Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle is reporting there’s trade interest in Camilo Doval. Meaningless or meaningful?
This morning, Susan Slusser posted an interesting tidbit to Twitter/X:
There are a few teams expressing interest in Camilo Doval, I’m told. The talent remains undeniable and a few teams would consider him for closer role, which he lost to Ryan Walker last year.
— Susan Slusser (@susanslusser) November 5, 2024
If a few teams are “expressing interest” in the erstwhile closer of the San Francisco Giants, does that mean that the team is discussing the possibility of trading him away?
On the one hand, I’m surprised that any team would find value in a player who needed to be demoted to get his head on straight the year after being an All-Star. 27-year old head-case relievers are pretty common throughout baseball history, but in this suffocatingly risk averse era we’re in it seems shocking that any team would want to roll the dice.
On the other hand, maybe the Giants are ready to move on, in which case they’re willing to move him for a meager-seeming return. Zack Minasian as the new GM has engineered trades like this before and so here’s a situation where his pro scouting expertise might be really beneficial for a deal like this. And, of course, it’s not like the Giants haven’t pulled off whopper trades before. The Darin Ruf deal stands out. The Giants right now enjoy a financial advantage over most of the teams in the sport, too, thanks to the collapse of the cable model that provided every team with $40+ million annually, so, the return wouldn’t necessarily be in the Donnie Walton realm.
And, of course, the reason this news item hit social media is because the General Manager meetings are happening right now in San Antonio. Yesterday, John Shea and Shayna Rubin wrote up a Buster Posey arrival story for the Chronicle that explored his feelings about his first offseason as an exec but also what he was looking for in terms of player acquisitions.
Pitching and defense are key, he emphasized. So is makeup.
“Makeup is important,” Posey said. “I want to try to target people who have intangibles that I saw throughout my career with certain players, that I think help create a balanced roster and a winning roster. So you’ve got a lot of work to do to learn free agents, not only what their skillset is as baseball players but what type of person they are as well.”
I am in no way casting aspersions about Camilo Doval’s character. I don’t know anything about the guy other than that he’s done whatever the team has asked and, possibly, done his best. It’s only that it seems to me one of the key reporters on the Giants beat going out of her way to make mention of this one specific player whose struggles are apparent to anyone who watched a Giants game this season might have reasons for mentioning other teams’ interest beyond “Hmm, here’s something I heard.”
Something to keep an eye on for sure. In theory, Doval is one of the Giants’ best trade chips. It’s hard to ignore a 100 mph cutter. He is a Super-2 player, meaning teams will have 4 years of control left and, hey, if they can fix him, they’ve (potentially) got themselves a franchise-altering closer. What the Giants get out of it is the potential to stockpile some talent or put themselves in the middle of a meaningful three-team deal or simply trade an arm for a bat.