Giants Exercise Moore's Club Option, Outright Sanchez

The San Francisco Giants have conducted a pair of roster moves, choosing to exercise the $7M club option on Matt Moore, per Jon Heyman of FanRag Sports on Twitter, and outrighting catcher Tony Sanchez to the Sacramento River Cats.

San Francisco’s decision to exercise Moore was a relatively easy one. At only 27 years of age and with two more club options in 2018 and 2019 worth only $9M and $10M, respectively, the young starter is a bargain for the ballclub, especially with Madison Bumgarner’s impending extension looming in the distance. Moore will be either the third or fourth starter for Bruce Bochy, rounding out a strong core composed of Bumgarner, Johnny Cueto, and Jeff Samardzija.

The Giants had to pay a hefty price to acquire Moore this past trade deadline, trading fan favorite Matt Duffy, as well as prospect Lucius Fox and Michael Santos to the Tampa Bay Rays. Exchanging that much talent in return for a starting pitcher led to mixed reviews at the time, but the lefty gave those around the Giants organization plenty reasons to be optimistic, almost throwing a no-hitter against the Los Angeles Dodgers and allowing only one run in eight innings against the Chicago Cubs in the NLDS.

In 12 starts for San Francisco, Moore had a 6-5 record with a 4.08 ERA and a WAR of 1.1. The Florida product struck out 9.09 per nine innings but also had more walks than he would prefer at 4.21 per nine innings. Bochy will have to keep tabs on his inning count in the following season as Moore threw a career-high 198.1 innings, 68.1 which came playing for San Francisco, in his first full season since he underwent Tommy John surgery in April of 2014.

Sanchez, a former fourth-overall pick in 2009, was released by the Pittsburgh Pirates, the team which drafted him, in January, picked up by the Toronto Blue Jays, then subsequently released once again in July. San Francisco signed him five days following his release. The Giants called up Sanchez with a week left in the 2016 regular season, but he did not appear in any games. The catcher split time this season with the Triple-A affiliates of the Giants and the Blue Jays, but struggled to produce, posting a slash line of .201/.351/.399.

Despite not appearing in a single major league game for either the Blue Jays or the Giants, there was talk that Sanchez would possibly take on the role as a third catcher against the eventual World Champion Cubs in the NLDS. Bochy ultimately decided on an extra arm in the bullpen rather than Sanchez, who would have sat behind Buster Posey and Trevor Brown.

In only 51 major league games, Sanchez has a slash line of .259/.303/.378 with a measly WAR of 0.1 with a strikeout rate of 29.0%.

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