Giants add Kris Bryant and Tony Watson

    The San Francisco Giants had to have seen the moves that the Los Angeles Dodgers had made in acquiring Max Scherzer and Trea Turner and felt they had to do something to level the playing field.

San Francisco's three-game lead didn't feel secure enough to stand pat and the Giants grabbed a huge bat for their lineup along with a familiar arm for their bullpen and will now hope that they have enough muscle to hold off the West Coast version of Steinbrenner U.

Kris Bryant's power bat will serve the Giants' needs perfectly into a lineup that has been productive even without names that would only be recognizable by the hardest of minor league followers, but where the intrigue with Bryant begins goes beyond the postseason run.

Bryant is a free agent at the end of the season, but Bryant is from Las Vegas (the Bay Area is the closest MLB market to Vegas) and the Giants may have more money to spend in next years free-agent market, so this not only helps the stretch run for the Giants, but it also gives Bryant and the Giants a chance to kick the tires and see if the player, organization, and ballpark are a good fit for one another.

Bryant was hitting .265 with 18 homers with 51 RBI for the rebuilding Cubs and had problems with the organization going back to his rookie season over the team manipulating his service time for arbitration eligibility, so he was almost certainly not going to return to Wrigley Field.

The righthanded hitting Bryant would seem to be a perfect fit for a Giants team that lost Evan Longoria to a shoulder sprain in early June and have been running out various options to third base since then, but the Giants could also use Bryant at first until Brandon Belt returns from his injury (Belt is on a rehab assignment as of this writing) or even the outfield in a possible scenario that includes Belt and Longoria.

The cost was not cheap as toolsy outfielder Alexander Canario was so highly prized by the Giants that the team placed him on the 40 man roster despite Canario only playing 49 games for the now-defunct short-season Salem-Keizer Volcanoes in 2019, due to fear that a crummy team could take him and stash him away from the Rule V draft.

Canario was hitting .235 with nine homers for Low A San Jose this season with fifteen steals, but at 21 is highly thought of as a prospect.

San Francisco also included pitcher Caleb Killian as the second player in the trade and Killian has been the breakout pitching prospect for the Giants this season at two different levels.

Killian was drafted in the ninth round from Texas Tech in 2019 and has been excellent for High A Eugene (3-0 1.25 ERA 32 strikeouts in four starts) and AA Richmond (3-2 2.43 ERA 64 strikeouts in eleven starts).

Killian was considered as a possibility for the Giants rotation next season, so he is certainly a prospect that the Giants hate to lose.

One can never have too many arms for the bullpen and the Giants brought back an arm from the past as they obtained lefthander Tony Watson from the Anaheim Angels.

Watson was 3-3 and 4.64 ERA in 36 appearances for the Angels and could fill into the lefty specialist role in the late innings.

San Francisco sent three minor league pitchers to the Angels- Sam Selman, Jose Marte, and Ivan Armstrong.

The thirty-year-old Selman appeared in seven games for the Giants (0-0 4.50 ERA) but has spent most of the season with AAA Sacramento (1-0 1 save and 4.03 ERA)

Marte spent most of the season with AA Richmond ( 2-0 3.57 ERA 36 strikeouts in 22 innings) in their bullpen and has been reported to have been clocked near 100 MPH at times this season.

At twenty-five, Marte is a bit old for the level, but those types of arms from the bullpen will receive many opportunities to show a power arm.

Armstrong is the most interesting prospect to me at 21 with low A San Jose, the 6'5 righthander was 4-1 with a 1.88 ERA in twenty appearances.

The San Francisco Giants are a team that is exceeding expectations, but in a division with two free-spending teams in Los Angeles and San Diego, the Giants needed to do something to try to upgrade and at least make those teams deadline deals a wash in the overall picture.

Players like Kris Bryant come at a high price, even as a rental, but the Giants needed to do something to show that the effort is there to make a run in the homestretch.

Next writing will look at the various deals by the Cleveland IndiGuardians and whatever their deals brought in or rather what the hell is going on in Cleveland? 

Giants sign Tony Watson

 Credit: Charles LeClaire-USA TODAY Sports

The San Francisco Giants still needed to upgrade their bullpen, but they were dancing along the line of the luxury tax that the team has been trying to avoid all during the off-season so you could wonder just what the team planned on doing other than some low-risk reclamation projects on a  minor league contract to attempt to grab lightning in a bottle.

The Giants have either pulled a rabbit out of a hat, decided that they weren't going to worry about paying the tax or have a move in mind to save some money, but no matter how things turn out of the options above, the signing of left-handed reliever Tony Watson comes as a surprise.
The need for a southpaw from the pen was huge as the team lacked a proven lefty to start the season as Will Smith is expected to miss the few month or two as the only proven choice for the top lefthander's position and with so little money to spend, the Giants didn't seem to be in a situation to improve the roster.
The acquisition of Watson bumps younger lefties Josh Osich and Steven Okert each down a notch in the bullpen and might mean an Osich vs Okert battle for the left-handed long man roster spot with the other returning to AAA Sacramento.

The 32 (Turns 33 in May) year old Watson had spent his entire career in Pittsburgh as the top lefthander out of the Pittsburgh pen before moving into the role of the closer in 2016 after the Nationals traded for the then-closer for the Pirates in Mark Melancon.
Watson pitched well in 47 games with Pittsburgh (10 saves), but was moved out of the closer's role in favor of a harder throwing lefthander in Felipe Rivero before finishing the year in Los Angeles after being traded at the deadline with a strong  2.66 ERA in 24 Dodger appearances.
Watson will more than likely be the setup man and gives the Giants a viable choice as a closer in the event that Mark Melancon's injuries keep him from regaining his past form.
Watson keeps the ball down and usually employs a sinker and slider as his go-to pitches with a changeup occasionally worked into the mix as well.

The addition of Tony Watson fills a void on the roster and should be a bullpen upgrade for now.
The team hasn't officially announced the deal, but it is reported to be a multiple year agreement and it'll be interesting to see the financial terms and then make some educated guesses on what happens next.
When you consider the extremely cold market for most free agents with camps for pitchers and catchers beginning to open, I am more interested in usual in seeing just how much money Watson's deal is worth and did he move quickly before the market really dipped as spring training gave teams more and more leverage over the remaining free agents?

Hopefully, I'll be back later this afternoon with a review of last night's vacant WBO lightweight title fight between Ray Beltran vs Paulus Moses, but if not I'll be around later tonight with more from the boxing weekend.

Pirates trade Tony Watson to Dodgers

The Pirates made a move at the trading deadline as the Pirates traded long time reliever Tony Watson to the Los Angeles Dodgers in exchange for two minor leaguers.

The 32 year old Watson had moved up the ladder through his seven years in Pittsburgh as he evolved from long man to LOOGY to setup man and at the beginning of this season-closer,which turned out to be a role that he struggled with and was removed from in June.
Watson will likely be used in a setup relief role as a Dodger and will be a compliment to the closer Kenley Jansen there.
Watson still throws hard and could have success with the team with the best current record in baseball..

Tony Watson was the last of a bunch of prospects that ranged back to the beginning of 2007-when I was in my first few years of autographing,still learning the ropes of the hobby and the first year of this blog.
The blog has changed through the years and back then it was prospect heavy.
I still enjoy prospects,but I've changed a little bit because I've grown tired of the large cost of prospect books (Baseball America is now to the point of after shipping and taxes of being over forty dollars!)
Watson and Jared Hughes (Released at the end of last season,now with the Brewers) were the last (other than Andrew McCutchen) of that initial Pirates prospect series to remain as a Pirate and I always enjoyed seeing how they managed to perform in their big league career.
It's fun to look back at those posts and see who I was right about and who I was wrong on as well....

The Pirates are bringing in two players from the Dodgers system that were at Low A Great Lakes,and were assigned to Low A West Virginia for the Pirates.
6'6 Oneil Cruz is playing shortstop currently,but appears to be headed to third base considering his frame.
Cruz hit .240 as a Loon with eight homers,so he shows power potential,but the bad news is that there is a LOT of swinging and missing with 110 strikeouts in 89 games.
Cruz did receive a near million dollar bonus from the Dominican Republic and considering his age (19) and the Dodgers aggressive handling of him (Low A was his first year playing in the United States),he still has potential..

Angel German is reported to be a hard thrower (mid 90's) and posted a 1.91 ERA for Great Lakes,which looks sharp.
German is 21,which isn't old for the level and throws strikes (37 strikeouts to 14 walks),but I always wonder when pitchers are already full time relievers in low A.
The normal handling of pitching prospects is to try them as starters for as long as you can before moving to the bullpen.
Guzman's arm is intriguing,but there has to be a reason...

Back later with more!