{"id":402167,"date":"2026-07-17T12:05:24","date_gmt":"2026-07-17T12:05:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/402167\/"},"modified":"2026-07-17T12:05:24","modified_gmt":"2026-07-17T12:05:24","slug":"giants-lee-arraez-and-ray-are-top-trade-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/402167\/","title":{"rendered":"Giants\u2019 Lee, Arraez, and Ray are top trade candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Maybe the San Francisco Giants aren\u2019t contenders this season, but according to<\/a> ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan, a few members of this year\u2019s roster could end up on playoff teams after the trade deadline.<\/p>\n

Luis Arraez, Robbie Ray, and Jung Hoo Lee were all listed as the \u201cBest Match\u201d for various MLB contenders and aspiring contenders, though none of them reached the vaunted level of \u201cDream Match.\u201d Look, the 2026 Giants will take what that can get.<\/p>\n

This is not trade scuttlebutt or a prediction, but an exercise in matching teams with something to play for this fall with teams who might or should be available. The most obvious player is Arraez, who is on a one-year, $12M contract and is hitting .330, second in baseball, with surprisingly good defense at second base.<\/p>\n

Passan thinks he\u2019s a fit for the Tampa Bay Rays, a not-infrequent trade partner of the Giants who have Richie Palacios (.237\/.333\/.338, 0.4 WAR) and an unimpressive group of options at second base.<\/p>\n

[Arraez] rarely strikes out, right in line with the Rays\u2019 MLB-best 18.9% K rate. He\u2019s got a .327 batting average, second in baseball. He gets on 36% of the time, perfect to slot in atop the lineup and offer D\u00edaz, Aranda and Caminero more RBI opportunities. Best of all, Arr\u00e1ez has gone from liability at second base to above average, capable of filling a true spot of need for the Rays.<\/p>\n

Arraez may be one of the team\u2019s most (few?) watchable players, but they\u2019d be only trading 66 games of Arraez. If they want him back, he\u2019s a free agent after the season. The Giants tend to panic in these situations and work out an extension, like the expensive<\/a> six-year, $150M deal Matt Chapman signed near the end of the 2024 season. As usual, the Rays have a very good farm system to make a deal.<\/p>\n

Passan believes that the Philadelphia Phillies need outfield help and endorses Lee to fill that need, though he repeatedly qualifies that Byron Buxton of the Minnesota Twins would be preferable.<\/p>\n

Lee\u2019s low-strikeout, high-average approach is perhaps the best Philadelphia can do so long as Buxton isn\u2019t going anywhere.<\/p>\n

The argument for Lee is that the Phillies\u2019 struggling outfield, even with the resurgent Brandon Marsh, isn\u2019t good enough, especially with Adolis Garcia out for the season. Lee may have three years and $63M left on his deal after this season, but there aren\u2019t a lot of free agent outfielders providing alternative options. Is that also an argument for the Giants to hold onto Lee? Yes.<\/p>\n

Passan\u2019s final \u201cBest Match\u201d is Robbie Ray with the St. Louis Cardinals, who are 50-45 and one game back of the final wild-card spot in the National League. It\u2019s far from a full-throated endorsement of a Ray deal for the Cards.<\/p>\n

As good as Ray has been lately, the Cardinals might instead opt for a less costly option who can gobble innings and help save the pen.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s it. The only place Ray is even mentioned is in the context of how there\u2019s probably better options for the Cardinals. The veteran lefty has been quite good since May, going 5-0 with a 1.84 ERA, but he\u2019s making $25M this season, which might scare teams away. Though if they trade him at the deadline, the new team will owe him only around $8M as the pro-rated portion of his salary.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the Giants approaching the deadline. No Dream Matches, but two tempting veterans on the last year of their contracts who could be Best Matches. Plus Jung Hoo Lee, who is not Byron Buxton.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Maybe the San Francisco Giants aren\u2019t contenders this season, but according to ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan, a few members…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":402168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[101,102878,161393,103,102,104,106,105],"class_list":["post-402167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-giants-news","tag-san-francisco-giants-rumors","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=402167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/402167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/402168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=402167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=402167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=402167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}