What Do the Giants Do With Robbie Ray?

The San Francisco Giants have been one of the worst teams in Major League Baseball. Despite a star-studded and expensive core, they’ve struggled to string together wins at any point this season.

After getting swept by the Diamondbacks for the second time in the last two weeks, trade deadline discussions have already began swirling in San Francisco. Unfortunately, it’s not in the direction that Bay Area fans were hoping heading into the regular season.

With the team currently tied for the second-fewest wins in baseball, selling seems like a guarantee at this point. While it’ll be hard to offload some of the massive contracts on their books, there are a few names that do make sense.

Of course, Luis Arraez is a prime candidate thanks to his defensive development, but right behind him is veteran southpaw Robbie Ray. The 34-year-old put together a strong 2025 and started 2026 along those lines, but he has heavily regressed in recent weeks.

Why It Makes Sense

The Giants are at a point where they need to start seeing who’s going to be apart of their long-term future. Ray is not that.

He’s heading into free agency this winter and will likely be looking for a multi-year deal after the 2025 campaign he put together. San Francisco could surprise us, but signing an aging southpaw to a multi-year deal seems highly unlikely for an organization who has been against long-term pitching deals in general.

San Francisco also has a plethora of arms in the minor leagues who could step into the rotation and provide similar to slightly worse value.

Trevor McDonald is the first name that comes to mind. He has been excellent in his five starts this year while Logan Webb spent time on the injured list.

If you take out a blowup start against the White Sox — in which he allowed seven earned runs but held a FIP of just 3.34 — the right-hander would have a 2.49 ERA in 25.1 innings this year.

Names like Carson Whisenhunt and Blade Tidwell should also see time in the big-league rotation at some point this season. Whisenhunt sports a 3.21 ERA across 53.1 innings pitched in Triple-A while posting 9.45 K/9, while Tidwell already saw some action out of the bullpen this season for the Giants.

Who Wants Him?

Ray is in the middle of his roughest stretch in recent memory. Across his last three games, he has a 11.08 ERA with a 9.68 FIP and mere 4.15 K/9. That number is heavily inflated due to him allowing an abysmal nine earned runs against the Diamondbacks in his second-to-last start.

However, prior to those outings, Ray had looked amazing for San Francisco. In his first 45.2 innings of the season, he had a 2.76 ERA with a 26.1% strikeout rate.

While the impressive start to the season may be behind him, it was coming on the heels of a strong 2025 campaign. Heading into the last week of August, Ray was sporting an ERA under 3.00 (2.93) while striking out right around a hitter an inning (8.91 K/9).

Contending teams like the Cubs, Phillies, Guardians, Padres, Athletics, and Reds would gladly welcome a veteran with that level of upside into their rotation at the right price.

The real debate is what Ray will be worth.

If they wanted to, San Francisco could have jumped the market before his blowup starts and sold extremely early. I mean, they did that exact thing with Patrick Bailey.

However, they’re now at a point where they might be better off waiting for the deadline and hoping Ray turns things around. Either way, he seems like a surefire selling piece, and if he’s going to leave in free agency this winter, you might as well get what you can for him.

This isn’t the same situation that the previous regime went through in 2024 with Blake Snell. They thought that they would be contending for a wild-card spot and decided to hold onto him for a potential playoff push. Later that winter, he signed with their historic rival Dodgers after they failed to make the postseason.

As it currently stands, San Francisco is nowhere near contending for anything. With a rotation that ranks 26th in ERA and an offense that has scored the least amount of runs in baseball, selling seems like the most logical decision.

How hard Buster Posey decides to commit to it remains to be seen.