Jimmy Butler has a long road ahead to become the next Marco Scutaro.

Put together a list of the top in-season acquisitions of Bay Area sports teams and Scutaro’s name will be somewhere near the top, with the iconic shot of the Venezuelan second baseman looking skyward with his mouth open as he tasted the raindrops at AT&T Park.

Butler’s story is still to be written, although his impact since arriving in a three-team trade on Feb. 5 from the Miami Heat turned the Warriors from mediocre to playoff-worthy. They were 25-26 before Butler played in a game on Feb. 8 and 23-8 afterward, ending up as the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference.

The Warriors played the Memphis Grizzlies on Tuesday night in the play-in tournament game. They’ll need to win 16 more times for a fifth NBA title and for Butler to join an exclusive club of players whose acquisitions after the season began were essential to a championship run.One of the more unlikely stories was the ascension of Scutaro, who came aboard on July 27, 2012 in exchange for infielder Charlie Culberson of the Colorado Rockies. It seemed like a fringe roster shuffle at the time, but the Giants don’t get the second of three World Series titles without the 36-year-old Venezuelan infielder.

The Giants were 55-44 without Scutaro and 39-24 with him. He played in 61 games and hit .362 with three home runs and 44 RBIs. In the National League Championship Series, Scutaro hit .500 (14-for-28) with four RBIs and six runs scored as the Giants rallied from a 3-1 deficit to beat the St. Louis Cardinals.

On Oct. 22, the Giants were one out away from a 9-0 win in Game 7 NLSC after trailing 3-1. Television cameras caught Scutaro tasting raindrops as Sergio Romo was closing out the Cardinals and an indelible memory was born. After completing the comeback, the Giants swept the Detroit Tigers in the World Series.

Not all in-season trades work out. Two years after Scutaro’s heroics, the Athletics traded Yoenis Cespedes to Boston for left-handed pitcher Jon Lester and outfielder/DH Jonny Gomes. The A’s were 66-41 and two games up on the Los Angeles Angels in the A.L. West.

After the trade the A’s were 22-32, finished 10 games behind the Angels, and lost their wild card game 9-8 in Kansas City in 12 innings. Lester started the game, was staked to a 7-3 lead and couldn’t hold it. He left the following offseason as a free agent.

Aside from Scutaro, here are five players who came aboard after the season started who helped push their teams to championships:

Fred Dean, 49ers, Oct. 12, 1981 >> The 49ers got a desperately needed pass rusher (sound familiar?) and a future Hall of Famer in exchange for a second-round draft pick in 1983. Dean had 12 sacks in 11 games (although sacks weren’t yet a recognized NFL statistic). The 49ers were 2-2 at the time of the deal, and with Dean they were 11-1 and then went on to win their first Super Bowl against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Deion Sanders, 49ers, Sept. 15, 1994 >> With a stacked roster, the 49ers added the cherry on top two games into the season, signing Sanders to a $1.3 million free agent contract after his baseball season ended with Atlanta. Sanders was the NFL’s defensive player of the year, intercepted six passes and returned them 303 yards, and the 49ers went on to beat San Diego 49-26 in Super Bowl XXIX in Miami.

Rickey Henderson, Athletics, June 21, 1989 >> Henderson returned to Oakland in exchange for pitchers Eric Plunk and Greg Cadaret and outfielder Luis Polonia. The A’s were 44-27 at the time of the trade and 55-36 the rest of the way. Henderson dominated an 8-1 postseason against Toronto and the Giants in the Bay Bridge World Series, hitting .441 with three homers, eight RBIs, 11 stolen bases and 12 runs scored. He was MVP of the ALCS in 1989 and the AL MVP in 1990.

Cody Ross, Giants, Aug. 27, 2010 >> Locked in a pennant race with the Padres, the Giants claimed Ross off waivers from Miami to keep him away from San Diego. The Giants went 23-15 after Ross arrived, and the journeyman outfielder won the NLCS MVP en route to a postseason in which he had five home runs, five doubles and five go-ahead RBIs in 15 games. San Diego, meanwhile, had a 17-23 finish and was overtaken by the Giants for the division title. The Giants won the division series against Atlanta 3-2, the NLCS against the Phillies in six games and the World Series in five games over Texas.

Hunter Pence, Giants, July 31, 2012 >> Pence came to San Francisco at the trade deadline in exchange for outfielder Nate Schierholtz and two minor league players. The Giants were 56-47 and a game up on the Dodgers when Pence arrived and 38-21 afterward, winning the division by eight games. Pence provided a clubhouse spark, hit .219 with seven homers and 45 RBIs and contributed in the postseason to a 3-2 series win over Cincinnati, 4-3 over St. Louis and a four-game sweep of Detroit in the World Series. Pence also played on the Giants’ 2014 championship team.

Best of the rest

Joe Thornton, Sharks, Nov. 30, 2005 >> franchise icon came to an 8-12-4 team in exchange for Brad Stuart, Wayne Primeau and Marco Sturm and ignited a 36-15-7 finish with 20 goals and 72 assists. The Sharks beat Nashville 4-1 in the playoffs before losing 4-2 to Edmonton.

Kevin Mitchell, Dave Dravecky, Craig Lefferts, Giants, July 4, 1987 >> General manager Al Rosen sent Chris Brown, Mark Davis, Mark Grant and Keith Comstock to San Diego and the Giants, who started 39-40, went 51-32 after the trade to win the N.L. West. Mitchell hit 15 homers with 44 RBIs and would later win an MVP in 1989. Dravecky was 7-5 as a starter and Lefferts provided a quality left-handed bullpen arm. Rosen also dealt for right-hander Rick Reuschel on Aug. 21 for Jeff Robinson and Scott Medvin.

Andrew Bogut, Warriors, March 13, 2012 >> The Warriors found a rim protector in Bogut and cleared the decks for Stephen Curry by trading popular scorer Monta Ellis to Milwaukee. Ekpe Udoh and Kwame Brown also went to Milwaukee, with Stephen Jackson coming to the Warriors (and being traded shortly afterward). Bogut and Curry were key performers in the Warriors winning an NBA title in 2015.

Andrew Wiggins, Warriors, Feb. 6, 2020 >> Wiggins and a first-round draft pick that would become Jonathan Kuminga came in exchange for D’Angelo Russell, Jacob Evans and Omari Spellman. Wiggins would later become a key performer in the Warriors’ last NBA title in 2022.

Christian McCaffrey, 49ers, Oct. 20, 2022 >> The NFL’s most versatile running back came aboard from Carolina for second-, third- and fourth-round picks in the 2023 NFL Draft and a fifth-rounder in 2024. McCaffrey helped the 49ers reach the NFC Championship Game and was the NFL’s offensive player of the year in 2023.

Jermaine Dye, Athletics, July 25, 2001 >> Dye came in a three-team trade from Kansas City that saw the A’s give up Todd Belitz, Marco Enarnacion and Jose Ortiz. The A’s were 54-47 at the time of the trade and 48-13 after trading for Dye. He hit .297 with 13 homers and 59 RBIs in 61 games.

Ray Durham, Athletics, July 26, 2002 >> Durham came at the trade deadline in exchange for pitcher John Adkins. With Durham in the lineup, the A’s were 38-16 en route to a 103-win season. Durham was a rental in the final year of his contract and signed with the Giants the next season.

Emmanuel Sanders, 49ers, Oct. 22, 2019 >> A veteran presence arrived from Denver to stabilize the 49ers’ wide receivers corps. He caught 36 passes for 502 yards in 10 games and five catches for 71 yards in the playoffs, but was overthrown by Jimmy Garoppolo on a potential 51-yard touchdown pass in Super Bowl LIV in a 31-20 loss to Kansas City.