What Giants May Have to Trade to Acquire All-Star Brendan Donovan

The San Francisco Giants are now considered a front-runner to trade for St. Louis Cardinals infielder Brendan Donovan.

Eakin Howard-Imagn Images

The San Francisco Giants had a quiet MLB winter meetings and their leadership believed they laid the groundwork for future deals.

One of those future deals may be coming to fruition.

Per The Athletic (subscription required), the Giants are one of two teams have become front-runners to land St. Louis Cardinals infielder Brendan Donovan, a player the franchise has been shopping for months. The main competition, per the report, is the Seattle Mariners, which now has a need after losing Jorge Polanco in free agency to the New York Mets.

Per the report, discussions have “picked up” but a deal doesn’t seem imminent. But a framework of what San Francisco might have to give up appeared in the report.

What Giants May Have to Give Up for Brendan Donovan

Stan Szeto-Imagn Images

The good news is that the Cardinals don’t appear to be hot on San Francisco’s top prospect, first baseman Bryce Eldridge. The Giants are listening on him, but it’s clear it will take a huge offer to get San Francisco to include him in any deal Donovan isn’t that kind of player.

Cardinals beat writer Katie Woo reported that the two prospects that have been mentioned in discussions with the Giants are pitcher Carson Whisenhunt and 2025 first-round pick Gavin Kilen. It falls in line with reporting that St. Louis is looking for two well-respected prospects to part with Donovan.

Whisenhunt made his MLB debut last season, going 2-1 with a 5.01 ERA in five starts. He struck out 16 and walked six in 23.1 innings. He remains one of the franchise’s top prospects per MLB Pipeline as he doesn’t have the service time yet to graduate.

While Whisenhunt is San Francisco’s No. 7 prospect, Kilen a middle infielder, is No. 3 per MLB Pipeline. The Giants selected the Tennessee product before they hired his coach, Tony Vitello, as manager. He played 10 games for Class-A Fresno last year and batted .205. He’ll need a few more years of development. He won’t be an immediate replacement for Donovan.

Donovan is a versatile player who has played six different positions, but 225 of his 501 MLB games at second base.

He is coming off a 2025 season in which he was named an All-Star for the first time, as he slashed .287/.353/.422 with 10 home runs and 50 RBI. When he broke into the Majors in 2022, he was named an NL Gold Glove winner and finished third in NL rookie of the year voting after he slashed .281/.394/.379 with five home runs and 45 RBI in 126 games. In four seasons he has a slash of .282/.361/.411 with 40 home runs and 202 RBI.

He's a rock-solid, left-handed hitter and a quality defensive player. Donovan comes with an inviting feature — he has two years of team control remaining before he can become a free agent. Donovan is expected to get a deal around $5.4 million in 2026. That’s cheap for a second baseman with his talent and track record.