Giants add Mark Canha at trade deadline

He gets to play for his childhood team.

They say to keep paying attention after the official trade deadline expiration because some deals simply get announced a little after. I can’t recall that being the case often with the San Francisco Giants, so I was already deep into a brainstorm on a “The Giants have bet on themselves” deadline recap post when news hit the feed that they’d acquired Mark Canha from the Detroit Tigers.

The 35-year old San Jose native (more on that in a minute) and Cal grad who made his name with the A’s (.244/.344/.431 across 7 seasons and 2,492 PA) is in the final year of a 3-year, $36 million deal he originally signed with the Mets (and was questionable at the time) but was playing out the string in Detroit after being traded to them in the offseason from Milwaukee, who had acquired him at last year’s deadline from New York. Does that increase or decrease his utility in your mind? I think it’s an argument that he’s still got some baseball talent juice left.

This year, he’s hitting just .231/.337/.350 (.687 OPS) with 7 home runs, but when I think about Comerica Park, I think of a park that’s not great for hitters. Then again, he’s slashing .260/.384/.373 there (185 PA) while hitting .206/.292/.329 (.621 OPS) away, so…

ON THE OTHER HAND, my mental dossier on Mark Canha is that he is a Giants Killer. He loves to hit in Oracle Park. He grew up loving the Giants, too, so maybe a move to a place where most offense goes to die unless you’re a right-handed hitter and one grew up having an intense fondness for will put him on a hot streak to end the season. Indeed, Athletics Nation chronicled his exploits against his childhood team back in 2020:

To begin, his numbers in the City are better than anywhere else, at least among places where he’s made more than two starts. In his dozen games there (43 plate appearances):

Canha, in SF: .286/.395/.543, 2 HR, 9 RBI, 7 BB, 11 Ks

That’s a .938 OPS and more than an RBI per game. Cut it down to just 2018-20, and that OPS goes up to 1.121.

Perhaps you recall that “controversial” bat flip of his when he was with the A’s:

It was kind of a whole thing:

Of course, that was pre-pandemic lockdown and we’re all a little older now. A little more wistful. Even — and, perhaps especially, — Canha:

From an analysis standpoint, this move belies the reporting that the Giants were looking to improve in centerfield at the deadline. Canha played 62 games in center in 2018 but has played just 109 games there since and ZERO since 2022 with the Mets.

The Giants traded RHP Eric Silva to get him. He’s hitting .250/.344/.385 in July (16 games, 61 PA). He’s owed around $3.83 million the rest of the way and so it seems like the cash savings the Giants got from trading away Soler, Jackson, and Cobb (~$8.83) still winds up being pretty decent after all — certainly, enough to pay the $2-$3 million CBT tax bill.

Still, it’s an unsexy move. And, as Jeff Young mentions:

The Giants made a very marginal move and are now committed to Tyler Fitzgerald, Heliot Ramos and — if they don’t cut him, which seems unlikely — Derek Hill rotating around center with Canha being a DH backstop in case the Marco Luciano experiment flops and/or Wilmer Flores really is cooked.

It’s hard not to see this as shades of the AJ Pollock deal last year, where the front office didn’t want to signal to the clubhouse and fans that they’d given up on the season, only that they didn’t believe they were going to do much the rest of the way. Now it’s up to the rotation of 4-5 inning starters and an absolutely torched bullpen to help the Giants win every game 2-1. I think they can do it, don’t you?