12:47pm: Jackson may never even play for the Rangers, per Gerry Fraley of the Dallas Morning News. General manager Jon Daniels told the outfielder “to hold off on reporting,” Fraley writes. It seems they’ll try to trade him.
12:05pm: The Rangers have acquired outfielder Austin Jackson, reliever Cory Gearrin and right-hander Jason Bahr from the Giants in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations, according to Texas’ executive vice president of communications, John Blake. To clear room on their 40-man roster, the Rangers moved relievers Matt Bush and Tony Barnette to the 60-day disabled list. Meanwhile, the Giants will select both outfielder Steven Duggar and righty Ray Black from Triple-A, John Shea of the San Francisco Chronicle tweets.
This trade amounts to a cost-cutting move for the Giants, who were narrowly under the $197MM competitive-balance tax threshold entering Sunday. Now, with the Rangers taking on the salaries of both Jackson and Gearrin (per Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic), the Giants are seemingly in better position to make some moves around the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline as they try to hang in the NL West race.
San Francisco added Jackson on a two-year, $6MM free-agent contract last winter on the heels of a season in which the veteran was a key role player for the Indians. The 31-year-old Jackson has gone backward this season, though, as he took 165 plate appearances with the Giants and hit just .242/.309/.295 with no home runs, 14 unintentional walks and 59 strikeouts. He’ll now attempt to revive his season in his native Texas.
The Giants tried to get rid of Gearrin via outright waivers last month, but no one claimed him. The 32-year-old’s on an affordable $1.675MM salary in his penultimate season of team control, though he has seen his ERA increase from 1.99 in 2017 to 4.20 in 2018. Overall this year, Gearrin has tossed 30 innings and managed 9.3 K/9 against 3.9 BB/9.
Along with helping the Giants get out from under the salaries of Jackson and Gearrin, the out-of-contention Rangers also added Bahr – who ranked as San Francisco’s 27th-best prospect at MLB.com. Bahr, 23, joined the Giants just last year as a fifth-round pick. He has since pitched solely at the Single-A level, including 84 2/3 innings of 2.55 ERA ball this season.
With the Jackson experiment having failed for the Giants, they’ll introduce the well-regarded Duggar to their outfield mix. The 24-year-old Duggar, a 2015 third-round pick and MLB.com’s third-ranked Giants prospect, owns a .272/.354/.421 line in 356 Triple-A plate appearances this season. He’ll join a San Francisco outfield that hasn’t gotten average or better offensive production from anyone but Andrew McCutchen, Gorkys Hernandez and Austin Slater this year.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
What’s the motive from the Giants standpoint? More moves to come maybe?
It must be cash not the PTBNL. Trying to clear some payroll space to make a deadline move.
Get rid of dead roster spots
Lol pretty sure they improve with this trade. Jackson and Gearrin both have minus WAR and they’re atrocious. If nothing else Duggar has gold glove defense and some speed. And ray black has strikeout numbers that are off of the charts and throws a 100 basically every pitch. Giants get rid of two bad players, free up salary space, and get an infusion of young talent. Jackson and Gearrin get fresh starts and the rangers get a nice prospect. Win win for everyone involved.
Duggar + Black >>>> Jackson + Gearrin
You act like the Rangers traded Duggar and Black. The Giants got a PTBNL. It won’t be anything special.
“….. hold off on reporting,”
—————-
What an utter joke the MBA / Analytic front offices have made MLB.
Talk about being treated like cattle. The players have no idea what team they will be playing on from one day to the next…..or in what city. The majority of players are interchangeable. The FO’s are like stock market day traders – going long one day, short the next; playing puts, calls, covered options. etc. It’s impossible for fans to follow this mess. And then there are the daily injuries……
Fantasy League for real.
huh?
It’s been like this forever bud. Social media just makes it more noticeable now for the fans. In Jan. 2011 the Angels trades Mike Napoli to the Blue Jays. The Blue Jays GM, AA, never even contacted Napoli.
Lmao you just had a melt down over analytics because the Rangers GM told a crappy player not to report.
I seriously LOL’d at this, so I have to assume this was sarcasm, if not I might laugh more
Yeah, it’s not like the players agreed to any of this!!!
Austin Jackson? Is that you?
I was actually thinking maybe Austin Jackson’s father was possibly named Samual. Hey .. Samuel Jackson.
Austin, “Do you know what they call a Quarter Pounder with cheese in Texas?” “It doesn’t matter, cause you ain’t going there!”
Dude you high or somethin?? This is normal news and your freakin
For $6 mill they can treat me like cattle all they want. If you are serious these guys went into this knowing what they were going into. It’s not like it is a surprise to them.
Exactly. And this is nothing new.
Cliff Lee, in 2009-10 played for FOUR TEAMS, traded from the Indians to the Phillies at the deadline, traded to the Mariners in the offseason, then to the Rangers again at the deadline. And this is when he was among the top pitchers in the game.
In 1998 Mike Piazza, who had spent more than 6 seasons with the Dodgers, was traded to the Marlins in July– where he played just 5 games before being shipped to the Mets, whose cap he now wears in Cooperstown.
Terry Mullholand was traded 6 times during his career, as were Edwin Jackson, Mike Morgan, and Octavio Dotel; Ricky Henderson four times.
And it’s also not limited to baseball. Over in the NBA, Luke Ridnour was traded four times IN A WEEK. In 2014 Sam Gagner of the Edmonton Oilers was traded TWICE IN 90 MINUTES.
This is just the nature of playing professional sports.
Reduce payroll for a trade. giants are way over tax luxury so good move to get rid of payroll rangers pick up Jason Bahr to take on Giants payroll.
They weren’t over the tax at all before this deal.
Actually they were over the tax line at $203 million this year not under. If you added up the bonuses they will be paying out this year.
Evans said they were below last by a couple million week
None of us here knows exactly what the bottom line is. The CBA has a convoluted formula for determining the luxury tax. All you have to do
is look at BB Ref, Sportrac, ESPN, Baseball Prospectus, etc. to see they all have different figures for the Giant’s payroll.
Bonuses are prorated over the length of the contract, and incentives aren’t included. So while the payroll might look to be over $200MM, the actual figure might be less.
This move allows them to take on a bigger salary instead of just standing pat at the deadline.
why
Money savings to get away from the tax line. Duggar might be ready or maybe blanco. Jackson was pretty bad gearrin was spotty
i meant why are the Rangers trading FOR veterans?
Oh that’s what you meant, can’t solve that one lol. Giving prospects more time?
They have a slight gap in the outfield. They could use a bench guy and for only 3 million, they get two low level prospects for simply taking on his contract. The Rangers aren’t anywhere near the threshold and after this year they are going to be even further under it.
It looks like the rangers are buying the pitching prospect Bahr here. Rangers will probably be selling off relievers at the deadline so Gearrin may make a little bit of sense as filler.
They get one prospect but yea.
They got a solid prospect out of it.
So much for that possible Willie Calhoun call up
Willie Calhoun is not being blocked by Austin Jackson.
This is the giantsshedding payroll so that they can make a big splash at the deadline if I were all other NL teams I would be very scared if the Giants made it to the playoffs
Why?
That’s also a decently large if. They’re 4.5 back in their division and have 3 teams ahead of them.
Yea, but they also had a brutal first half schedule. Got most of their games against the D-Backs and Dodgers out their way, played both series against the Cubs, played their interleague series with the Angels (When they were hot) Mariners, got both of their series against Nationals out of the way, got both of their series against the Phillies out the way, and their second half schedule has many games against the Padres, 2 series against Texas, 2 series against NYM, a series against the Pirates, and only 2 series left against the Dodgers. They have a chance, but only if the youth lights a spark similarly to how Mac Williamson and Austin Slater had been doing the first few months.
No they didn’t
Their schedule was lax compared to sd
That makes sense. Compare the Giants versus the who-cares-about-the-Padres?
The Giants are average. Nobody is afraid of that bullpen and the rotation aside from Bumgarner and possibly Cueto is atrocious
Every single pitcher in the giants rotation is better than sonny gray
“…the rotation aside from Bumgarner and possibly Cueto is atrocious”
You’re obviously talking out of ignorance. If it were still Stratton and Blach you might have a point, but it’s not. Both Andrew Suarez and Dereck Rodriquez have been solid at worse. Young pitchers tend to struggle, but these two have been impressive given their lack of big league experience. A lot of teams would love to have their contributions at the bottom of the rotation.
Follow the money. The Giants are $ 1.8 million above the luxury tax threshold, according to Cot’s contracts. AJax makes $ 3 million per season, through 2019. As a third time tax payer, the Giants pay a 50% tax on every dollar they spend from here on out, until they reset the trigger.
MLB doesn’t use Cot’s for computing salaries for the tax. The CBA formula is all that counts, and I’m sure Evans is looking at that.
Unless Texas is getting ready to have a fire sale of their players, and have these guys as depth, I dont get why they’d take on more contracts.
Apparently Texas really likes Jason Bahr. He’s put up good numbers in the minors. One scouting report said “Very efficient, ideal mechanics and mentality for a starter role; low-effort, repeatable, very relaxed mechanics with a three-quarters release and some plane to the plate from height.” And also “…he certainly has the command and stuff to feasibly settle in as a back-end rotation arm at ceiling. .. Jason Bahr gives the Giants a nice, high-floor pitching prospect with some room to really actualize his talent.
Why is a team more than 20 games back in their division trading for veteran players? Unless Jon just wants another body due to a pending Choo trade maybe. I’m at a loss.
They bought Bahr from San Fran
They’re adding a prospect. Not hard to see.
Cost-cutting for the Giants to prepare for a deadline addition. Rangers preparing for potential trades of Diekman, maybe Kela and Choo
Did this to stay under the cap space and still going to tank this season
I’m all for this trade, except for getting rid of Jason Bahr. The guy can pitch.
He’s one of the few pitchers they have (had) in the minors with starting potential, I would have rather them given up Beede honestly. Obviously the Rangers had to want Bahr.
Texas (and every other team) isn’t trading for Beede. His trade value is zero. Unless he suddenly rejuvenates his career he won’t be in the game much longer.
So you are all for the trade except for the only reason the Rangers did it?
Wonderful trade by the Giants. They replaced both by calling up young high-ceiling prospects Steven Duggar and Ray Black. Saving cash for a possible deadline acquisition as well.
I love it.
Black isn’t young though, he’s 28
Jeez only pro sports where 28 is considered old.
For a power pitcher like him, 28 isn’t old
This was all about getting their hands on Bahr. The Giants had to toss him in for the Rangers to take on the other dead contracts. Bahr will be a Rangers’ starter within 1-2 years.
What the HE double hockey sticks kind of trade was this?
Why in the world would the Rangers want to do this trade?
They are caput for this year and they are taking on money!
SMH
You must not understand how baseball works.
Let me break it down.
The Rangers FO bought a potential #2 or #3 starter by the year 2020 in Bahr by taking on the contracts of Jackson (who looks like is about to be flopped again), and Gearrin, who is going to fill the space of the soon to be traded Diekman and/or Kela.
Flopped? Flopped.? We are talking about being Flopped?
Is Jackson going to be flopped lower than Whale Sch…. wait, I can’t say that here. Flopped, I will give you flopped. I love when people are so didactic to me and ……SMH
He probably meant “flipped”, but spell check adjusted it to flopped. Or he could have just hit the “o” instead of the “I” since the keys are adjacent on a keyboard. It was no big deal.
Are you alright? Did you hit your head or something?
You do realize the ‘o’ and ‘i’ keys are right next to each other right? Why get so bent out of shape over a simple typo? SMH
It sucks that the Giants had to give up on a high potential guy to get rid if Gearran and Jackson’s contracts.
27th ranked prospect
Which means nothing.
I said high potential, not high ranked, and if you look at Bahr (who was drafted last year and hence why he isn’t above some of the others on the Giants list for the current top 30 prospects) he is a better pitcher then almost all the Giants pitching prospects ranked above him.
A 27th ranked prospect
Which means nothing
Let the fire sale begin.
Not even close to a fire sale. Quite the opposite. Getting rid of dead salary so they can add pieces without going over luxury tax.
You get prospects back in a fire sale, you don’t give them away to get teams to take on contracts. Come on, brah.
And of course Bochy immediately benched Austin Slater.
Dude just refuses to play him on any kind of consistent basis
This was all about getting time for Duggar. But perhaps it could’ve waited until September b/c he still swings at everything.
The way the Giants are run is truly insane. Now Duggar will play, Slater will continue to sit, so Bochy can ruin both players.
Between Hernandez, Slater, and Duggar, there are plenty of innings to go around.
Doesn’t seem like Jackson will even play for the Rangers.
So he could be Traded again.
I’m trying to figure out who would want him. He’d have to be a throw-in on a trade where both sides need to even out the money.
Bahr has pitched just as good in 3 starts in A+ this year.
Bahr was definitely the motivation for TEX to take 2 bad (though not exorbitant) contracts. This is basically what CLE will have to do to get rid of Kipnis. The receiving team assumes the bad contract but also gets a high end prospect.
Lost in everything is the Giants need another left hand bat for a possible platoon in CF Duggar is a stud CF and like it or not Jackson hit 288 against lefties but struck out to much,we got him to be a bench player not a Star, he needs a change in scenery,he will do well somewhere else.Hey we have some cap space win win!! Not going to get bent over a A pitcher
Duggar is a lefty.
He’s being regifted….but who really needs an overpriced bench bat? Isn’t Bourjos still out there?
“Hold off on reporting, guy with a -1.3 WAR” lol
Too bad the Giants couldn’t get TEX to take Hunter Pence and his remaining contract.
That would have been weird for me since I saw Pence in the minors at Round Rock before the Astros called him up and then maybe the Rangers would acquire him and send him back to Round Rock. Glad it hasn’t happened.
It’s sad that a team with a minor league system as bad as SF has to basically sell any of their prospects, no matter their ranking. Jackson was just signed and now your dumping him? Way to do your homework! Maybe now package Joey Bart (1st round pick) and Jeff (Gasoline) Samardzija to Baltimore for a ball bucket and a pitching machine. And why is an ownership group with so much $ so concerned with the luxury tax? Stop acting like the Rays and start being a Big Boy. Cut Jackson and Gearrin and keep your prospects! The Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers etc. aren’t concerned with the tax, they are concerned with winning now. The Giants just talk about it…
It is not about the cost this year. It is about the fact that if you go over the luxury tax threshold in consecutive years you get penalized even more. While getting charged 20% for going slightly over this year isn’t that big of a deal, if they go over again next year they would be charged 30% extra for each dollar over (and 50% in the third year).
While I don’t particular care if the owner of a team that I root for has to pay some extra money, I would rather that money go toward player salary’s and not toward paying a luxury tax.. It’s basically like paying credit card interest as opposed to avoiding having to pay interest so that you have more money to spend elsewhere
If are are trying to win this year, next or even next,Luxury Tax be damned. The Giants window is closing fast and I’m tried of the doublespeak. You gotta spend to win or burn it down, trade for prospects and get under the tax. But don’t talk winning and make these weak moves because of the Luxury Tax. These owners are BILLIONAIRES, stop crying, go big or go home.
Problem with the Giants is they need to do a big rebuild but afraid the fans would stop coming if they do a rebuild. The team is very old and the farm system is weak. They have enough to stay close to .500 but must hope for the rest of the teams in the NL West to choke.
There are few owners out there that are just going to spend whatever and not care at all. In reality, most have a specific budget that the GM and president are working under. While this is a reality, I would prefer that the GM and president of the team that I root for would be smarter with that budget. Stay under the luxury tax this year when you are unlikely to win, exceed it in future years when you really have a chance (similar to what the Yankees have been trying to do). I feel like you and I are talking about two different things.
But anyway, I really feel the Giants window closed already and they likely need to do a full rebuild. Just throwing more money at the situation is likely going to cause them to dig a deeper hole
“While getting charged 20% for going slightly over this year…”
You got it wrong. This is the 4th consecutive year they’ve been over, so they’re already in the 50% bracket. Staying below the threshold this year, and having the percentage rate reset will save the Giants. And if they spend big in free-agency this off-season, like it appears they will, then the savings will probably be tens of millions
Good call, I don’t follow the GIants typically so I wasn’t aware of the luxury tax situation. Even more reason for them to get under the tax this year
The Dodgers and Yankees are both trying to stay below the cap too
“The Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers etc. aren’t concerned with the tax,…”
Wrong. All those teams, except the Red Sox, have made efforts to get below the threshold so the percentage rate will rest back to 20%. And the only reason the Sox aren’t concerned is they got below the threshold last season, so their penalty for this season is only 20%. NYYs, Dodgers, and Giants will all pay a 50% penalty if they’re over this season, and so far all three appear to be below.
BTW the Yankees have paid out $319.6MM in taxes and the Dodgers have paid out $149.7MM. If you don’t think they care about that think again.
The Yankees and dodgers are concerned about the tax… it’s why they’re under 197 mil.
The thing people always forget or don’t know is that it is more then just money, yes ownership seems to have lots of money so many fans don’t care about them having to spend it. The money aside, teams that consecutively go over the tax threshold start to be assessed other penalties, they lose draft picks and international signing money. When you’re the Giants and you want to add more prospects to your system you can’t be losing your picks and the bonus money to sign them.
Yup we were in dissolution in 10’12’14’ too,haha
I agree with you 100% on the widow being closed. This roster is old and they are soon going to throw 150-200M at Mad Bum. A complete rebuild is inevitable. This roster is old across the board with no mixture of youth. They’d be smart to get something for Posey, Crawford and Bumgarner while they still have value, but would rather try to keep the yard packed and sell the fan base on the illusion of another title. With their combination of a poor minor league system and old nucleus 5 years this team will be unwatchable.
Duggar- 24
Slater- 25
Hanson- 25
Moronta- 25
Rodriguez- 26
Suarez- 25
All of those guys (with the exception of Duggar, who hasn’t played much in the majors) have looked very promising. All are 26 and younger.
Also, 5 years down the road, there won’t be a single player under his current contract. That’s a long ways away. Relax.
I think there will be more taking on a bad contracts in order to acquire a waned player.
Go back and look at the posts in December and January I made about the Giants. I said they’re going to be in a tough spot come trade deadline because they’re right up against the cap. They’ll blow past the tax if their around the wildcard they said, I laughed. Still lots of people here who have no idea about the tax. Nobody is taking on huge money if they do the prospects aren’t going to be great. Texas fans and in for a ride awakening if Hamels gets traded.
Giants could go from an old team to a young team in a hurry if they trade Pence, Shark, Holland, Sam Dyson and Hunter Strickland (we already have the 100mph speedster coughing up 3 run homers in Ray Black) for whatever prospects they can get. The rotation would be MadBum/Cueto/Pudgeson/Suarez/Ty Blach, with Stratton/Moronta providing long relief and Tony Watson/Will Smith playing LOOGY and one of TonyW/WillS/MarkM closing. The desperation to get under the ‘salary cap’ has one purpose: sign MadBum beginning of next season to a big contract. I’m sure they can handle 30m/season, but a 50% tax on top of that will be a deal breaker.
trading Holland would be stupid
good move by the Giants to clear out a couple non-performers and give the young guys a chance to play. 2018 is not going to be the Giants’ year however. A big red flag is Buster breaking down. Average spiraling down and no power left. Bum may never be the Bum of the WS era again. The window has closed…
getting Austin Jackson probably makes choo more tradable