‘It's time to go' takes on new meaning for Buster Posey, Giants at trade deadline

New York Times

2 days ago

NEW YORK — Buster Posey has been a Gold Glove catcher, a National League Most Valuable Player and the competitive fuel behind three World Series championship teams. So much of his experience in his new role as the San Francisco Giants' president of baseball operations is influenced and informed by his not-too-distant experience as a player.
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But being a father of four is also central to Posey's life experience. And barely an hour after the trade deadline buzzer sounded Thursday night, when Posey addressed reporters via teleconference to explain his rationale to sell three important pieces off the major-league roster, he sounded less like a player and more like an exhausted dad: If you kids don't settle down back there, I'm going to turn this car around.
Posey turned the car around.
'We wish we were in a spot that we were adding,' Posey said. 'But as poorly as we played since the All-Star break, I think we all felt the best decision for the organization was to try to get some pieces coming back that will help us in the future.'
The Giants traded stalwart reliever Tyler Rogers to the New York Mets for three players. They traded former All-Star closer Camilo Doval to the New York Yankees for four more. They traded outfielder Mike Yastrzemski to the Kansas City Royals for a low-level pitching prospect. Only the Rogers deal, which was completed Wednesday night, could be described as a thread-the-needle trade that brought back one major-league reliever (José Buttó) and two high-floor prospects who are seen as close to major-league ready (right-hander Blade Tidwell and outfielder Drew Gilbert). The Doval and Yastrzemski deals at the buzzer Thursday were different. They were the kinds of prospect-driven, future-focused trades that sellers make while conceding that immediate roster needs are no longer the priority. Jesus Rodriguez, a late-blooming catcher with the Yankees' Triple-A team, is the closest among those prospects to the big leagues.
After seven seasons with the #SFGiants and 392 games pitched—10th-most in the SF era—we say thank you, Tyler 🧡 @tyrogers2020 pic.twitter.com/RrNsb23Sr4
— SFGiants (@SFGiants) July 30, 2025
It might surprise you that Posey, the former player with a competitive streak, would take such a clear selling posture when the Giants are just one game below .500 with two months of baseball to play. But maybe it shouldn't surprise you that Posey, the parental figure, would go in a different direction.
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By holding a clubhouse of disappointing players to account.
The warnings have been there for months. When Posey sought to give the team a wakeup call in early June, designating former teammate LaMonte Wade Jr. for assignment, he sent a clear message to the group: 'It's time to go. We all believe that we're better than what we've done with the bat for the last 2 1/2, three weeks. It's time to go.'
Barely a week later, when Posey closed the shocking deal to acquire slugger Rafael Devers from the Boston Red Sox, he said the goal was nothing short of returning to the World Series.
When the team sputtered again in late June, getting swept at home by the Miami Marlins and dropping a road series to the lowly Chicago White Sox, Posey joined the team in Arizona and announced he was exercising the option on manager Bob Melvin's contract for 2026. Along with the vote of confidence for Melvin and his staff, Posey sent a not-so-veiled message to the players: The improvement needed to come from the clubhouse, not the coaches' room.
'I still believe in (our) group of players, but it boils down to them needing to play better baseball,' Posey said on July 1. 'You want the coach to be prepared, but at the same time, you want there to be accountability for the player, to understand that ultimately their career and their success or failure comes down to one person and that's themselves.'
The Giants did not play better baseball. The lack of consistent run production has been the biggest issue, but perhaps not the most troubling. There were too many times when the Giants made basic mistakes on the bases or botched fundamental plays on defense or looked distracted. Whether it's Jung Hoo Lee bunting with the bases loaded or Heliot Ramos apparently forgetting how the infield fly rule works, there were too many instances when the Giants looked like they lacked confidence or resilience.
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Posey, GM Zack Minasian and vice president Jeremy Shelley were watching the same team you were.
At some point, you stop indulging an underachieving team. They've shown you who they are. And losing all six games on the last homestand to the New York Mets and Pittsburgh Pirates served as a turning point for a front office that began the week still looking to acquire starting pitching to aid the cause.
'We've got to play better baseball, plain and simple,' Posey said. 'We just haven't looked like the same team as we did at the beginning of the year. You know, I felt like at the beginning of the year, we harped on doing little things. It was clean baseball. And then we've taken a 180. So we've somehow got to recapture that form, that style of baseball that we had at the beginning of the season.
'Losing (these) veteran players does impact your team, but we still feel like we've got a group that should go out there and perform much better than they have.'
The Giants didn't totally dismantle their roster, but that might have had more to do with the level of interest in their players. They found a taker for Yastrzemski and almost certainly would have moved impending free agents Wilmer Flores and Justin Verlander if they'd gotten a nibble from a contending team. Posey said he never had to ask Verlander's thoughts about being traded because nothing came close to fruition.
Posey said he fielded calls about All-Star left-hander Robbie Ray, who is under contract through next season. 'But we would've had to be blown out of the water. We obviously didn't get there.' They could have taken the same approach with Doval, a 28-year-old former All-Star who has two more arbitration years before free agency. Posey said he fully expects the Giants to field a contending team next season, and Doval, for all the ways he's been a project for two coaching staffs, could have continued as a bullpen asset.
Instead, they shipped Doval to the Yankees for a prospect haul that, at least as far as prospect rankings go, doesn't stack up well against the pair of top-100 players that the Minnesota Twins received for closer Jhoan Duran.
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The Doval trade will determine whether Posey's first trade deadline was a success. Given Keith Law's sober assessment of the players the Giants got back from the Yankees, there's a lot riding on Rodriguez having a Pablo Sandoval-like rise from lightly regarded prospect to big-league impact player.
'The return was compelling,' Posey said. 'Rodriguez, I know, is not ranked very high, but … all he's done is hit. He's been a player, listening to our pro scouting department talk about him, that's kind of come onto the scene a little bit later. He's never really been a famous guy. You're a .308 career hitter in the minor leagues. You watch the swing, and he sprays the ball over the field. We're happy and excited about him.'
It's easier to talk about the future than the present. It's always awkward when a front office sells at the deadline. Posey can no longer say, 'I still believe in this team' with any credibility. Who knows? The players didn't respond the way anyone thought after Posey acquired the biggest impact hitter to change teams at the deadline and pulled it off with six weeks to spare. Maybe waving a transactional white flag will serve as a different kind of wakeup call for this group beginning this weekend against Rogers and the Mets at Citi Field.
The Giants scratched right-hander Kai-Wei Teng from his start for Triple-A Sacramento. So there's a good chance he follows Ray in the rotation. Outfielder Grant McCray was scratched as well and could split time with Luis Matos in right field. But Posey threw cold water on the notion that top prospect Bryce Eldridge will be promoted soon, saying the 20-year-old first baseman needs to get more reps at Sacramento.
'We'll probably get some different looks at different players over the next couple months,' Posey said. 'You're just hoping to see tiny little incremental gains daily.'
Posey and Melvin met behind closed doors Wednesday night after the Rogers trade. The Giants' president made his expectations clear.
'We're going to play hard the rest of the way,' Posey said. 'The expectation is we need to play better. There's a brand of baseball that our fans expect, and that's going to always be the goal. The goal is every day to go out and try to win the game in front of you. … No matter what the standings say, no matter how bad you feel like it is, that's what we have to do. And Bob obviously is on board with that.'