San Francisco Giants Boss Discusses Their Shocking Trade Deadline Deal

The San Francisco Giants made a shocking trade, and Farhan Zaidi detailed how it happened.

Nov 8, 2023; Scottsdale, AZ, USA; San Francisco Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi speaks to the media during the MLB General Manager's Meetings at Omni Scottsdale Resort & Spa. / Mark J. Rebilas-USA TODAY Sports

The San Francisco Giants were relatively quiet at this year's deadline and didn't make any real big splashes. However, they did make a pretty surprising move by sending Jorge Soler to the Atlanta Braves after just signing him this offseason.

On the latest episode of "Giants Talk," a podcast from NBC Sports Bay Area, president of baseball operations, Farhan Zaidi, talked about how the trade came to fruition.

"They expressed interest and we went back and forth on some different concepts," he said. "We identified a young player that we liked."

That young player was Sabin Ceballos, 21-year-old a third baseman playing for the Braves' High-A affiliate. In 84 games, Ceballos had hit .259 with three home runs and a .707 OPS. He was acquired by the Giants alongside left handed reliever, Tyler Matzek, who has a 9.90 ERA in 11 games with Atlanta this year.

"And then for us we just had to make an assessment of our position group, how we got more young players in there and the DH spot, as we talked about, is a spot we identified as a place we'd get Marco Luciano at-bats, a place we could get guys off their feet," Zaidi explained.

It's no secret San Francisco has wanted to give Luciano more at-bats.

They talked about it throughout the offseason, but after a bad Spring Training, he was sent to Triple-A after losing the shortstop job to Nick Ahmed. Luciano recorded a .927 OPS in July, which made it difficult for the Giants to keep him in the minors any longer.

Trading Soler was their way of getting Luciano at-bats, while also shedding the DH's salary.

"Just the flexibility of opening that up, it started to become apparent to us that it was, as much as we loved Jorge and how well he played for us, especially the last couple months, it was kind of a lever to create more roster flexibility," the executive added.

Since June 1, Soler had been one of San Francisco's best hitters.

In those 47 games, the 32-year-old had a slash line of .280/.374/.486, good for an .860 OPS with six home runs, 16 doubles and 24 RBI. Since moving to the leadoff spot at the end of June, he had a .395 on-base percentage.

Zaidi continued to say that the roster flexibility created at the deadline was a way for manager Bob Melvin to manage how he had in with the Oakland Athletics and San Diego Padres.

Without Soler slotted in as the designated hitter everyday because of his inability to play in the field, the Giants will be able to give a player the day off defensively and slot different players in at that DH spot.

That, along with moving Soler's contract, was enough reason for San Francisco to make this move.