Exactly one year ago, Darin Ruf was famously “on the move,” scoring from second base on Austin Slater’s walk-off hit in San Francisco’s home opener.
Now he’s on the move in a different way, re-signing with the team that gave him a second crack in The Show.
The Giants officially signed Ruf, 36, to a minor league deal on Saturday. The move completes one of the most lopsided Giants trades in recent memory now that San Francisco has all five players involved in the deal in the organization.
For Ruf, the Giants brought in two MLB-caliber players and two promising pitching prospects. And now they have Ruf, too, who spent 2020 through 2022 in San Francisco.
“We love Darin,” manager Gabe Kapler said. “And obviously we have a lot of familiarity with him around here. With Haniger and (Slater) needing a bit of time here, and no timetable for them to go out on rehab assignments at this point, no specific date, good option to have some right-handed hitting depth at Triple-A.”
The Giants expected Ruf to contribute as an everyday player in the outfield last year, betting that with more chances against right-handed pitchers, he could display power like he had with a platoon advantage.
SF’s gambit didn’t work. Ruf was slow-footed in the outfield and slumped at the plate. Against left-handed pitchers in 2021, Ruf hit .283 with a 1.007 OPS. The next year, he hit .222 with a matchup advantage and just .216 overall with the Giants.
Then San Francisco flipped him at the trade deadline to New York in exchange for J.D. Davis, Thomas Szapucki, Carson Seymour and Nick Zwack.
With the Mets, Ruf struggled even worse — and the rabid fans turned on him immediately. Ruf hit .152 with no home runs in 28 games in a Mets uniform. The club designated him for assignment toward the end of spring training.
When Ruf arrives in San Francisco, the team will chat with him about what went wrong in New York. From there, they’ll “create a player development roadmap,” Kapler said.
“We think the world of him as a human being,” Kapler said. “He performed very well for us for the time that he was in San Francisco.”