Don't Trade The Cutch

It's not just because I'd be crushed if the San Francisco Giants traded Andrew McCutchen before I had a chance to see him play in a Giants uniform.  I'm against trading him in August (as the depressing consensus seems to say the Giants might like to) for non-personal reasons as well.

Cutch has just been moved to leadoff, and he seems to be thriving there.  He brings stability to a lineup that needs it, with all the injuries this year, and all the experiments based on performance.  Though they seem to lack the starting pitching to go far (see below), the Giants could make some noise the rest of this season with this lineup. San Francisco is hungry for that.

The other reason goes to credibility.  If the Giants want to acquire star players, they have to treat them well when they move out there.  Cutch has been uprooted from his hometown of Pittsburgh.  Based on his past performance and status, he deserves at least a full season in San Francisco.  But also, not giving him at least that long might make the Giants' organization look bad to prospective stars.  The Giants apparently missed out on free agents because they thought the team wasn't ready to contend.  If it also gives the impression of treating players like meat, stars are going to be even more leery of coming to the Bay.

The Giants return home after their first winning road trip since June.  The last part of the trip was notable for two players the Giants traded for this year with high and so far unfulfilled hopes.  Andrew McCutchen had a five hit game, including a homer, though unfortunately in a lost cause.  But he hit and got on base in other games as well.  Evan Longoria hit two home runs, including a solo shot that won the key game of the trip, the final game in Arizona that meant a split in that series and a 4-2 trip.  So maybe they've turned a corner.

The young players continue to perform well, and the combination should make for some good baseball and exciting games at home.  But their season is likely to founder on what once was their strongest feature: starting pitching.  They had three veteran starters at the beginning of the season, and lost all three to injury.  Now one of them--Cueto--is out for the year, and the other probably is.  Madison Bumgarner is still a great pitcher, but a contender needs more than one veteran star starter.

The Giants have several good young starters, but as the games in Arizona suggested, they haven't yet developed quite enough to carry a team that doesn't score many runs.  Still, there is a sudden youth movement on the Giants, which combined with the established stars, the younger veterans (like Kelby) and the new veterans (Cutch and Longoria) could make for unpredictable brilliance in any given game.