If the Philadelphia Phillies hope to make a deep postseason run, there’s a good chance they’ll run into an old friend at some point in the National League playoffs.
While the San Francisco Giants held onto some of their bigger chips like Carlos Rodón, they did sell off some more minor pieces, including trading former Phillie Darin Ruf to the New York Mets. Slugger J.D. Davis went back to the Giants in the trade, along with prospects Thomas Szapucki, Nick Zwack and Carson Seymour.
After spending parts of five seasons with the Phillies to begin his career, Ruf was a star for the Samsung Lions of the Korean Baseball Organization from 2017 to 2019 before returning to MLB with the Giants during the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
In parts of three seasons with the Giants, Ruf slashed .248/.358/.455 with 32 home runs, 99 RBIs, 99 walks and an .814 OPS.
He’ll now join a Mets team that perhaps didn’t make any sexy additions at the deadline, but greatly improved their depth with the pickups of Ruf, Daniel Vogelbach and Mychal Givens, among others. The Mets lead the NL East with a 65-38 record, despite two-time NL Cy Young Award winner Jacob deGrom not making his first start of the season until Tuesday evening.