Projected Arbitration Salaries For 2026

7 comments

1. Do we really have to pay Walker?

2. Imagine being as bad at your job as Ryan Walker is at his, and then expecting $2 million in future compensation for it 

3. Bailey is kinda the perfect player profile to potentially have nasty arb fights if the sides want that.

4. Brady Singer, Ryan Jeffers, Tyler Stephenson, Jonathan India, Jonah Heim, Adolis Garcia stand out as a few trade candidates from this list.

   Several expensive relievers around the league could be fits for the Giants as well.

5. Walker’s 2025 WHIP = 1.272 (1.140 career).

   Walker’s 2025 ERA = 4.11 (97 ERA+) vs. 2.98 career ERA.

   Even in a very bad down year (7 brown saves!), Walker was worth 0.1 WAR and was just 3% lower than league ERA. The painful part was Melvin leaving Walker in to get beat around, on those days where he clearly didn’t have it.

   I’ll note that while 7 blown saves seems like a ton, it ranked fourth in MLB … and tied with 10 other relievers for fourth. So basically it’s important to remember there were 15 pitches in baseball last year with as many blown saves as Walker. With the trades of Doval and Rogers – and unfortunate injury to Randy Rodriguez – Walker was sadly pressed into full-time closer duty, and it became painfully obvious that he was miscast in this role. More innovate managers would’ve looked for other solutions (Joel Peguero?), but Melvin just kept going back to Walker time and time again.

   Very solid middle reliever (even though he has 28 career saves, and 17 last year). Potentially a quality set up guy, with a rebound season. $2.5M is an extremely reasonable price tag. If the Giants didn’t tender Walker a contract, he would get picked up by another team in a nanosecond.

6. Only 5 guys. Should be pretty straightforward as to who they bring back and non tender

7. Just a reminder, Bailey and Walker are being classified as Super 2 players. It means they will have 4 years of arbitration rather than 3.