Giants decline club option on catcher Tom Murphy

The San Francisco Giants have turned down their $4M club option on catcher Tom Murphy. He will get a $250K buyout and become a free agent. Justice delos Santos of Mercury News was among those to pass the news along.

It’s one of the least surprising option decisions of the year. Ahead of the 2024 season, the Giants signed Murphy to a two-year, $8.25M deal. He made a $4M salary last year and this year, then could have made the same salary in 2026 if the Giants had picked up the option.

Murphy only played 13 games in 2024 and didn’t play at all this year. Last year, a left knee sprain was the culprit. This year, it was an oblique strain, or at least that was the initial thought. In August, Murphy spoke with Susan Slusser of the San Francisco Chronicle and expressed frustration with the fact that his injury was actually a herniated disk, which was misdiagnosed. Even with the correct diagnosis, things didn’t get better, as a clinic recommended by the team initially treated the wrong disk.

Though it seems this situation was out of Murphy’s hands, he had an injury-prone reputation before becoming a Giant. He had generally hit well when healthy, but had never played more than 97 games in a season and only twice had he even reached 50 games in a season. The signing was a bit of a gamble on him being healthy enough to be a viable backup, but that clearly didn’t work out.

The Giants turning down their option was therefore the expected outcome. Presumably, Murphy will be focused on getting as strong and healthy as possible before looking for bounce-back opportunities for the 2026 season. The Giants go into next year with Patrick Bailey as their primary backstop, with Andrew Knizner and Jesús Rodríguez also on the 40-man.