Barry Tompkins: Giants’ deadline deals accomplished next to nothing

Frankly, I’ve been too caught up in the Olympics to pay a lot of attention to the baseball trade deadline.

I did have a dream last night though that seems feasible. I dreamt the Giants traded Jorge Soler for Simone Biles and a Yurechenko to be named later.

In the cold light of day, it made sense. To begin with, Biles is only 4-feet, 8-inches tall. I figure she’d walk about 150 times a year. A belt-high strike to her could only be accomplished by a sinker ball pitcher. True, she doesn’t own a fielder’s mitt, but then neither did Soler. She’s got a smile bigger than Lou Seal’s and she’d be a huge hit in the clubhouse the first time she did a double twisting flip and double somersault in the pike position off a training table.

But, NOOOOOO!  Farhan’s got a better idea.

The problem is, my dream last night seems every bit as effective as any plan that the Giants’ resident genius has come up with so far. OK, I’ll concede that I don’t think Simone could swing a bat that weighs more than she does. But, it must be said that many of the Giants who are capable of holding it upright, still can’t swing it.

I do buy into the theory that the moves the Giants did make at the trade deadline were akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. The problem is while the deck chairs are still in line, let’s not overlook the fact that the ship is sinking.

I recognize that moving Soler and Alex Cobb was more of a salary dump than a strategic baseball move, but it’s also remindful of the fact that it was Zaidi who paid them to come here in the first place. He did get some value out of Cobb before he got hurt, but Soler was a case of grabbing the only puppy left after all the cute ones were spoken for.

In Farhan’s defense, it seems players are just not interested in making a home in this park, in this city. Pitchers, maybe, but anyone intent on fattening their home-run numbers has Yankees GM Brian Cashman’s number on speed dial.

Certainly the bad PR that our city has received in recent years is partially at play for free-agent talent opting for greener pastures, but it does seem the word is out that if you sign in San Francisco you’ll be hoping for a wild-card berth every year.

So, if the top-end free agents every year spurn your team in favor of a more certain playoff future in New York or Los Angeles, what do you do?

There are a couple of options. Let’s begin with the free agent’s wife, who’s heard everything she needs to know about the billion or so homeless people who inhabit the city of San Francisco according to media reports. The first is to hire a powerhouse Welcome Wagon lady who delivers a whole basketful of goodies from sourdough French bread to free Zumba classes in Livermore. That would include an affidavit signed by every homeless person in San Francisco that they’d never been to Livermore and have no plans to go there.

However, the more likely option is to cultivate your own San Franciscans. And that’s an area in which this team has been wallowing.

The sense I get is that Zaidi, while an extremely intelligent man, also believes that numbers don’t lie and therefore he is not to be questioned by anyone who has at one point or another swatted a breaking ball or thrown a four-seamer on the low outside black of the plate. What do those rubes know?

I do know that one of the best baseball minds I’ve ever been around, Dusty Baker, has an office just down the hall and the only thing Farhan ever asks him is if it’s OK to borrow his bathroom key.

Right now the Giants – according to a Sports Illustrated poll – have the 25th-ranked minor league system. Farhan did score big in his first draft, grabbing Patrick Bailey just two years after the previous administration selected catcher Joey Bart as the second overall pick. In the last decade, there are four top picks of the Giants playing in the major leagues. Two of them play for the Pittsburgh Pirates. Since that first draft, the best score I can give Farhan is an “incomplete.”

Will Bednar, the 2021 first rounder, has spent way more time in the training room than on the field. Reggie Crawford, a 2022 first rounder, should be promoted to the big club no later than next year. He was drafted as both a hitter and a pitcher, but the team has settled on him as a pitcher and he’s showing real promise. We’ll see.

Last year’s top pick Bryce Eldridge was also a two-way high school player in Virginia, but he’s now a power-hitting first baseman with a chance of being something special. And, this year’s number one James Tibbs has not yet taken his first professional swing.

So, what we have here are a couple of hopes, a plethora of pretty good players, and a major league roster that is composed of what could be a solid pitching staff and a whole bunch of complimentary players.

The teams with the best minor league systems: The Orioles, Cubs, Brewers, Padres and Tigers have one thing in common – they are not autocratic. Personnel decisions are generally made by a baseball guy, AND a numbers guy. This is the new reality, and it seems to me the buck with the Giants, stops with the numbers guy.

Here’s a thought. The next time the guy down the hall returns the bathroom key – ask him a couple of questions.

Barry Tompkins is a 40-year network television sportscaster and a San Francisco native.  Email him at barrytompkins1@gmail.com.