If San Francisco's just-completed five-game winning streak isn't getting your attention (and it probably shouldn't be, given the law of big numbers), the start of Farhan Zaidi's Big Dig ought to be. Hunter Pence's release says so.
Pence was brought back to place-hold a roster spot until Zaidi felt confident enough to start digging into his stash of young position players, but his slash line of .096/.161/.250 was too minimal to endure even through the final 30 games of this seasonette. Yep, we're halfway through, making this the ethereal All-Star Break, and it lasts all of 50 hours.
The Giants are not to be judged by their five-game winning streak any more than their first 25 games, though many did (including me, as required by fair disclosure laws). Their bullpen is still poor (only Boston and Philadelphia are worse), and their defensive analytics are still well below average, but most of everything else is squarely in the middle of baseball. They have seemingly found who and what they are, and are not.
Now comes the next part — the trade deadline, a week from Monday, August 31. On a team in which the head of baseball operations is the face of the franchise (never a good thing), Zaidi's next notions are about getting new players for old. The teardown is coming apace, and if Johnny Cueto is the next to be moved as has been rumored by associated guesstimators, it won't be to fill a hole for the stretch run, it's for the rebuild to follow. This is a long-haul project, and the illusory benefits of 2020 don't weigh that much by comparison.
Nor is blowing the rest of the roster up an option. Bringing the entirety of the Heliot Ramos/Marco Luciano/Jaylin Davis/Luis Toribio/Hunter Bishop army of acolytes isn't going to occur no matter whether fans scream for them with the same volume they did Joey Bart. Pablo Sandoval will remains for the time being. Brandon Belt is probably immovable. The Daniel Robertson deal is at best one for a utility infielder who is likely to be part of the next group of placeholders.
The point here is that Zaidi's schedule has not been sped up. It's simply just begun. The team still has three designated hitters in a league that might not have any next year. The everyday roster is still baseball's oldest and the pitchers are also older than league average. He delayed the Bart call-up as an acknowledgement of the overwhelming historical percentages against players thrust into starting roles with minimal minor league work, and he is likely to do so again with Davis or Ramos. As part of the new wave of general managers, Zaidi believes in numbers more than feel, but he doesn't have the kind of personnel depth yet to let numbers be his sole guide.
In sum, three moves is not a movement, not yet. Zaidi is not likely to be moved by five-game winning streaks any more; he saw what happened last year when the Giants went 19-6 in July but 59-78 the rest of the time.
But do check back in a week just in case. We've been wrong on these folks before.