{"id":4532,"date":"2026-07-14T23:08:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:08:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=4532"},"modified":"2026-07-14T23:08:48","modified_gmt":"2026-07-14T23:08:48","slug":"kurtenbach-selling-arraez-and-ray-is-easy-is-buster-posey-brave-enough-to-go-bigger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=4532","title":{"rendered":"Kurtenbach: Selling Arraez and Ray is easy. Is Buster Posey brave enough to go bigger?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The good news for the San Francisco Giants at this All-Star break is that things can\u2019t get much worse.<\/p>\n

Read more Macklin Celebrini makes history, again, and talks contract extension<\/a><\/p>\n

The bad news is that the 2026 Giants always find a way to dig themselves into a deeper hole.<\/p>\n

At 15 games under .500, a playoff berth isn\u2019t just miles away. It\u2019s in a different time zone, pointing back and laughing.<\/p>\n

This is a completely lost summer.<\/p>\n

Tony Vitello\u2019s maiden voyage as a major league manager is a smoldering, uninsurable shipwreck.<\/p>\n

Rafael Devers\u2019 first full year playing by the Bay is a high-priced tragicomedy.<\/p>\n

And Buster Posey\u2019s second year running baseball operations?<\/p>\n

Well, how would you describe spending Mercedes money on a rusted-out Oldsmobile?<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

The question isn\u2019t what broke. We don\u2019t have enough ink, bandwidth, or liquor to conduct the autopsy this bloated corpse of a season.<\/p>\n

The question now is how the Giants can make the most of a bad, no-good situation.<\/p>\n

And I\u2019m not talking about some miraculous second-half run. Contrary to the opinion of the there\u2019s-a-lotta-season-left folks in the organization, a miracle run in the final 66 games for this unwatchable slog would constitute simply clawing back to break-even.<\/p>\n

In other words, right back where this team started \u2014 a standard we all agreed wasn\u2019t good enough anymore.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

No, it\u2019s time to face reality. The Aug. 3 trade deadline is looming, and it demands a sacrifice.<\/p>\n

Who can they jettison? Who will take their expensive castoffs?<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t call this the singular defining moment of Posey\u2019s front-office tenure. He\u2019s already made plenty of defining messes.<\/p>\n

But this is a massive pivot point for the president of baseball operations. It might be the pivot point for the entire organization\u2019s next decade.<\/p>\n

Because for nine of the last 10 years, this franchise contentedly floated in the tepid waters of .500. They presented a facade of competence that actively conflicted with the possibility of being great.<\/p>\n

Even their one successful season felt completely illogical. It was a statistical anomaly wrapped in an inexplicable fever dream.<\/p>\n

Perhaps this season from hell is just the inverse. Maybe this complete collapse is a hideous one-off.<\/p>\n

Or maybe the bill for a decade of aggressively chasing the middle has finally come due. Maybe it\u2019s the inevitable byproduct of refusing to pick a lane and being content with simply not being awful.<\/p>\n

When you spend 10 years hanging out on the middle rung of a ladder, you convince yourself there\u2019s less room to fall.<\/p>\n

Read more \u2018Sully\u2019 Sullenberger received Alzheimer\u2019s diagnosis after \u2018photographic memory\u2019 began to fail<\/a><\/p>\n

But you still end up at the bottom.<\/p>\n

And the Giants\u2019 rung just violently snapped.<\/p>\n

So what can they do? More importantly, what should they do?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve advocated for a cleansing fire. Burn it down, salt the earth, start over.<\/p>\n

I doubt that\u2019s going to happen. That would require the powers that be in the organization \u2014 Posey\u2019s fellow co-owners \u2014 to accept reality.<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s no excuse not to make aggressive, painful pivots right now.<\/p>\n

To Posey\u2019s credit \u2014 and detriment, too \u2014 he hasn\u2019t been afraid to take big swings. Sure, he\u2019s swung for the fences, spun around twice and missed the ball entirely.<\/p>\n

And yes, he\u2019s been reactionary while failing to properly read the market or to do his full homework.<\/p>\n

But you can\u2019t argue the man lacks stones. He\u2019s got the audacity to make a splash.<\/p>\n

Now we find out how much of his own pride he\u2019s willing to swallow. How big a splash are those stones going to make when they drop into the water?<\/p>\n

Only now, the bold, sharp moves aren\u2019t to sell the idea that the Giants are a contender, but to admit that they are not and will not be anytime soon.<\/p>\n

The easy part is waving goodbye to Luis Arraez and Robbie Ray.<\/p>\n

Those are two veterans on expiring deals who should generate better-than-expected markets in a trade environment where there are few sellers but plenty of buyers.<\/p>\n

They should bring back strong, positive returns for a farm system that has steadily improved but can always add more talent. Those are the no-brainer trades, with multiple expected avenues to get them done and maximize return.<\/p>\n

Even Posey and his crew can\u2019t mess those moves up.<\/p>\n

But how much further is Posey willing to go?<\/p>\n

How deeply is he willing to gut this Frankenstein\u2019s monster of a roster? Because right now, the Giants are trapped in a nightmare they paid good money \u2014 not great, but good \u2014 to create.<\/p>\n

Does he have the creativity, the sway with the bosses, the clear sense of direction to find buyers (with serious discounts, of course) for Willy Adames, Matt Chapman and Devers?<\/p>\n

Can he sell high on a Jung Hoo Lee, a Casey Schmitt, or even Logan Webb?<\/p>\n

Posey is unfirable \u2014 he\u2019s part of ownership, he asked for the job and received it without a proper process, and while his reputation has taken a hit lately, he is still a franchise legend and future Hall of Famer.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s incredible, despot-level power. He should wield it for the ultimate good: properly building a team not in an effort to rebound in the coming weeks, or even next year, but for the next decade, with hopes the good times kick in a bit earlier.<\/p>\n

Some people might call that a rebuild \u2014 a word that is verboten at the corner of Third and King.<\/p>\n

Whatever you want to call it, it\u2019s the righteous path forward. And Posey might be the man to do it.<\/p>\n

Posey didn\u2019t build his legacy as a player by ignoring the scoreboard.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time to look at the one hanging over the 2026 season.<\/p>\n

The game isn\u2019t just over; it\u2019s rotten.<\/p>\n

But is Posey \u2014 the man who built this mess \u2014 cunning and ruthless enough to clean it up?<\/p>\n

Read more Famous nude beach to become part of California state parks system<\/a><\/p>\n

We\u2019re about to find out.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

San Francisco Giants: Buster Posey is bulletproof. That\u2019s exactly why he must tear these SF Giants down.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4531,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports"],"yoast_head":"\nKurtenbach: Selling Arraez and Ray is easy. Is Buster Posey brave enough to go bigger? - Next City Digest<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nextcitydigest.com\/?p=4532\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Kurtenbach: Selling Arraez and Ray is easy. 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