{"id":444907,"date":"2026-01-31T09:58:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-31T09:58:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/444907\/"},"modified":"2026-01-31T09:58:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-31T09:58:08","slug":"giants-sign-harrison-bader-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/444907\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants Sign Harrison Bader – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

January 30th: The Giants officially announced Bader\u2019s signing today. They opened a 40-man spot by trading<\/a> Kai-Wei Teng<\/a> to the Astros yesterday.<\/p>\n

January 26th: The Giants have a notable upgrade to their outfield defense in place, reportedly agreeing to a two-year, $20.5MM contract with free agent outfielder Harrison Bader<\/a>. The Vayner Sports client can earn an additional $500K via incentives, bringing the deal\u2019s maximum value to $21MM.<\/p>\n

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Bader, 31, has been a free agent for three consecutive offseasons but now lands the multi-year deal that\u2019s previously eluded him. He signed one-year deals with the Mets and Twins, respectively, over the past two winters. Bader turned in a career-best performance in Minnesota and was red hot for the Phillies down the stretch after joining them in a deadline swap, and the market has rewarded that strong 2025 performance.<\/p>\n

In 501 plate appearances between Minnesota and Philadelphia last year, Bader slashed .277\/.347\/.449 with 17 homers, 24 doubles, a triple and 11 steals (albeit in 18 attempts). His 7.8% walk rate was the second-best he\u2019s posted in a 162-game season, though 2025\u2019s bloated 27.1% strikeout rate was also his worst full-season mark since 2019. Much of Bader\u2019s success can be attributed to an increase in playing time and a hefty .359 average on balls in play, but it bears mentioning that his 10.2% barrel rate and 40.3% hard-hit rate were personal bests in a full big league season.<\/p>\n

Strong as last year\u2019s performance was \u2014 22% better than league-average, by measure of wRC+ \u2014 offense has never been Bader\u2019s calling card. He\u2019s been clearly above average in four of his nine MLB campaigns, but on the whole, Bader is a .247\/.313\/.401 hitter in a bit more than 3000 career plate appearances, which just barely shy of average. His glovework, however, is among the best in all of baseball, regardless of position.<\/p>\n

Bader has played 5925 innings of center field defense in his career and been credited with a gaudy 51 Defensive Runs Saved and 67 Outs Above Average. He played more left field than center field in Minnesota, largely in deference to Byron Buxton<\/a>, and notched positive marks in both DRS (7) and OAA (3) through 496 frames.<\/p>\n

Overall, Bader has played 6799 innings of outfield defense in the majors, dating back to his 2017 MLB debut. In that time, only four outfielders \u2014 Mookie Betts<\/a>, Kevin Kiermaier<\/a>, Daulton Varsho<\/a>, Michael A. Taylor<\/a> \u2014 have bested his 67 DRS. No outfielder in that time has topped Bader\u2019s 77 OAA. Francisco Lindor<\/a>, Nick Ahmed<\/a>, Nolan Arenado<\/a> and Ke\u2019Bryan Hayes<\/a> are the only four majors leaguers at any position with a better OAA total in that time.<\/p>\n

With Bader turning 32 in June, it\u2019s fair to at least wonder whether he\u2019ll begin to slow down over the next two seasons. However, there\u2019s no reason to think that\u2019ll be the case \u2014 at least based on recent history. This past season\u2019s average sprint speed of 28.8 feet per second was actually an improvement over Bader\u2019s 2024 mark of 28.2 ft\/sec and right in line with his 2023 mark. He\u2019s no longer covering the flat-out elite 30 ft\/sec he did earlier in his career, but Bader\u2019s 2025 sprint speed still landed in the 85th percentile of all big league position players. He\u2019s a clear plus runner.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a near certainty that Bader will take that plus speed and range to Oracle Park as the Giants\u2019 new center fielder. Jung Hoo Lee<\/a> handled the bulk of center field work in San Francisco this past offseason but ranked as one of the worst defenders in the game along the way (-18 DRS, -5 OAA). Lee\u2019s arm strength sat in the 91st percentile of big league outfielders, per Statcast, but his range was near the bottom of the scale. Lee should have the arm to move to right field, where his lack of range would be better suited. Even if Bader\u2019s bat regresses and checks in a bit shy of average, the defensive upgrade alone will be enormous for the Giants.<\/p>\n

Assuming even distribution of that $20.5MM, Bader\u2019s contract bumps San Francisco\u2019s actual cash payroll to a projected $195MM, per RosterResource<\/a>. Their luxury tax payroll is quite a bit higher, clocking in at about $221.5MM, but that still leaves more than $20MM between their current standing and the $244MM threshold at which luxury penalties begin. San Francisco has paid the tax in the past, but only rarely. They were over the line in 2024, which stands as their only time exceeding the threshold in recent memory.<\/p>\n

For the time being, it doesn\u2019t seem likely that the Giants will climb back to that level of spending. San Francisco is in the market for a second baseman but has been looking at the trade market \u2014 specifically, affordable targets like CJ Abrams<\/a> and Brendan Donovan<\/a> (\u201caffordable\u201d in terms of salary \u2014 not necessarily prospect capital). They\u2019ve added Adrian Houser<\/a> and Tyler Mahle<\/a> to the rotation and could continue to poke around the rotation and bullpen markets, but ownership has publicly expressed an aversion to signing any free agent pitcher to a long-term deal, making a run at a top free agent like Framber Valdez<\/a> feel unlikely.<\/p>\n

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic first reported<\/a> the two-year agreement. Jon Heyman of the New York Post first reported<\/a> the financial terms.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"January 30th: The Giants officially announced Bader\u2019s signing today. They opened a 40-man spot by trading Kai-Wei Teng…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,13987,462,82],"class_list":["post-444907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-harrison-bader","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}