambi were certain to hit .900+ OPS over the next three years, the Yanks would not be able to give him away. My guess is that they'd have to agree to pay $30m just to get a big money club like the Mets interested.

Posted by: Jason at July 25, 2005 12:32 PM

i wouldn't trade him. no one will take his salary so it would cost us big $ as well. lets forget about getting a CF(play Bubba and Bernie) and try to package Eric Duncan and some other minor leaguers for some pitching. There is another minor league CF named Thompson that may fit the bill as well.

GO YANKS!

Posted by: david at July 25, 2005 01:28 PM

One option for Yanks, should they trade Giambi, would be to have Bernie play first (splitting time with Tino). I'm sure he could do as good a job as Giambi in the field.

That being said, and I agree that they could move him now, providing they include a lot of $$, I sure hope the Mets don't go down that road.

Posted by: JC at July 25, 2005 01:40 PM

For the others consistently watching Yankees games - has Giambi's fielding also improved recently? Maybe his bat is cloaking my eyes, but it seems his health has affected his fielding too, he's made some decent plays recently.

Posted by: David at July 25, 2005 02:28 PM

No sale. I have to pray the Indians aren't fooled by small sample size.

Posted by: largebill at July 25, 2005 02:40 PM

I'll tell you what, If they traded him for anyone other than oh say Johan Santana or Rich Harden, they'd be making a mistake.

Jeter's offense has been M.I.A lately. And as others have said, with the pitching problems the Yanks have, they need to score as many runs as possible every game.

Plus, nobody is going to take on that contract, unless the Yanks eat a bunch of cash.

Posted by: steve at July 25, 2005 02:52 PM

Who would want him? Who in their right mind that is.

Posted by: emains at July 25, 2005 02:53 PM


I don't see any sense in trading Jason. He's been the Yankees' best offensive player for the last couple of months and appears to have returned to the form that made him one of the most feared hitters in baseball. It's not as if they have Carlos Delgado to replace him with.

Putting Tino there, with his almost non-existent offense, would be a big mistake. You'd essentially be robbing Peter to pay Paul.

And that's not even getting into the issue about his contract.

The biggest thing for the Yankees right now is to get all of their pitchers healthy. Pavano's return should be a boost, and if the Yankees can pick up another starter and decent CFer for something reasonable they should do that. Trading a monster like Giambi will not make them better, IMO.

Posted by: Todd at July 25, 2005 02:59 PM

To trade Giambi, the Yankees would have to take on most of his contract, and they're trying to lose payroll, not pay Giambi to play somewhere else. In that lineup, he doesn't have to hit 40 HR.

As long as he produces, if not at his current rate then at least somewhat above league average, he's worth keeping.

The only real trade bait (that would be good for them) the Yankees have on their major league roster is Sheffield, who they could trade along with minimal cash, but he's not willing to go anywhere.

Trading Cano or Duncan would be counter-intuitive, since the Yanks will want their cheap contracts on their ML roster in a couple of years.

Posted by: Will at July 25, 2005 03:00 PM

I'd love to see the Yankees lose their second-best OPS guy. And Giambi's rapidly closing in on ARod for the top spot, only 35 points behind. Anything that weakens the Yanks offense that severely is fine by me.

Of course, the trade is about as likely as Torre batting third. But I can dream, can't I?

Posted by: Casey Abell at July 25, 2005 04:00 PM

David, I'd say that his defense is improving as well. He'll never win a gold glove, but he's not the liability that he was in the beginning of the season.

Posted by: Jen at July 25, 2005 04:24 PM

I agree with you David, the Yankees are better off with another arm than with another bat. They still have plenty of bats and I think Tino can still hit but has been suffering from not playing regularly and maybe more importantly, hurt. Of course, it depends on Giambi's perceived value by interested teams and what they can or will offer for him.

Also, I love your writing and analysis.

Posted by: Gypsy Soul at July 25, 2005 07:18 PM

Giambi for Zito straight up. The Yanks can't win with just Mussina and the Unit.

Posted by: Tom at July 26, 2005 12:47 AM

You guys that all post trade Giambi are NUTS!!!
Here you have a guy who is okay defensively and on the other side can blast the ball out of the park before you can say "boo". Not to mention winning 3 games for the yanks when they were behind, Plus the highest OBP, and if he keeps going the way he is will be over 300Avg with 30+ hrs and possibly in the range of 80-90 RBI's. If we should get ride of anyone it would be loud mouth Shef, the useless speedy Womack who can't even draw a walk, the batless Posada. In all honesty I like Tino but people lets face it, its not the 90's anymore and Tino isn't what he used to be we might as well kept the cheap Olerud. We should look at growing out farm teams and start bringing them up more and harvesting winners like Cano. I am sure we can find talent in the minor for pitching Example Wang! For this year forget about making any big league pitching trades cause its not going to happen with all these teams in a tight race.

Posted by: john at August 5, 2005 11:50 AM
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