Lately, as Giants fans have enjoyed a series of nice starts from Derek Holland after the team fell out of contention, some fans have taken to criticizing the Giants for not trading Holland this year. After all, his production is wasted on a sub-.500 team. They’re not going to the playoffs, and winning a couple more games than they would with Ty Blach or Casey Kelly doesn’t mean a whole lot. So let’s try to answer the question: why didn’t the Giants trade Derek Holland this year?
I’m going to divide this question into two sub-questions.