2:28pm: Justice delos Santos of the San Jose Mercury News reports that the Giants are expecting Foley to be ready to go sometime midseason. It doesn’t sound like he’ll be an option for Opening Day.
2:12pm: The Giants announced Tuesday that they’ve signed right-handed reliever Jason Foley to a one-year, major league contract. The Wasserman client missed most of the 2025 season due to shoulder surgery and was non-tendered by the Tigers last month. ESPN’s Jesse Rogers reports that Foley is guaranteed $2MM on the deal. The Giants haven’t announced a corresponding 40-man move but will need to do so soon, as they were already at capacity prior to signing Foley.
From 2021-24, Foley was a frequently used high-leverage arm with the Tigers, even climbing to the team’s closer rank in 2024, when he paced Detroit with 28 saves. He’s pitched 199 2/3 innings in the majors and sports a 3.16 earned run average. Foley’s career 18.1% strikeout rate is well below average, but he sports a strong 6.2% walk rate and a huge 54.1% ground-ball rate in his career, which should mesh well with the left-side infield tandem of Matt Chapman and Willy Adames.
Prior to his injury, Foley sat just under 97 mph with a power sinker that he threw at a near-62% clip. The 6’4″ righty complemented his two-seamer with a slider sitting 87.5 mph and a seldom-used changeup that sat 91.1 mph. Foley was surprisingly optioned to Triple-A Toledo following a relatively shaky spring training performance. He pitched well with the Tigers’ Toledo affiliate (6 2/3 shutout innings) but showed diminished velocity (95.3 mph average sinker) before hitting the minor league injured list.
About six weeks after that injury, the Tigers called Foley up to the MLB roster and placed him on the major league 60-day IL. That granted him major league service for the remainder of the season, but Foley spent enough time in Triple-A and on the minor league injured list that he didn’t accrue a full year of service in 2025. After entering the season with 3.033 years of service, he finished it out at 3.150. As such, he’ll be controllable via arbitration for two seasons beyond the 2026 campaign.
With Foley seemingly still on the mend, this is more of a long-term play than an immediate jolt to a Giants bullpen that’s in clear need of arms. San Francisco traded Camilo Doval and Tyler Rogers prior to July’s trade deadline and lost breakout right-hander Randy Rodriguez to Tommy John surgery in late September. Ryan Walker, Erik Miller, Jose Butto and JT Brubaker are the only current members of the bullpen who were both healthy in 2025 and have even one year of major league service time. (San Francisco also signed lefty Sam Hentges in free agency earlier this winter, but as with Foley, he missed 2025 due to shoulder surgery.)
Who?!
He will be known throughout perpetuity as “The Difference”.
Matt Foley’s brother who lived in a van down by a river?
Goddamn, you beat me to it
Fason Joley
A solid relief pitcher who appeared in 60+ games from 2022-2024, who was injured for all of 2025. A low risk, high upside signing. Actually, there’s an entire article with a link to his stats here if you want to learn more about him! Crazy, right?!
Zach Shorts buddy who I thought played college baseball with him as well as with Tigers
Sacred Heart University
Doubtful anybody knows Sacred Heart is in Connecticut
Only 3 SH players have ever played MLB. Foley and Short are 2 and they played together in college. I don’t know who the 3rd Sacred Heart MLB player is.
Interestingly, Short and Foley played together with the Tigers. I recall a funny interview with them when they talked about how they trained in college. No indoor facility. They practiced on the indoor tennis courts or somewhere. No pitching machine. I think they roomed together too.
Troy Scribner
Yes, Sacred Heart legend, Troy Scribner.
“The Heat is on.”
I ain’t gonna fall for no banana in the tailpipe
That’s Akwell Foley 😂
Not a baseball fan huh?
Hope he has success, really wish the Tigers would’ve brought him back
Ditto
Tigers had a pretty full 40 man and couldn’t hold a spot for a guy who couldn’t pitch until June… or later
No room for him. They needed 40 man roster spot.
yes! the giants are done for the offseason *dusts hands*
I love ground ball specialist relievers. Bring him in with one out and a man on first, get a grounder and get out of it.
my only issue with ground ball relievers is that they don’t help you with the stupid ghost runner
Kind of an arbitrary thing to gripe about.
not really if you have ever watched extra innings games in the modern game, and the giants love the extra inning game
So you’re dismissing a pitcher because he has a minuscule chance of starting an inning in extra innings, which happens what, 5% of games?
Trying to save money by getting arms may be shrewd, but it’s also being cheap. Unless they are doing this to sign a big bat and starter, it doesn’t make sense
Also for future–he has 3 arb years after 2026–planning ahead
One of the first stats I always look at is home runs per nine
And he’s very good at that
Keep the ball in the park and we have a chance
Will this be followed by a japanese signing?
In 2024 the dude was pretty good, he was throwing 100 mph sinkers at the first half of the season if I remember correctly. Really wish the Tigers would have hung on to him.
No room for him. Can’t waste a 40 man roster spot on a 30 year old pitcher coming off a major shoulder injury.
“I am Jason Foley, I am thrice divorced and live in a van down by the river.”
I assume that as you said that, you broke a table.
There we go Posey! Gerald finding a buy low guy that if he comes back healthy could really help the pen down the stretch.
Agreed. History as a closer is a plus.
Nice pick up there, Zaidi! I mean Posey…
Came here to say this! Well played 👏
Nah. It’s as lazy as fark. Something a dumb person would say.
Relax. It’s a shorthand comparison. Same org, same strategy archetype, different decision-maker. That’s a pretty normal way to talk baseball, so why not have a little fun with it?
Also, can’t speak for orange, but I was one of the bigger advocates for Farhan on this site, so it’s not personal, just making light of a roster move.
Good news is his shoulder is good to go.
Bad news is they operated on the wrong arm!
If he’s healthy that’s a very good signing. He was great for the Tigers for a few years.
Jason Fool-ey
He fools hitters (at least that’s what the Giants want him to do)
At least for their own records, the next contract will be in English.
Jason: I never said anything about being the mascot for 350 appearances during the off season.
Team lawyer: Remember to air out the head twice a week. It’s in the contract.
When he’s on, he’s good.
Hope we don’t regret the Tigers pinching pennies to let Foley go. He was pretty decent there for a while. Seems like he could get back to that level. I have a lot more confidence in him than Drew Sommers, who looked completely overmatched last year.
It has nothing to do with pinching pennies. There is no need to waste a roster spot on a 30 year old pitcher coming off of major shoulder surgery. Also Drew Sommers isn’t a long term guy either so it’s not that deep.
Wish him luck in SF!