The San Francisco Giants and slugger Jorge Soler have agreed to a three-year contract worth $42 million, a source confirmed to ESPN.
The Giants have not officially announced the deal, which was first reported early Tuesday by the San Francisco Chronicle.
Soler could have stayed with the Miami Marlins under his previous contract, but he declined a $9 million player option — an easy choice after he hit 36 home runs and posted an Adjusted OPS+ of 128 last season while making his first career All-Star Game appearance.
The Giants hope Soler will add some much-needed power to a team that finished 19th in the majors last season in homers (174) and 27th in slugging percentage (.383). San Francisco also signed Korean star outfielder Jung Hoo Lee to a six-year, $113 million deal in December.
As always with Soler, who will turn 32 later this month, there is a lot of swing-and-miss to go along with his power. In 870 games played over 10 seasons in the majors, he has 170 homers and 927 strikeouts.
Soler was among the few high-end hitters with an established track record available in this free agent class. He led the American League with 48 homers in 2019, when he played for the Kansas City Royals. In 2021, after being acquired in a midseason trade, Soler was a difference-maker for the Atlanta Braves on their championship run — winning World Series MVP with three homers in five games against the Houston Astros.
Soler parlayed that World Series performance into a multiyear deal with the Marlins, who used him mostly as a designated hitter over the last two seasons.
ESPN’s Jeff Passan and Buster Olney contributed to this report.
Source: www.espn.com