Zaidi explains why Giants never came close to trading Snell originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO — The Giants might know better than anyone how dominant Yusei Kikuchi can be when he’s on his game. The left-hander struck out 13 when the Toronto Blue Jays visited Oracle Park earlier this month.
When Kikuchi was traded to the Houston Astros on Monday night, the industry was stunned by the return for the Blue Jays, who got two young position players and a young starter in return. The consensus over the last couple of days was that sellers did quite well, led by the Miami Marlins, who dealt a mid-rotation lefty to the Baltimore Orioles for two members of their deep stable of young hitters.
As the returns started leaking out, the Giants seemed well-positioned to take advantage of Blake Snell’s dominance over his last four starts. Snell was the best pitcher potentially available and the Giants are two games under .500, but they never got close to dealing the reigning Cy Young Award winner.
“I think the conversations we had with teams, it was kind of going to be that two-, three-, four-player package with nobody that we would say, ‘Hey, this guy is going to be our third baseman or shortstop of the future without question,’ ” president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said on the latest “Giants Talk.” “Some nice players, and you never know, the more shots you have with young players, the more chances somebody kind of skyrockets through the system and becomes that guy.
“But it was going to be a package of possibilities and not something where you say, ‘Hey, we’re locked in with this guy for the next six years.’ That’s where we never really got close to anything.”
The Giants fielded plenty of calls and made some of their own. For as much as Zaidi believes this is the best rotation in baseball, he knew there also was an opportunity to add a big-time prospect to Patrick Bailey, Heliot Ramos, Tyler Fitzgerald, Jung Hoo Lee and others. But nobody met the price and forced the Giants to think about whether they wanted to put up the white flag.
The Giants talked to the Baltimore Orioles, New York Yankees, San Diego Padres and others, per sources, but were met by roadblocks. Several of Baltimore’s top prospects were off-limits, and the Padres refused to discuss their top two prospects, teenagers Ethan Salas and Leodalis De Vries. The Astros seemed like a good fit before they made the Kikuchi trade, but they had no interest in dealing with Snell’s…