If the Red Sox actually want to trade Andrew Benintendi, the Giants should be in

The Giants should not trade prospects for short-term help. They aren’t a single outfielder away from contention, especially if that outfielder is limited to a corner. They’re looking for a left-handed bat, but they should get one with enough power to drive the ball out of Oracle Park.

The Giants should absolutely explore a trade for Andrew Benintendi if the Red Sox, as The Athletic’s Jim Bowden suggests, are willing to entertain the idea. That seems to contradict everything in the opening paragraph, but we can talk our way into this.

You have questions. I have answers.

Wasn’t Benintendi awful last year?

He sure was. In 14 games, he hit .103/.314/.128, which is the power profile of a pitcher. He had a disappointing-if-perfectly-fine 2019 season (.266/.343/.431), too, so there was already cause for concern coming into 2020. He sprained his rib cage on Aug. 11 and never came back from the injured list.

None of that is especially promising. But consider this table of stats through 14 games this season:

Player X is Brandon Crawford, and Player Y is Brandon Belt. If either of them sprained their rib cage and missed the rest of the season, this offseason would be very, very different. The chatter would have been about their diminished roles, or how the Giants absolutely have to move on. Every person reading this would have an understanding of sunk costs, and there would be a non-zero chance that the front office would have moved on, contract and nostalgia be damned. Instead, Crawford finished with the highest slugging percentage of his career, and Belt picked up MVP votes for the first time in his career.

This isn’t to say that Benintendi was a little injury luck away from down-ballot MVP votes … but I’m not not saying that, either.

Even if you ignore 2020, aren’t there physical red flags with Benintendi?

Yes. But we can (partially) explain those away, too.

Alex Speier of the Boston Globe had a good rundown of what went wrong with Benintendi’s season, and it wasn’t just swings and misses or a general decline in production. He was once one of the fastest outfielders in baseball, but his sprint speed declined to slightly below average last season. The trend is unmistakable, and it’s not something you usually see from a player who just turned 26. There isn’t a direct correlation between foot speed and hitting ability, but if his general athleticism were compromised, it could definitely show up with both.

Not great. But Benintendi has been chasing extra bulk for a couple of years now, thinking that he needed to add more power. It apparently slowed down his bat a little instead, and it also came at the cost of some speed. While this trend doesn’t have to be reversible, it’s a more encouraging explanation than “dunno” or “his body is failing him.” A refocused workout regimen just might allow him to reclaim some of his speed.

Speier also notes in his article that there are concerns about his decreasing success against the fastball, which could also be an unexpected consequence of Benintendi’s increased muscle mass. But when you pop the hood on Baseball Savant, there are some encouraging signs on that front. His expected slugging percentage against all pitches was .470 in 2019, which was the highest of his career, and year-to-year stats on specific-pitch run values are notoriously finicky. Even in 2020, though, Benintendi had a positive run value against the fastball, with an expected slugging percentage of .583.

It’s possible that he’s bulkier than he should be for his frame, but it’s also possible that he’s simply unlucky. He chased more in 2019, and his strikeout and walk rates both suffered, but he also posted the highest barrel rate and exit velocity of his career. Could just be one of those things.

Isn’t he incapable of playing center field these days?

Maybe. But it seems pretty dramatic to say something that definitive about a 26-year-old, and his declining foot speed doesn’t seem quite as bad with a little context. While it’s true that he’s not running down the line as quickly as he did in 2017, the differences are negligible. Baseball Savant breaks down a player’s running statistics into five-foot splits, and Benintendi fares much better here. In 2017, it took him 2.47 seconds to run 50 feet, and in 2019, it took him … 2.49 seconds. Those aren’t numbers that set off alarms.

And we shouldn’t read too much about the Red Sox making the decision to play him in left field. He played in the same outfield as Jackie Bradley, Jr. and Mookie Betts, both of whom are defensive deities. While his arm profiles best in left, it’s certainly not a bad arm. His range compares to Mike Yastrzemski’s, and the Giants were fine with how he played in center, even if his ceiling is average at best.

A Dickerson/Yastrzemski/Benintendi outfield would be rough defensively in a ballpark as big as Oracle Park, but it would also come with serious offensive potential. Mauricio Dubón’s unexpectedly smooth transition to center field gives them a little flexibility, so it’s not as if the Giants would be signing up for 150 games in center from Benintendi and/or Yastrzemski. My guess is that his defense would be acceptable in center, even if it’s below average.

Even though his defensive stats aren’t abysmal, you can still be skeptical about them. Fenway Park is weird like that.

If his power suffered in Fenway Park, wouldn’t it be devastated by Oracle Park?

Maybe. But if we’re going to reference Crawford and Belt’s surprising 2020 seasons up there, it only makes sense to mention it here, too. Whether it was a one-year fluke that will change as soon as the right-field fence is opened up to fans again, or increased confidence that came with the new dimensions, left-handed hitters did better in San Francisco last year. The Giants shouldn’t limit themselves in their search.

Besides, it’s not as if Benintendi is completely devoid of power. He hit 40 doubles in 2019 and 41 the season before that, and as players get older, doubles can turn into home runs. Fenway Park has a lot to do with those totals, but the Giants would certainly take another 40 doubles from their corner outfielder, even if there weren’t quite as many dingers as they’d like. A good hitter is a good hitter is a good hitter, and if the Giants are convinced that Benintendi is still one of those, they shouldn’t worry about what he lacks offensively. They should care about what he provides.

Wouldn’t the Giants have to give up their best prospects for him?

Maybe. And if the Red Sox are asking for a return like that, the Giants should politely decline. Even if Benintendi didn’t have just two years of team control left, they’re not in a position to give up top prospects for a win-now move.

Speier’s article quotes a scout as saying this, though:

“Is he better than Robbie Grossman these days? I would say probably not. And Robbie Grossman [is] not getting big bucks this winter.”

Grossman signed with the Tigers after that article for two years, $10 million. Score one for the scout. And if the Red Sox aren’t demanding prospects in the Giants’ top three or four, it becomes an easier conversation to have.

But if the Red Sox are willing to trade him when his value is low, doesn’t that mean that they know something we don’t?

Maybe. But there are innocent reasons, too. They might be more risk-averse than we’re giving them credit for, and if they have to trade Benintendi next offseason, when he’s just a year away from free agency, and he struggles again, they won’t get much of anything. They’re guaranteed to get at least a solid return right now, even if it’s less than they would have expected after 2019.

Plus, it’s always possible that the Giants just see something different in their evaluations. The Orioles didn’t get rid of Yastrzemski because they were convinced he was broken; they just didn’t see what the Giants saw. If they’re convinced that last year was a hiccup, they should feel confident about it.

The Red Sox probably still need to add outfielders, not subtract them, even after signing Hunter Renfroe. But this is also the team that traded Mookie Betts on purpose. They don’t have to make sense.

Wouldn’t someone like Benintendi make for a crowded outfield?

The Giants don’t need a player that fits Benintendi’s profile. They might go for a defense-first player to complement Dubón, or they might spend their prospect capital on something they need more, like a starting pitcher. This is true.

However, if they’re convinced that Benintendi is the same player that he was in 2017 or 2018, just a little unluckier, they should pounce. That player was a delight, and everyone expected him to be the cornerstone of the franchise. This would be a rare opportunity to get an All-Star-caliber player in his mid-20s and test drive him for two seasons. While the Giants aren’t bereft of left-handed outfielders in their farm — Hunter Bishop is the headliner, but Jairo Pomares and Grant McCray also have potential —they don’t have a lot of upper-level talent. In two years, they might need to spend on someone like Benintendi to pair with the prospects who graduate. That’ll be easier to do if he’s already in the organization.

Plus, no team has ever grumbled about having too many good players. With Dubón’s ability to play all over the diamond, there will be at-bats for him as long as he hits, and it’s not as if Austin Slater and Alex Dickerson are threats to break Cal Ripken Jr.’s record. You can argue that we’re vastly underrating the team’s need for outfield depth.

This is just a stray rumor, and the Giants aren’t attached at all. They might look at the Statcast red flags and be convinced that there’s something really wrong with Benintendi. If he struggles in 2021, they might be so disenchanted with him that they won’t even consider him as a reclamation project. There’s so much that we don’t know.

If they’re optimistic about his chances to rebound, though, they should consider a bold move. It would help them in the present. It might help them in the future. For a team that should expect at least a little offensive regression next year, this could be an opportunity that’s too rare to ignore.

(Photo: John Tlumacki / The Boston Globe via Getty Images)