Today Shohei Ohtani signed with the Angels. Giancarlo Stanton is not going to the Cardinals and he is probably not coming to San Francisco either.

What this all means, along with the Winter Meetings starting next week, is that players are going to start moving soon. In the spirit of Christmas, here’s my list of moves I think the Giants should make (again, given Stanton not arriving on a white horse over the weekend).

1. Trade Brandon Belt to the Red Sox for Jackie Bradley Jr. This is a long shot and Grant Brisbee digs into the layers in this post, but my thinking goes thusly: JD Martinez signs with Arizona, and the Red Sox don’t like Eric Hosmer and/or his price tag. Trading Bradley allows the Red Sox to shuffle some parts in a good way, doesn’t cost a ton, and doesn’t hurt their defense in the OF too badly. The Giants lose some power here, but get WAY better in CF, and cut some costs.
2. Sign Jay Bruce. I am not a huge fan of Jay Bruce, but it sounds like he may go for 3 years and less than $40 million. This is exactly the kind of move the Giants need to make. Trade for young, controllable players, and sign older guys to shorter deals. This is essentially the middle road: the team does not get dramatically better, but this is also not a full rebuild. Essentially, the Giants should not make a move that takes them out of the Manny Machado/Bryce Haper/Josh Donaldson 2018 sweepstakes.
3. Let Christian Arroyo play 3B all year. This will help clarify some things. Either Arroyo won’t cut it, making Machado/Donaldson all the more obvious, or he will cut it and maybe the Giants can go in a different direction (trading Joe Panik, pursuing Bryce Harper, etc). The Giants need to find out what they have here.
4. Sign one more cheap veteran to help at 1B. Matt Adams? Mitch Moreland? Adam Lind? I don’t know, it could be any of those guys. Best case scenario: Aubrey Huff in 2010. Worst case scenario, you have a one year lame duck who opens up an opportunity for Chris Shaw.
5. Dump Denard Span. My money is on the Twins or the Royals =)
6. Spend any extra money on the bullpen. In particular, I’m looking at 1-2 year deals. Jake McGee? Trevor Rosenthal? Brandon Morrow? I don’t know, there’s a TON of these guys out there, let’s bring in a few and bolster that bullpen.

Here we go:

• Bradley Jr. CF
• Panik 2B
• Posey C
• Bruce LF
• Pence RF
• Crawford SS
• Arroyo 3B
• Moreland 1B

But, hey, let’s be honest, it’s going to cost too much, but Andrew McCutchen will look good in Orange and Black.