By Maria Guardado | 7:16 p.m. EST
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The Giants and Mariners have been frequent trade partners in recent years, but no move was as significant as the one they announced Friday.
In a harbinger of more offseason activity, San Francisco acquired 2021 AL Cy Young Award winner Robbie Ray from Seattle for outfielder Mitch Haniger and right-hander Anthony DeSclafani. The Giants are also sending the Mariners $6 million to make the deal cash neutral for both sides in 2024.
TRADE DETAILS
Get giants: LHP Robbie Ray
Mariners receive: OF Mitch Haniger, RHP Anthony DeSclafani, cash
Ray is expected to be out until the second half of 2024 after undergoing Tommy John surgery on his left elbow last May. He made just one start last year, but in 2022 he posted a 3.71 ERA over 189 innings for the Mariners. The 32-year-old is owed $73 million in the final three years of his contract, although he will be able to opt out after the 2024 season.
With Ray and Alex Cobb (left hip surgery) expected to miss the start of the season, the Giants will likely pursue even more starting pitching this winter, with left-handers Blake Snell, Jordan Montgomery and Shōta Imanaga among their potential free agents -Aims count.
“It's probably an area that we want to continue to expand, whether through free agency or through trade,” Giants president of baseball operations Farhan Zaidi said during a Zoom call with reporters. “Robbie is obviously a big figure for us and fulfills what we saw as the ideal of a No. 2 starter who had a different style to Logan Webb but complemented him well. Robbie is a power lefty who misses a lot of hitters. Before this injury, he actually had a really good track record of endurance.
“Hopefully Alex Cobb will have a timetable that allows him to return earlier than the second half, but with Robbie I think that is a realistic time frame. … Any pitching additions we make from this point forward have to somehow come with the knowledge that we're going to have those three guys at the top of the rotation in the second half.”
Haniger, 33, spent five years in Seattle before signing a three-year, $43.5 million contract with his hometown Giants last offseason. But he hit just .209 with six home runs and 28 RBIs in 61 games in an injury-plagued 2023 season. Like Ray, he has the option to opt out at the end of the 2024 season.
Haniger's departure will help clear the Giants' logjam in the outfield, where Jung Hoo Lee, Michael Conforto, Mike Yastrzemski, Austin Slater, Luis Matos, Tyler Fitzgerald, Heliot Ramos and Wade Meckler will already be vying for bats.
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The 33-year-old DeSclafani posted a best ERA of 3.17 in 31 starts for the Giants in 2021, but has struggled to stay healthy in each of the last two seasons, posting an ERA of 3.17 in 24 total appearances (23 starts). 5.16 Problems with right ankle and right forearm. He is owed $12 million in the final year of the three-year, $36 million contract he signed with San Francisco in November 2021.
Without DeSclafani, the Giants are expected to turn to several young starters to replace Cobb and Ray early in the season, including Kyle Harrison, Keaton Winn, Tristan Beck and Kai-Wei Teng. They also have a veteran option in Ross Stripling, who will be back in the rotation mix after opting out of the final year of a two-year, $25 million contract he signed last offseason.
“The flexibility to create opportunities for our younger players, the flexibility to potentially make other moves to fill the spots that we traded, that's definitely part of the consideration here,” Zaidi said. “I think for us, Robbie and the long-term vision of him being at the top of our rotation along with Logan Webb was the No. 1 motivation.” But some of the flexibility it creates for internal opportunities and a little more maneuverability in terms of other free agent moves or trade acquisitions that we're considering are certainly part of that.”