Three up, three down | Talk of Brad Hand as a Dodger; Giants are beyond help

A look at what’s trending in Major League Baseball this week:

THREE UP

Window of truth: The Dodgers’ current management does not believe in the concept that a team has a window to win. By allocating resources to sign, develop and retain a constantly replenished supply of young players, the Dodgers believe their window can stay open indefinitely. But the Chicago Cubs have a young core, and yet the team has traded its top prospect two years running — for Aroldis Chapman last July, for Jose Quintana this week — to maximize what Cubs President Theo Epstein calls their “four-plus year window.” The Cubs won the World Series last year, eliminating the Dodgers along the way.

Brad Hand: The Dodgers could use a left-handed reliever, and that could be Hand, if they can get him in a trade with the San Diego Padres. The Padres aren’t concerned with winning next year; they’re stocking up on the high-risk, high-ceiling teenagers the Dodgers have in abundance after spending millions in Latin America. There’s a natural match, and the “don’t trade within the division” maxim is rendered inapplicable by the Matt Kemp-Yasmani Grandal trade. “It would be awesome to go to a contender, but then again, I like what they’re doing in San Diego,” Hand said. “I think, in a few years, they’re going to have a good team.” He said he hasn’t thought much about the Dodgers, but he has heard their fans, loudly. “They have a good fan base,” he said. “They always travel to San Diego.”

Derby heavyweight: Cody Bellinger represented the Dodgers well in the home run derby — beating Charlie Blackmon of the Colorado Rockies in the first round before losing to eventual champion Aaron Judge — but Bellinger isn’t sure if he would participate again. “We’ll see,” he said. “I was tired. Maybe if I have bulked up some more.” All the players were entranced by Judge, the New York Yankees’ 282-pound goliath, who drove four balls more than 500 feet each. Bellinger and Blackmon are listed at 210 pounds each, and Bellinger said he joked to Blackmon: “We’re 100 pounds too light for this competition.”

THREE DOWN

“Total ineptitude:” The San Francisco Giants are on pace to lose 101 games, which would be a record for a franchise that dates back to 1883. And it’s not just this year: The Giants have lost 98 of their past 162 games, a sample the size of a season. They have been swept seven times this year, not just by contenders but by the Cincinnati Reds, Miami Marlins and New York Mets. Brian Sabean, the Giants’ executive vice president of baseball operations, told the San Jose Mercury News he couldn’t recall so many sweeps in his 25 years in San Francisco. “That, to me,” he said, “is a sign of our total ineptitude.” Squad goals for the second half? “I’ll take two weeks of sanity,” he said.

Hide your future: For all the challenges baseball has in marketing its young stars, a self-imposed challenge should not be one. The Futures Game is a smart showcase for up-and-coming stars, inexplicably hidden on a Sunday afternoon when every major league team is playing. These aren’t new ideas, but we’ll repeat them: Kill the Sunday night ESPN game preceding the All-Star game and play the Futures Game in that national window, or move the All-Star week back a day so the Futures Game is Monday, the home run derby is Tuesday and the All-Star game is Wednesday. Would you rather have seen Alex Verdugo and Yoan Moncada, or the Detroit Tigers and the Cleveland Indians?

Read all about it: ESPN and Fox have committed a total of $10 billion in rights fees to broadcast MLB games on the eight-year contracts currently in force. The networks clearly want to do anything in their power to persuade more fans to watch the games — the greater the number of viewers, the more the networks make on advertising. So it has be troubling to the league that ESPN and Fox have told three of baseball’s best reporters — Buster Olney, Ken Rosenthal and Jayson Stark — to write less, or not at all. If the networks truly believe they cannot boost their audience with great writing about baseball, the sport’s demographic future might be perilous indeed.

SERIES OF THE WEEK

New York Yankees at Minnesota Twins

Monday through Wednesday

The Yankees arrived at the All-Star break tied with the Tampa Bay Rays for second place in the AL East — a good thing for the Rays, but not so good for the Yankees. They had lost 17 of 24 games, flipping a four-game lead into a 3-1/2 game deficit. First base is essentially vacant — Angels discard Ji-Man Choi had a recent audition; the Yankees just traded for the Milwaukee Brewers’ triple-A first baseman — and Masahiro Tanaka leads the team in starts despite a 5.47 ERA. The Twins have hung in there admirably in the AL Central, but the Kansas City Royals are 22-13 since June 1, and the Indians have been in first place in the division every day but one since June 17. The Twins would like to trade for starting pitchers, little wonder when theirs have a 4.95 ERA. They’re sending out Kyle Gibson (6.31 ERA) every fifth day.

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