In a trade that alleviates a financial burden for one club while extending roster flexibility to another, the San Francisco Giants acquired left-hander Robbie Ray from the Seattle Mariners on Friday in exchange for right-handed starter Anthony DeSclafani, outfielder Mitch Haniger and cash.
With the Giants striking out in pursuit of nine-figure free agents Shohei Ohtani and Yoshinobu Yamamoto, dealing for Ray gives them a former Cy Young Award winner who is recovering from Tommy John surgery in May 2023.
While Ray, 32, entering the third year of a five-year, $115 million contract, won’t be ready for a full campaign until 2025, dealing Haniger and DeSclafani opens up other, more current avenues.
Haniger, 33, returns to Seattle where he spent five seasons and made one All-Star team before health woes curtailed the end of his stint. After failing to land Aaron Judge one winter ago, the Giants gave him a two-year, $28 million deal, but injuries limited him to just 61 games.
Now, dealing Haniger and DeSclafani – entering the final season of a three-year, $36 million pact – gives the Giants flexibility to take one more crack at a free agent market that still includes All-Star outfielder Cody Bellinger and reigning Cy Young Award winner Blake Snell.
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In a sense, the trade partially corrects two wrongs under baseball operations president Farhan Zaidi. He let former ace Kevin Gausman walk to the Toronto Blue Jays for a five-year, $110 million deal after the 2021 season – nearly the identical deal Ray signed with Seattle that winter.
Zaidi never adequately replaced Gausman and exacerbated the Giants’ plunge with mid-range deals like the ones bestowed upon DeSclafani and Haniger. Now, both are gone and Ray at least offers the hope that he may regain much of the form with which he struck out a major league-high 248 batters in 193 innings in 2021.
Ray, baseball operations president Jerry Dipoto esitmated in October, should be ready to return by the 2024 All-Star break.
For the Mariners, the deal marks another grim turn in their fortunes – quite literally.
The club is anticipating reduced revenue from local television revenue with their regional sports network getting moved to a higher cable tier that is expected to cost them thousands of subscribers and likely millions of dollars in revenue.
Haniger was with the Mariners from 2017-2022, earning an All-Star nod in 2018 and then had career-highs of 39 home runs and 100 RBI in 2021.
