Last night, MLB Trade Rumors posted their annual salary arbitration projection article which uses Matt Swartz’s formula and has come pretty close to nailing the final figure year in and year out. Last year,
the San Francisco Giants had four key figures eligible for arbitration and none of them wound up going to a hearing but settled very close to the result generated by Swartz’s formula.
- Tyler Rogers (5.034) — $5.5MM | ACTUAL: $5.25MM
- LaMonte Wade Jr. (5.035) — $4.7MM | ACTUAL: $5MM
- Mike Yastrzemski (5.128) — $9.5MM | ACTUAL: $9.25MM
- Camilo Doval (3.071) — $4.6MM | ACTUAL: $4.525MM
This year, you’re not going to find a group of guys who have been around so long that reasonable pro or con arguments could be made, that they’ve been on the team for so long that you can’t imagine the Giants replacing them with a better option or that they’ve been on the team long enough that it’s time to move on. At the end of the day, the Giants did wind up moving on from all four of these guys, three because the team stunk and they were traded, and one because he stunk so badly he might never play a major league inning again.
Instead, it’s a mix of first-timers and last-timers with maybe a couple of obvious YESes and coin flips for the rest. Let’s stick with last year’s Buster Posey-themed HAVIN’ IT (tender AND sign to a contract; there’s always the possibility of a tender and trade) or AIN’T HAVIN’ IT (non-tender) judgment with each case (and yes, I remember that Andrew Baggarly showed Posey the gif and he claimed that wasn’t what he was saying — it was that he didn’t have a firm grip on the ball he threw).
Patrick Bailey (projection: $2.2 million)
The best defensive catcher on the planet — HAVIN’ IT — sure hasn’t been able to hit a lick — HAVIN’ IT HAVIN’ IT — for the past few seasons, but Buster Posey thinks he’s turned things around lately, adjusting his swing to have more or better “stack” (sorry, I’m half-remembering his end of season press hits) and showing noticeable improvement. In September, he played in 24 of the Giants’ 25 games and in 78 plate appearances went 21-for-73 with a trio of doubles and a quartet of homers, generating a triple slash of .288/.321/.493 (.814 OPS) — HAVIN’ IT. That’s remarkable and fantastic. Certainly, unsustainable over a whole season (particularly with a 7:1 strikeouts to walk ratio), but evidence that the hit tool is still in there.
I feel like we don’t need to say anything about his exquisite defense. HAVIN’ IT. Posey even commented that he felt Bailey improved on balls in the dirt and led the pitching staff without question. You could certainly see a too clever by half front office making him a trade chip for a bigger deal, and with the upcoming balls-strikes challenge system one might argue that his value is set to only go down, but I think that’s a journey the Giants will be taking with him rather than waiting to find out while he wears another uniform. Pitching framing isn’t only about stealing strikes. He might just show everybody what the strike zone actually is and win challenges/deny wins.
Anyway, this is a pretty obvious HAVIN’ IT.
J.T. Brubaker (projection: $2.1 million)
The righty reliever seems like the exact sort of player who would be non-tendered and picked up in the winter on a minor league deal / split deal that guarantees more than the MLB minimum if promoted. But it’s worth noting that 2025 was his second year after Tommy John surgery in April 2023 and last season, the Yankees liked what he’d done in the past enough to trade international bonus pool money for him.
He didn’t wind up pitching well enough to avoid the chopping block when it came time to upgrade at the trade deadline and the Giants picked him up as a free agent, not only because they needed an experienced arm to staff up a bullpen that had been thinned out at the trade deadline, but also because he posted a 3.38 ERA / 3.76 FIP in 16 IP for New York. He got 11 warmup innings with the River Cats where he was dominant enough (1.64 ERA but with just 7 strikeouts and 5 walks). The Giants basically used him as a flak jacket in Coors Field (he pitched 2.1 innings there when he made his debut appearance) and, otherwise, he was there to soak up some pain against the Diamondbacks and Dodgers and became an opener in the season’s final week. He had a 4.26 ERA with the Giants but, more importantly, a 1.95 FIP and 12 strikeouts against just 3 walks.
He does not have velocity. His fastball (four-seam or two-seam) is right around 93/94 mph. It’s his breaking stuff that keeps teams interested. Both his slider and curveball feature above average spin rates (2,600+ and 2,800+, respectively). He gets a lot of chase and a lot of swing and miss. Still, a 32-year old right-handed reliever is one of the most fungible players on a major league roster. Even with a wide open bullpen for 2026, a skinflint org like the Giants might not have a tough choice walking away from this case, and the fact that they were able to boost his strikeout totals and lower his walks after getting him off the street might be proof of concept for their pitching lab going forward. Prediction: AIN’T HAVIN’ IT.
Andrew Knizner (projection: $1.3 million)
The Giants have been very clear about their intentions for Jesus Rodriguez: they intend for him to be Patrick Bailey’s backup in 2026. That makes it pretty clear that Knizner is a non-tender. That’s not to say that Knizner provided the Giants with no value and isn’t a worthwhile major leaguer.
FanGraphs liked his defense and the advanced metrics had him as a +2.5 Defensive Runs Above Average — that’s in just 33 games played. For comparison’s sake (and this is unfair), J.T. Realmuto had a +5.4 in 132 games and Joey Bart +4.2 in 79 games. Of course, Knizner didn’t hit like either guy (75 wRC+), and that makes him exceptionally fungible — however! After debuting with the Giants in June and posting a triple slash of .103/.133/.207 through his first 11 games, he slashed .292/.386/.354 (.740 OPS) over his final 22 (57 PA). That’s really good for a backup catcher. Not enough to keep him around, of course. Prediction: AIN’T HAVIN’ IT.
Joey Lucchesi (projection: $2 million)
With Erik Miller’s health probably more questionable than certain to start next season, holding on to a reliable lefty reliever already in the fold is only logical. On the surface, Lucchesi had a borderline great season for the Giants. From a metrics standpoint, his churve was better than last season and his sinker velocity was up significantly (+2.7 mph over 2024).
But there was a pretty stark contrast in his season. He made his season debut on June 15th, and in his first 16 appearances (so, through July), he had a 1.56 ERA and 1.52 FIP. Crucially, his average leverage index was 0.77, or low-pressure situations. From August 1st through the end of the season, his average leverage was 0.95, or closer to being high pressure, and the results were much worse: a 5.57 ERA / 5.99 FIP in 21 IP. In other words, he was more good than bad for the Giants this season, but it could be argued that as the second lefty option in a better-staffed bullpen and with a more regular offseason under his belt he would be a perfectly cromulent lower rung option to keep around, especially at such a low price point (2.56 times the major league minimum).
Like Brubaker, he seems to be another success of the pitching lab — or, at least, a pitching lab — as his groundball rate of 53% was a career high. Along with the aforementioned fastball velo increase, these are encouraging signs, and even if his home run rate skyrocketed, there’s certainly reason to keep him around. The main reason why the Giants wouldn’t, though, is Matt Gage, who definitely had a better season.
Prediction: HAVIN’ IT.
Ryan Walker (projection: $2.5 million)
This was Walker’s Return of the Jedi season. His debut year in 2023 put him on the map and had people excited. Last year, his Empire Strikes Back season, he was incredible. This year, he was neither the worst reliever in MLB nor on the Giants, it only felt like that. There are certainly casual fans who don’t want him back, but unless the Giants have info on his health or personality or something else that’s not readily available to the public, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t keep him around for at least one more season.
Walker will play his age-30 season in 2026, and while that’s a wall a lot of professional athletes hit hard, it’s usually not a marker that causes a team to pull up stakes on their “right” to the player. Walker’s mostly bad 2025 (lower velocity, lower strikeouts) had a lot to do with his stellar 2024, where he threw an astonishing 80 innings. Remember, Walker ended last season as the closer, so before that the Giants were deploying him all over the place. Emmanuel Clase was the only pure closer to come close to that innings total in 2024 (74.1 IP and 47 saves) and, wouldn’t you know it? Clase wound up having the worst season of his career in 2025 — just like Walker.
So, it might be the loud contrarian’s demand to cut ties with Ryan Walker, but if he’s the 6th inning guy or the 7th inning guy (assuming they don’t re-sign Tyler Rogers), then the Giants are in very good shape, even if he winds up showing that 2024 was the fluke and that 2025 is the guy who’s here to stay. That version of the player is not a long-term investment. But on a one-year deal for less than the cost of what Wilmer Flores or Tom Murphy did this season? That seems pretty obvious. Prediction: HAVIN’ IT
If the Giants retain the three players I predict they will, then that’s a paltry $6.7 million for what likely projects to about 4.5 wins above replacement combined. Last year’s group were projected to make a combined $24.3 million (actual spend: $24.025 million) for what I assessed as “somewhere in the range of 3-6 WAR.” Boy, was that way wrong. The Giants got basically 1.5 wins above replacement thanks to LaMonte Wade Jr.’s wholly negative value. Even if the new strike zone challenge system eats into Bailey’s value, I still think the Giants are looking at a pretty good bang for the buck in this limited group of arbitration-eligible players.
