The Giants have acquired outfielder Lewis Brinson in a trade with the Astros, as first indicated on the transactions log at MLB.com. Brinson was eligible to be traded by virtue of the fact that he’s on a minor league deal with Houston and has not, at any point, been on a Major League roster or injured list this season.
[Related: How to Acquire Players After the Trade Deadline]
Once one of the sport’s consensus top prospects, Brinson’s blend of raw power, speed and a plus throwing arm have never been enough to outshine his strikeout issues, minimal walk rate and lack of hard contact. A first-round pick by the Rangers back in 2012, he was traded to the Brewers as the centerpiece in Texas’ acquisition of former All-Star catcher Jonathan Lucroy and then to Miami as the headliner in Milwaukee’s acquisition of 2018 NL MVP Christian Yelich.
Brinson was widely considered to be among baseball’s 30 best prospects from 2016-18, but he’s now appeared in 341 big league games — mostly with the Marlins — and posted just a .199/.248/.323 batting line in 1111 plate appearances. He’s punched out in 28.2% of his Major League plate appearances against just a 5% walk rate, and when he’s made contact, the plus raw power Brinson possesses hasn’t shined through, likely due to his poor pitch selection (career 40.2% chase rate on pitches off the plate). Brinson’s 88.6 mph average exit velocity and 37.1% hard-hit rate are both pedestrian marks that align roughly with the collective league averages over his big league tenure.
All that said, there’s no denying that Brinson has posted strong results in Triple-A this season. Through 364 trips to the plate in Sugar Land, he’s slashed .299/.356/.574 with 22 home runs, 21 doubles, five triples and five steals (in eight tries). He’s still fanned in 28% of his plate appearances, however, and his 7.1% walk rate doesn’t suggest he’s become much more selective at the dish. Brinson has also had comparable Triple-A success in the past (.331/.400/.562 in a similar sample of plate appearances back in 2017).
The Astros seemingly weren’t going to bring Brinson to the big leagues and have several players they’d like to get some playing time in Triple-A, including recently optioned center fielder Jake Meyers. A trade of Brinson to the Giants gives Houston some extra playing time for younger players who are viewed as potential contributors beyond the 2022 season; Brinson would simply have been a free agent at season’s end unless added to the 40-man roster.
For the Giants, Brinson will give them some depth and a potential September call-up to the join the outfield mix. If he indeed reaches the big leagues with San Francisco and shows some signs of improvement against MLB pitching, he’d be controllable for another three years via arbitration. It may be a long shot, but given what’s surely a minimal cost of acquisition — the teams have not yet announced the moves, and the transactions log does not specify a return — there’s little harm in rolling the dice on a former top prospect who won’t turn 29 until next May.
Lewis Britain was-no-IS a Marlins and Brewers legend
Perhaps, but what does that have to do with Lewis Brinson?
Farhan runs the Giants as if he’s still in Oakland. What are the chances either Farhan or Kapler are replaced this winter?
Zero
Scottie McCreary’s current song says it best “Damn Strait”
The Athletic had a good article after the deadline basically saying the problem in SF is they don’t develop the prospects to swing big acquisitions, but they also don’t have enough valuable vets to make a sell off worth it, so they’re stuck in the middle.
That all said Farhan should have sold off Pederson, Rodon, etc… at the deadline for whatever they could get. The 107 wins last year is buying him some time, but if they don’t have a direction and remain mediocre it will eventually come back to bite him.
For whatever they could get would be pointless. They aren’t blocking anyone.
It’s not a point if they were blocking anyone or not. The market for SPs was definitley a buyers market. If the Giants were dead-set on selling on Rodon, he would have been the most valuable rental SP on the market. They may not have gotten back a Luis Castillo haul for Rodon, but they definitley could have netted a good prospect or two. Pederson could have also gotten them a solid prospect. They had an outside shot for a Wild Card spot at the All-Star break, and Rodon and Pederson could have gotten them something that could help them long term.
Pederson was injured at the deadline. He had no value at that time. He’s been on a cold streak for the last two months or so, as it stands.
Rodon had the player option that unfortunately made a trade untenable. Should he have been injured any time after a trade up to his opt out at the end of the season (and Rodon has a checkered injury history – that’s why he’s playing with the Giants on a show-me contract), the acquiring team would be on the hook for paying him next year. That seems to have greatly limited interest and the return offered. Zaidi made it clear that the team was listening on anyone (except maybe Logan Webb). To just unload Rodon for the best available offer would have been not only pointless, but foolish. The Giants might well pursue resigning him in the offseason.
And then there’s the QO comp pick they’ll get when he opts out (unless they re-sign him) which itself is far from nothing.
@Scottn59c – Well put!
People would have been down Farhan’s throat even if he did trade Rodon and Pederson since, clearly, the offers he had received were inferior to what he thought his players were worth.
@tony – Look. Most of us are not as clever as you. The “WORLD SERIES BOUND” comment you (and like 10 million other commenters have posted)? Super funny and ultra original. Not all of us have such an incredible mind as you, so cut us a little slack here.
Anyway, MLBTraderumors themselves posted an article about how Rodon’s vesting option made trades complicated. So I’m not sure what “propaganda” you’re speaking of. Again, we’re not as brilliant as you and your “The San Francisco Giants. LOL” comments (even though you’ve posted it roughly 30,000 times, it’s still as genius as the first time), but it doesn’t take a lot of brain power to think “perhaps Farhan didn’t get what he wanted for those players, so let’s wait to see what he does next.”
For example, if he wanted Oswald Peraza (#3 organizational prospect) from the Yankees, and they only countered with Oswaldo Cabrera (#14), and that was the best they could find, should they just trade Rodon just to trade him?
Farhan Zaidi would have been the only guy to show up to kick the tires and low-ball me on my ’82 Cadillac Cimarron
Big market clubs should operate like the A’s look at how successful they’ve been the last 20 years. Been pretty unlucky not to win multiple WS titles to be honest
The NL east a cake walk for us. But I’m worried about the playoffs Eppler didn’t do enough. Obviously we would still be favorites because of deGrom and Scherzer but we could get upset by the dodgers. Braves have no shot.
Well.then, the Mets should have acquired Brinson. You’re just lucky the Braves didn’t get him. They would have easily passed the Mets in the standings, with Brinson’s speed!
Braves have a higher team OPS and an ERA that is within .02 of the Mets, but no shot. Makes sense.
Braves had “no shot” in the playoffs last year…….oops
How can you have raw power but not make hard contact?
Easy. Just swing at junk.
Username checks out.
Brinson needs to immediately get his own personal hitting instructor – Will Clark. And Clark needs to tell Brinson that daily batting practice is mandatory.
He’s done that before.
Would be cool be if could turn his career around playing CF for SF.
This guy may as well just retire. He’s on his 5th or 6th diff org now. Classic example of how scouts over-rate a prospect
Asia
I completely missed where he was released by the marlins. What a terrible trade for them… traded a mvp for him smh… lol
Giants are buns lol. They will be for quite some time. No wonder Posey retired he knew they would fall apart
What kind of buns?
Hamburger, hot dog, brioche, pretzel, topknot, pigtail, cornrow, messy or I guess what you wear – the manbun…..?
Not even a hot take or even a troll take…..or just a take…..pure drivel….
As a Marlins fan, I was really hopeful he would live up to his potential with us. I’m even wearing his shirsey right now. I’d love for him to find some success in San Francisco, but he’s just looking like a good career AAA player.
Guy was a top prospect, Hopefully in SF batting 7th or 8th he can just play, zero expectations now….
Kinda like the Phils are doing with Marsh…..8th or 9th, play some D and listen to Kevin Long…
Always root for top prospects, who aren’t tools on or off the diamond. Hope he makes it….
Brinson’s stats say it all. I’d be surprised if he’s called up at all, and probably released in the offseason.
He’s already been called up added to the MLB roster…
Giants FO has to be thinking, “well, since we don’t have a CF who can hit anyway, we might as well have a CF who could take some hits away from the opposition”.
Given the current state of things, that’s not an unreasonable idea – at least it might be helpful to their pitching staff…and their only other RH CF, had to leave the game last night with an injury.
Oh boy another AAAA Outfielder.
Wade, Gonzales, Stater, Yaz, are all doing the same almost a job.
Giants need to find Yermin 400 ABs in the bigs next season.
Yermin sucks and swings at everything.
Yermin has had a good eye his entire career, you may be right in a way, his approach against lefties is too aggressive and his approach against righties is more conservative, but with MLB ABs he will work that out, nothing better than take my walks and in my opinion, if your taking my a lot of walks the hits are right around the corner, and Yermin can pop it over the fence.
And he takes a lot of walks, take a look at his .OBP, I’ve watched him hit and I swear he should work out with Trout this summer, they have the same swing, a couple pointers from Trout and Yermin could make a big leap.
He can hit a ton if he ever got the ABs. Probably not a good fit with the Angels with Ohtani at DH unless the Angels would consider starting him at catcher four games a week. Everybody knocks his defense, catcher is a tough position, but I’d start him at catcher with Ohtani at DH to get his bat in the lineup, he could be good with the Angels.
Angels sign Rodon and pry Yermin away and find Yermin 400 ABs, and Trout and Rendon stay healthy next season, the Angels will make the playoffs.
You are a disgrace to the great Tony Gwynn and another thing dumb ass it’s SAN FRANCISCO !!
NOT “FRISCO”
You are a disgrace to the great Tony Gwynn and another thing dumb ass, it’s SAN FRANCISCO !!
NOT “FRISCO” Get a clue !!!
AND, What exactly was the “minimal cost of acquisition” to the Giants ???????
It was cash considerations, we’ll probably never know the exact amount but I doubt it was any significant sum of money on a deal like this.