Giants Trade Tiers: Players most, least likely to be on the move at the deadline?

KANSAS CITY — Ever since Tony Vitello’s first days of spring training, there’s been one element of professional baseball that has stood out to him after a lifetime of college ball.The professionalism.“It doesn’t mean that it’s not personal or there’s not emotions involved,” Vitello remarked recently.“But it’s literally pro baseball.”That has been the case whenever the first-year manager has had to deliver hard news, whether it be roster cuts at the end of camp or transactions through the first portion of the season.It’s never been more relevant than the conversations he will have to have over the next few weeks, when there will almost certainly be a stream of players who have played integral roles to this point who are called into his office and informed that they’ve been traded elsewhere.Thus is the life of a team so down-and-out that there’s no question about its position at the MLB trade deadline.

Inevitably, key players will be subtracted from the roster by the time Aug.3 comes and passes.“It’s honestly a sense of relief,” Vitello said of the contrast from his college players.

“Whereas when you’re dealing with families and you’re dealing with kids, a smaller amount of coaches, some of those bonds that last for a while, there’s a lot more emotion that’s tied to it. “Not that it’s completely nonexistent at this level, but it is pro baseball.There is a business part to it.

I think it becomes almost a part of everyone’s routine of understanding everything that comes with it.”There are a couple players who are all but certain to be dealt, but president of baseball operations Buster Posey and the front office could go in a number of different directions as one of only six teams more than four games out of a playoff spot.Broken into six tiers, these are the most and least likely Giants to be on the move:Luis Arraez, 2BRobbie Ray, LHPIt’s up for debate what odds are lower: The chances of the Giants making a mirac...