Left-hander Robbie Ray has declined the opt-out clause in his contract, meaning that he’ll remain with the Giants for both the 2025 and 2026 seasons. ESPN’s Jeff Passan (X link) was the first to report the news. The five-year, $115MM pact Ray signed with the Mariners prior to the 2022 season was slightly backloaded, and thus Ray will earn $25MM in each of the 2025 and 2026 seasons.
It’s not terribly surprising that Ray is taking the proverbial bird in the hand here. He underwent ulnar collateral ligament reconstruction, commonly known as Tommy John surgery, and a flexor tendon repair in May of 2023. While recovering from that operation, the Mariners traded him to the Giants.
Ray was able to get back on the mound with San Francisco in 2024, but made seven starts with an unimpressive 4.70 earned run average before spending the month of September on the injured list due to a left hamstring strain.
Pitchers with injury question marks can still get paid but Ray would be hard-pressed to find more than $50MM on the open market. Carlos Rodón had plenty of injury absences in his early career but was able to secure a two-year, $44MM deal from the Giants going into 2022. However, Rodón had just made 24 starts for the White Sox in 2021 with a 2.37 ERA and was going into his age-29 season. Ray, on the other hand, is now 33 years old and has made eight starts over the past two years with a 5.03 ERA.
Taking all that into consideration, Ray’s best financial move was to keep this guarantee. He’ll return to the Giants next year and hopefully get back on track. While it’s probably unrealistic to expect him to get back to his Cy Young winning form from 2021, getting even part of the way back there would be nice. The year that he earned that hardware, he made 32 starts for the Blue Jays with a 2.84 ERA, 32.1% strikeout rate and 6.7% walk rate.
One Giant starter is departing, as Blake Snell has opted out of his deal. Next year’s rotation in San Francisco projects to include Ray, Logan Webb and Kyle Harrison. Perhaps Jordan Hicks will get another shot at starting or maybe he’ll be back in the bullpen. Guys like Landen Roupp, Keaton Winn, Tristan Beck, Hayden Birdsong and others would also be in the mix.
If the club looks to bolster that group, the free agent market will be headlined by guys like Snell, Corbin Burnes, Max Fried, Jack Flaherty and plenty of others. The trade market should feature Garrett Crochet, Sonny Gray and more.
just_thinkin
Woops!
julyn82001
Well, Ray probably likes SF or the money attached to the contract? Wonder… Land…
MLB Top 100 Commenter
Giants have a Ray of hope.
But realistically they are locked in 4th next year. Way behind top three and way above the bottom Rockies.
SweetBabyRayKingsThickThighs
As easy a decision they can get
Captainmike1
Well, he DID pitch in SEVEN games
avenger65
Captainmike: Well, Kershaw started 7 games this year and actually earned a 5M bonus.
angelsbroncosfan
I remember telling Mariners fans, that was a bad contract when they signed him. Jerry Dipsnot got lucky, he found a sucker to take that contract
gbs42
Dipsnot? So clever.
JohnJasoJingleHeimerSchmidt
In return he took on Mitch Haniger’s contract, which isn’t exactly performing very well, either.
In fact, Ray > Haniger in nearly every possible way.
dannycore
I think the point is the ~40m saved by the mariners to repurpose. Haniger was never expected to perform
JohnJasoJingleHeimerSchmidt
So they took a 23M AAV hit and repurposed it into a 17M AAV hit for a worse player?
Wow, what a move by DiPoto.
holecamels35
They still keep forcing Haniger into the lineup though.
gravel
The Giants shed Haniger and DeSclafani’s contracts in that deal.
Datashark
Ray can still pull up the K’s, so maybe there is still a chance for him to be a solid #3 maybe #2
JayRyder
Thanks Farhan.
JohnJasoJingleHeimerSchmidt
Farhan Zaidi was pretty much a disaster for the Giants, but swapping Mitch Haniger and Anthony DeSclafani for Robbie Ray was a pretty shrewd move.
letitbelowenstein
Afraid nobody will pay him more than 25 mil? I’m shocked.
Yankee Clipper
I heard a six-year-old was willing to donate his uniform pants to Ray so he could get pants that were the appropriate tightness for him……