San Francisco Giants Urged to Add Oakland Slugger at Trade Deadline

The San Francisco Giants are still in the race for the playoffs and can still fix a big weakness at the MLB trade deadline.

Jul 22, 2024; Oakland, California, USA; Oakland Athletics left fielder Miguel Andujar (22) smiels after a win against the Houston Astros at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum. / Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

The San Francisco Giants have bounced back-and-forth between moving on from some star names and adding some bats to their lineup for a final push at the MLB trade deadline. It's starting to look like the latter is more likely.

As Bleacher Report's Tim Kelly attempted to find a move that could 'fix' each contending team's biggest need at the deadline, he found an intriguing outfield bat for San Francisco.

Miguel Andujar signed a one-year deal with the Oakland Athletics after a couple of disappointing, injury-riddled seasons between the New York Yankees and Pittsburgh Pirates. If his goal was to go somewhere that would almost guarantee playing time for a chance to prove that he still has some juice left in his bat, it has worked out very well.

Across 49 games so far this year, Andujar has a .300/.322/.415 slashing line. He got a late start to the season, recovering from a torn meniscus, but has been on fire ever since returning.

While he doesn't hit a ton of home runs, a weakness of the Giants offense, his offensive consistency that he's shown this year is certainly something that San Francisco would be interested in.

Over the last 30 days, the Giants are bottom five in batting average and bottom 10 in pretty much every other offensive category.

Despite that, they've been able to maintain a 12-12 record in that span and are still just five games back from a spot in the Wild Card. They can't sit back and watch for much longer, though. If they want to make a push, adding someone like Andujar would be crucial.

Michael Conforto and Mike Yastrzemski are the current corner outfielders for the Giants.

Conforto has been underperforming since his return from injury, but it's gotten worse recently.

He's in the middle of a cold streak, slashing just .129/.250/.444 in San Francisco's last 10 games. He's hit a lot of doubles and done well at drawing walks over the past month, which has helped his numbers a bit, but that's dissapeared in this cold stretch.

Yastrzemski is actually in the opposite situation. He struggled to start the year, but has a .302/.348/.535 slashing line over the past month.

Andujar would be a more than solid addition to that group of players and could also spend some time in the designated hitter slot, given that Jorge Soler has also had quite the disappointing season in the first year of his contract.