The Giants finally opened trade season on Sunday night, and Tyler Mahle is the first name out the door.
According to multiple reports, San Francisco is sending the right-hander to the Atlanta Braves in exchange for Anthony Molina, a right-handed reliever. Robert Murray of Fansided was first to report the deal.
Mahle arrived in San Francisco on a one-year, $10 million contract this offseason and spent most of the year fighting through rough results. He went 3-9 in 18 starts with a 5.13 ERA, numbers that told the story of a season that never really got on track.
Lately, though, he had started to settle in. In July, Mahle won two of his four starts, posted a 2.82 ERA, and piled up 16 strikeouts against six walks over 22.1 innings. His last outing in a Giants uniform came Saturday in San Diego, where he matched his season high with nine strikeouts.
Molina, 24, has taken a winding path to this point. Originally signed by the Tampa Bay Rays out of Venezuela, he made his MLB debut with the Colorado Rockies in 2024 as a Rule 5 pick and pitched there for two seasons. Atlanta picked him up off waivers in the offseason and has mostly kept him in Triple-A, though he has logged five big-league innings this year.
For the Giants, this is just the beginning. They waited until there were fewer than 24 hours left before the deadline, but the expectation has long been that they would be sellers.
President of baseball operations Buster Posey has only clearly ruled out one player from being moved: ace Logan Webb. At the same time, there have been plenty of reports that the Giants would like to move at least one of their expensive stars - Rafael Devers, Willy Adames, or Matt Chapman.
San Francisco came into 2026 expecting to chase a playoff spot, but the season quickly went sideways after the Yankees swept them in the first series of the year. The Giants have not won more than three straight all season, have been swept seven times, and at one point sank to 18 games under .500. The year has also brought plenty of attention-grabbing moments around the club, on and off the field.
So with Mahle gone, the larger question is how aggressive the Giants will be before Monday’s 3 p.m. deadline.
In Other News...
Jung Hoo Lees Deadline Standing Says Plenty About Buster Poseys Plan
Jung Hoo Lee spent part of the run-up to the August 3 MLB Trade Deadline as a name that could have surfaced in trade talks, which alone spoke to how much attention the Giants were drawing around the market. But Marcus Smith of USA Today reported that Buster Posey has made Lee off limits, a decision that places the popular outfielder in the same untouchable tier as Logan Webb and Bryce Eldridge and says plenty about how San Francisco is sorting out its core.
Lee has backed up that status with his play this season, hitting .298 with six home runs and 40 RBIs while continuing to be viewed as a steady presence on and off the field. For a Giants club trying to balance short-term ambition with longer-term stability, keeping a player like Lee out of trade discussions looks less like a surprise than a clear signal about the direction Posey wants this roster to take. [Read more 🡒]
Giants Finally Have A Willy Adames Trade Opening To Watch
The Giants have been open to moving Willy Adames despite the size of his contract, but the market has not exactly come running. For now, the most relevant outside interest appears to be coming from Boston, where the Red Sox are looking for help at shortstop and could need a fallback plan if they cannot land Miamis Otto Lopez.
Adames gives San Francisco a name to watch because he is one of the few players on the roster who could alter the clubs financial picture in a meaningful way. Still, any deal would come with real hurdles, including the fact that he can control where he goes, and his contract runs deep into the future, which makes this more of a possibility than a straightforward trade fit. [Read more 🡒]