The 2023 MLB trade deadline passed Tuesday without seeing much action from the Giants.
That surprised one rival National League executive, who expected San Francisco to add significant pieces as it chases the Los Angeles Dodgers for the NL West crown.
"I was surprised that the Giants and Phillies didn’t do more to add to their rosters," one anonymous NL executive told MLB's Mark Feinsand. "I expected them to both add offense, and they really didn’t add any true impact."
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The Giants made one trade in the week leading up to the deadline, acquiring veteran outfielder AJ Pollock and utilityman Mark Mathias from the Seattle Mariners in exchange for a Player To Be Named Later or cash considerations.
At age 35, Pollock is far from the player who once haunted the Giants in the division while playing for the rival Dodgers and Arizona Diamondbacks in his early years. He logged a .547 OPS across 49 games in Seattle this season, and began his Giants career Tuesday night going 0-for-3 with a strikeout in the win over Arizona.
San Francisco could have used the offensive help. The Giants had baseball's worst offense in July, ranking dead last in batting average (.209) and OPS (.632) in 25 games.
However, Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi didn't force any moves on the trade market. Instead, he'll rely on internal solutions -- like the return of Brandon Crawford and Thairo Estrada off the injured list -- to get the offense back on track.
San Francisco Giants
"I don't know what the broader perception is but it wasn't a super-active deadline and a lot of the bigger names that people thought might be moved at the deadline were not," Zaidi said after the deadline Tuesday. "Teams that were kind of on the bubble decided to push in. I think a lot of teams dealt with the same supply-and-demand issue that we did, and we ultimately didn't line up on anything."
The Giants didn't make any big moves, but neither did the Dodgers. Detroit Tigers left-handed starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez used the no-trade clause in his contract to reject a trade to Los Angeles. The Dodgers reunited with Enrique Hernandez and brought in starter Lance Lynn, but that was it.
The Diamondbacks were the most active team in the NL West, acquiring closer Paul Sewald from the Mariners and longtime Joc Pederson rival Tommy Pham from the New York Mets. But they didn't fill their most pressing need in starting pitching, leaving many Diamondbacks fans unsatisfied, much like their division rivals.
The trade deadline surprisingly was quiet. But the race for the NL West? That's just starting to heat up.