Surprising? Not where the Giants are concerned, but some other option decisions across the sport might have interesting ripple effects.
I couldn’t find a picture of Wilmer Flores and Robbie Ray together in the SB Nation photo tool because their time on the San Francisco Giants this season did not overlap.
Flores’s final game before hitting the IL was on July 23rd. Ray would make his season debut post-Tommy John surgery the very next day. Flores’s season ended because of knee troubles that required a Tenex procedure while Ray’s ended thanks to left hamstring strain.
Today, both players informed the team that they would be exercising options on their deals to remain with the team in 2025. For his part, Flores exercised a $3.5 million option after the Giants declined their $8.5 million option. Ray, meanwhile, had option to bow out of the remaining two years and $50 million on his 5-year $115 million deal with the Mariners signed back in November 2021.
When healthy, both can be penciled in to provide solidly average or better production for their respective positions: Flores as a super utility/pinch hitter/platoon DH/first baseman and Ray as a solid #2 starter or a great #3 rotation guy with the occasional flash of Cy Young-level talent. Both will be in their age-33 seasons in 2025, though, and working their way back from surgery (Ray less so, obviously). The upside is probably less than above average and far less likely to reach their salaries.
Of course, optimism is important for a team looking to flirt with the third Wild Card and get people to show up to the stadium. Now it’s a matter of determining if Wilmer Flores adds to that value proposition or not. Last year, we saw maybe the peak of his skills when he was the absolute best hitter on the team and carried the offense for the final few months. Ray made just 7 starts and was good or great in 3 of them.
We can assume that given the financial state of the sport right now — the cratering of the regional sports networks has at least a third of the teams scrambling to restructure their revenue and spending models to account for the impact of this — that likely zero teams are willing to pick up Ray’s deal because that $25 million AAV is probably better invested in another free agent. Also, the Giants might actually like the player. Meanwhile, with Flores, the Giants could treat his picked up $3.5 million as a buyout and cut him.
From an extremely conservative perspective, why not hold on to Flores at least into Spring Training and see what he’s got? A Flores-LaMonte Wade Jr. first base (or DH) platoon probably makes the most sense for a team that shouldn’t be expected to compete very much in 2025, and if it doesn’t work, they can cut or trade either or both of them.
Meanwhile, Blake Snell opted out of the second year of his 2-year $62 million deal signed back in March. A reminder that year 1 of that deal was deferred in the form of a $17 million signing bonus, which we be payable this coming January; so, in terms of impact on the payroll, the AAV of $31 million is subtracted from the competitive balance tax (CBT) calculation but impacts their “real money” payroll. Right now, the payroll stands at $174.43 million for the CBT — $66 million under the first luxury tax threshold of $241 million (up from $237 million in 2024) — and $183.62 million in terms of “real money” — that is, the actual amount (not AAV) of the contracts plus their player health care obligations (which are a factor in the CBT) and their obligatory contribution to the pre-arbitration bonus pool.
Those dual figures are important insofar as the CBT impacts draft bonus pools and even draft picks to say nothing of any extra monies that would be owed to the league; meanwhile, the real money payroll impacts the real money budget provided by ownership to baseball ops to run the organization. It’s not just a matter of who they can sign in free agency but also how much they can spend on scouting and development.
But let’s focus on free agency for just a moment, because the Giants weren’t the only team with players who had option decisions to make. Some of these players could have an intriguing ripple effect on the Giants’ plans.
Ha-Seong Kim
He declined his end of an $8 million mutual option with the San Diego Padres and will receive a $2 million buyout as a result, per MLB Trade Rumors. This has some implications for the Giants because 1) he’s an excellent shortstop and 2) he’s best friends with Jung Hoo Lee.
But, like his best friend, he’ll be entering 2025 coming off shoulder surgery. For Kim, it’s surgery to repair a torn right labrum. For Lee, it’s for a torn left labrum. I don’t know about you all, but I think a shortstop who throws with his right hand will need a really great right shoulder to make great throws from the position.
He turned 29 a little over 2 weeks ago and so there’s that when trying to forecast/wishcast how the rest of his career might go. If he winds up being a really great second baseman, then he doesn’t necessarily project to help the Giants as much for the money it would seem he’d be seeking. On the other hand, the only other solidly above average free agent shortstop on the market is Willy Adames, so Kim could make a very solid consolation prize for a team in need of a shortstop — though, again, TBD on his usefulness there.
Gerrit Cole & Sean Manaea
He opted out of the remaining 4 years of his massive deal with the Yankees and now they have the option to tack on a 5th year worth $36 million in order to keep him. If they don’t, well, that’s an intriguing entry on the starting pitching market, not because it suddenly makes the Giants contenders for his services, but because it might complicate the Blake Snell market or even boost the trade market.
Meanwhile, Manaea’s decision to opt out after this season after deciding in-season to ape Chris Sale’s delivery might lead to a big raise from his $12-$14 million AAV salary tier to closer to $20 million and, again, that’s when Robbie Ray’s 2 years and $50 million suddenly makes him very valuable.
Cody Bellinger
One of the benefits of elevating Zack Minasian to GM is that he’s locked in on trades. He’s been a pro scout for years and years and so when you start surveying the market and looking at players with questionable contracts, I think it opens up some swap potential.
Now, Bellinger’s $27.5 million salary in 2025 is well above the numbers he put up with the Cubs last year. He was a 2-win player paid to be a 4-win player. Even though his two seasons with Chicago have effectively salvaged his career, it’s still the case that he hasn’t been — and will never again be — the player he was before Kiké Hernández shredded his shoulder during a home run celebration in the 2020 World Series. But the Cubs need pitching, the Giants have enough of it to offer in a deal, and a versatile player with some decent on base paired with a low strikeout rate might be an intriguing situation for all involved.
I mention trades as a possibility because it’s still unclear what kind of a team Buster Posey wants to field, and so I’m just swinging in the dark here, but, options for players provide options for teams, too. Does a Wilmer Flores for $3.5 million make him an attractive get for the Mets in exchange for some fringe arm? Do the Giants want to avoid the mess of paying today’s prices by trading for yesterday’s deals? Or now that all the excitement has passed is the front office simply relieved to have some stability on the roster? We’ll learn about this and more as the offseason begins…