Left-hander Robbie Ray has declined the opt-out clause in his contract, meaning he’ll remain with the Giants for the 2025 and 2026 seasons. ESPN’s Jeff Passan was the first to report the news. The five-year, $115M pact Ray signed with the Mariners before the 2022 season was slightly backloaded, and thus, Ray will earn $25M in each of the 2025 and 2026 seasons.
Unsurprisingly, 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 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 $50M in the open market. Carlos Rodón had many injury absences in his early career but secured a two-year, $44M 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.
Considering that, 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 return to his Cy Young-winning form from 2021, getting even part of the way back there would be nice. The year 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 will 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 many others. The trade market should feature Garrett Crochet, Sonny Gray and more.