Giants To Exercise 2017 Option On Matt Moore

The Giants will exercise their $7MM club option on left-hander Matt Moore, tweets Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports. The decision, if it can even be called that, amounted to little more than a formality, as Moore’s affordable salary and the two club options remaining on his deal beyond the 2017 season make him a bargain for San Francisco.

San Francisco acquired the 27-year-old Moore from the Rays just prior to the trade deadline in a deal that sent infielder Matt Duffy and prospects Lucius Fox and Michael Santos back to Tampa Bay. Moore long rated as one of the top prospect in all of baseball and looked to have established himself as a burgeoning front-line starter with an All-Star 2013 season, but he underwent Tommy John surgery in April 2014 and missed the bulk of the next two seasons.

While he struggled in his return from Tommy John last year, Moore logged a career-high 198 1/3 innings this season (plus eight more brilliant frames in the NLDS). The former eighth-rounder notched a 4.08 ERA in 130 innings with the Rays and posted an identical mark in 68 1/3 regular-season innings with the Giants, averaging 8.1 K/9 against 3.3 BB/9 over the course of the entire season. He’ll join Madison Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto and Jeff Samardzija in San Francisco’s rotation next season, and the Giants can retain him in 2018 and 2019 via club options that are respectively valued at $9MM and $10MM.