Padres To Acquire Robbie Ray

Ray, 34, gives the Friars some much-needed stability in a rotation that’s lacked it all season. He’s being paid $25MM — and will be owed a $1MM assignment bonus — in the final season of a five-year, $115MM contract he signed with the Mariners after winning the 2021 American League Young Award. Seattle traded him to San Francisco in the 2023-24 offseason while Ray was recovering from UCL surgery. He’s still owed about $7.661MM of that sum through season’s end. If the two parties are also splitting the bill on that $1MM assignment bonus, it’d mean $4.33MM per club.

Although Ray isn’t missing bats like he did earlier in his career — or even in 2025, for that matter — he’s avoiding hard contact and doing a nice job keeping runs off the board. He’s tossed 122 2/3 innings with the Giants this season and notched a tidy 3.08 ERA. Ray’s 20.9% strikeout rate and 11.1% walk rate both leave something to be desired, but he’s been among the hottest pitchers in the sport this summer. Over his past seven starts, the 6’2″, 220-pound lefty boasts an immaculate 1.09 ERA in 49 1/3 innings. Since returning from Tommy John surgery late in the ’24 campaign, Ray has a 3.54 ERA in 335 2/3 innings.

Ray will be a pure rental for the Padres, but given their depleted farm system, they might’ve had a tough time reeling in a controllable arm anyhow. Ray will slot into the staff alongside Michael King and Walker Buehler — the only two regular starters in San Diego’s rotation at the moment.

The Padres have been leaning hard on their excellent bullpen and a series of long relief outings from veterans like German Marquez and Griffin Canning as they try to wait out the looming returns of Joe Musgrove and Nick Pivetta. Both starters are on minor league rehab assignments and could return later this month, barring setbacks. A rotation including King, Ray, Musgrove, Pivetta and Buehler would be the strongest group the Padres have trotted out all season.

From a payroll vantage point, the swap isn’t all that consequential to the Giants. They’ll trim $3.83MM or so in 2026 spending, but they’re already more than $20MM shy of the luxury tax threshold. It’s a nice bit of cost savings, but there’s no bigger-picture angle other than that.

For the Padres, who are  about $17MM over the luxury tax threshold — as shown in MLBTR’s Payroll Tracker — this swap will push them right up to the brink of the second tax threshold. The Padres were tax payors last season as well, so the first $20MM by which they exceed the threshold is taxed at a 30% rate. They’ll pay about $1.299MM in taxes on top of Ray’s remaining salary, and since they’re now right on the edge of the second penalty tier, any subsequent spending will be taxed at a 42%, given their second-time-offender status.

Snagging Mendez as the headliner in their return is a nice bit of business for San Diego. The 24-year-old missed time on the injured list due to shoulder troubles. He’s currently on a minor league rehab assignment. Baseball America ranked him tenth in the Padres’ system last month; FanGraphs and MLB.com both list him fourth.

Those shoulder injuries have limited Mendez to to 35 2/3 innings this season. He’s pitched to a pedestrian 4.79 ERA in that time but fanned one-quarter of his opponents while keeping 46% of batted balls against him on the ground. Mendez has a heater in the mid/upper-90s with a slider in the upper 80s and a show-me changeup that lags behind in terms of both velocity and quality.

Mendez gives the Giants a pitching prospect with a power arsenal who’s not that far from major league readiness. He might’ve been a late-2026 option were it not for the injuries that have limited his workload this season. However, if Mendez can return in short order — he tossed one inning in a High-A rehab assignment late last week — he could get enough innings late this year to be a serious consideration early in the 2027 season.

Hernandez is much more of a down-the-road play. He just signed with the Padres out of his native Cuba back in January, reeling in a substantial $1.4MM bonus that made him one of their most notable international pickups. The 17-year-old has just started his professional career, logging 41 games with San Diego’s affiliate in the Dominican Summer League. He’s hitting .303/.424/.503 in his first taste of professional work.

Both FanGraphs and BA ranked Hernandez 21st among San Diego prospects. MLB.com ranked him ninth. He’s a plus runner with a big arm and tantalizing athleticism. Already listed at 6’1″ and 180 pounds before his 18th birthday, Hernandez has a projectable frame to along with that raw athleticism. A lot can go wrong with players this young, but Hernandez has the type of frame, athleticism and raw tools that could see his prospect stock shoot up in short order if he can make some gains with his hit tool and continue to develop defensively.

Jeff Passan of ESPN first reported that a Ray trade between San Diego and San Francisco was being finalized. Jon Heyman of the New York Post reported the return. Alex Pavlovic of NBC Sports reported the financial details.