Headlines

  • Yordan Alvarez Shut Down Due To Setback With Hand Injury
  • Giants Exercise 2026 Option On Manager Bob Melvin
  • Astros Place Jeremy Peña On Injured List With Fractured Rib
  • Tucker Barnhart To Retire
  • Tyler Mahle To Be Sidelined Beyond Trade Deadline
  • Reds Release Jeimer Candelario
  • Previous
  • Next
Register
Login
  • Hoops Rumors
  • Pro Football Rumors
  • Pro Hockey Rumors

MLB Trade Rumors

Remove Ads
  • Home
  • Teams
    • AL East
      • Baltimore Orioles
      • Boston Red Sox
      • New York Yankees
      • Tampa Bay Rays
      • Toronto Blue Jays
    • AL Central
      • Chicago White Sox
      • Cleveland Guardians
      • Detroit Tigers
      • Kansas City Royals
      • Minnesota Twins
    • AL West
      • Houston Astros
      • Los Angeles Angels
      • Oakland Athletics
      • Seattle Mariners
      • Texas Rangers
    • NL East
      • Atlanta Braves
      • Miami Marlins
      • New York Mets
      • Philadelphia Phillies
      • Washington Nationals
    • NL Central
      • Chicago Cubs
      • Cincinnati Reds
      • Milwaukee Brewers
      • Pittsburgh Pirates
      • St. Louis Cardinals
    • NL West
      • Arizona Diamondbacks
      • Colorado Rockies
      • Los Angeles Dodgers
      • San Diego Padres
      • San Francisco Giants
  • About
    • MLB Trade Rumors
    • Tim Dierkes
    • Writing team
    • Advertise
    • Archives
  • Contact
  • Tools
    • 2025 Trade Deadline Outlook Series
    • 2025-26 MLB Free Agent List
    • Contract Tracker
    • Transaction Tracker
    • Agency Database
  • NBA/NFL/NHL
    • Hoops Rumors
    • Pro Football Rumors
    • Pro Hockey Rumors
  • App
  • Chats
Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Rays Sign Derek Norris

By Connor Byrne | March 26, 2017 at 12:06pm CDT

TUESDAY: Norris’ deal comes with $250K in incentives for 50, 75, 100 and 125 days on the big league roster, tweets Jon Heyman of FanRag. He’ll also collect $250K if the Rays trade him.

SUNDAY: To make room for Norris, the Rays have placed right-hander Kevin Gadea on the 60-day DL with elbow tendinitis, according to Topkin. If healthy, the Rays would have returned the Rule 5 pick to the Mariners (Twitter links).

SATURDAY: The Rays have officially announced the signing.  A corresponding move to create a 40-man roster spot will come later today, Topkin tweets, with the simplest scenario being that Ramos would be placed on the 60-day DL.

FRIDAY, 3:40pm: Norris will earn $1.2MM and can add another $800K via incentives, Topkin tweets. That’ll be on top of the $688K or so he’s owed by the Nationals under the arb arrangement he had reached at the outset of his short-lived stint in D.C.

1:28pm: Free agent catcher Derek Norris will sign with the Rays, reports Tim Brown of Yahoo Sports. Norris chose the Rays over four other suitors (Twitter link). It’ll be a one-year deal, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The Rays could control Norris for two years, though, as he’ll be arbitration eligible for the last time in 2018.

Derek Norris[RELATED: Updated Rays Depth Chart]

The Rockies and Cardinals had also been mentioned recently in connection to Norris, who reached the open market when the Nationals released him March 15. That came after a failed attempt to trade Norris, who would have been due $4.2MM. Instead, he’ll presumably earn a significantly lower salary with the Rays. Norris picked Tampa Bay over other teams because he expects to receive more playing time there than he would have elsewhere, according to Brown.

The Rays signed a high-profile backstop, Wilson Ramos, in free agency over the winter, but after suffering a torn ACL last season, he probably won’t debut until May or June. Even when he is healthy enough to return, Ramos could break back in as a designated hitter. Thus, as opposed to going with the unexciting duo of Luke Maile and Curt Casali as their primary catchers, the Rays are adding Norris, who’s easily the most proven of the three.

The 28-year-old Norris isn’t without his flaws, having batted an ugly .186/.255/.328 with a career-worst 30.3 percent strikeout rate in 458 plate appearances with the Padres last season. However, Norris isn’t far removed from slashing a palatable .246/.336/.392 in 982 PAs with the A’s and Padres from 2012-15. Norris is also coming off his second straight season in which both Baseball Prospectus and StatCorner assigned him plus pitch-framing marks behind the plate. That surely added to his appeal from the Rays’ standpoint, as the organization is known to value framing.

Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.

Share 0 Retweet 6 Send via email0

Newsstand Tampa Bay Rays Transactions Derek Norris Kevin Gadea

Drew Stubbs Opts Out Of Twins Deal
Main
Yankees Release Jon Niese
View Comments (40)
Post a Comment

40 Comments

  1. RaysFan2021

    8 years ago

    Is this good or bad?

    Reply
    • Travis’ Wood

      8 years ago

      Good. He’s better than Maile, Sucre and Casali and can share time with Ramos once he’s back.

      2
      Reply
    • greiunfioewfm

      8 years ago

      I think it’s good. Best case scenario, he rebounds at the plate to his 2013-2015 levels and he’s good for about 2 WAR this year. Worst case scenario we still have an excellent defensive catcher and a great pitch framer who isn’t that much worse at the plate than the catchers we have now, and he can ride the pine when Ramos is healthy enough to catch again. Haven’t seen the financials yet but this seems like a low risk/high reward deal to me

      1
      Reply
    • lowtalker1

      8 years ago

      It’s better it’s the al east
      4 of those parks the ball will fly. Shame he is playing in Tampa… that’s **** show stadium.
      How many more years until they move to Montreal ?

      Reply
      • raysdaze

        8 years ago

        Yeah, Montreal had such great success with the Expos…just watch, Rays will be in the playoff hunt clown.

        1
        Reply
        • madmartigan

          8 years ago

          You are insane if you think they will be in the hunt. Hold on to those dreams…

          1
          Reply
        • lowtalker1

          8 years ago

          lol that’s true
          Playoffs? You talking about playoffs?
          Cannot even draw in a Decent crowd when winning
          Last place in the al east

          2
          Reply
        • alexgordonbeckham

          8 years ago

          What does the crowd size have to do with how good the team is playing?

          7
          Reply
        • RaysFan2021

          8 years ago

          Ya bro, when does crowd size affect the skill of the player?!?!?!?!?

          3
          Reply
        • lowtalker1

          8 years ago

          He just said no fans out in Montreal
          same goes it for Tampa
          Their team was way better than anything the rays have ever used or created with more money.
          94 strike hurts

          I’m saying 5 years and it’s possible for the rays to move

          Reply
        • dag

          8 years ago

          Hahaha. I read that in that in Jim Mora’s voice 🙂

          Reply
        • agentx

          8 years ago

          Montreal did have success with the Expos, undermined significantly by a variety of factors mostly to do with Jeffrey Loria’s purchase of the team. I get your point, but it’s neither fair nor accurate to put all the blame on Montreal and its fans for the Expos’ departure.

          2
          Reply
        • stymeedone

          8 years ago

          Yeah, just ask Cleveland.

          1
          Reply
        • thebare

          8 years ago

          Those older fan won’t come to the game. Make it more handy cap friendly . They will come.

          Reply
    • YourDaddy

      8 years ago

      If your team is bad enough to need Norris, its bad. Last year he had the worst season for a full time catcher in modern baseball

      1
      Reply
      • davidcoonce74

        8 years ago

        That’s not remotely true, by any metric you can dig up. Norris was bad, but he was bad in a very generic way. Nothing historic there.

        1
        Reply
        • outinleftfield

          8 years ago

          I didn’t think it was true either so I did a search on Baseball-Reference when I first read Pads post about it in another thread. For full-time catchers, 100 games at catcher and 400 PA, Norris had the worst season in terms of BA, OBP, OPS and most other stats on offense since 1917. He was also really bad on defense being at or near the bottom in SB against, PB, WP, Errors, and Catchers ERA and ranked 89th of 104 in pitch framing according to Baseball Prospectus. Norris really was was historically bad.

          1
          Reply
      • chesteraarthur

        8 years ago

        His season wasn’t even the worst this century. fangraphs.com/leaders.aspx?pos=c&stats=bat�…

        1
        Reply
        • YourDaddy

          8 years ago

          WAR for catchers? Wish they would let me say what I really think about it. Doesn’t apply and even Sean Smith, the guy who developed the WAR stat, says its a useless comparative stat when applied to catchers.

          1
          Reply
      • davidcoonce74

        8 years ago

        Norris’ season was the 12th-worst season bt=y a catcher since the year 2000. That doesn’t even put him remotely in the conversation for “worst catcher season of the last 100 years,” especially if you’ve ever looked at pre-1950 catchers, who generally couldn’t hit at all.

        The worst catcher seasons since the year 2000 belong to Barrett, Ausmus, Phillips, there an Arencibia year in there, a Doumit year….you can look this stuff up.

        1
        Reply
        • outinleftfield

          8 years ago

          Had to find it. Since 1921 Norris had the worst BA, OBP, and OPS for any catcher that played 100 games behind the plate and had 400 PA. In the post dead ball era no catcher has been worse.

          The link is about 100 characters so you are going to have to go to Baseball Reference Play Index and do your own search. If I can do it, it’s not hard. Don’t know how to do that link to thing.

          1
          Reply
  2. Travis’ Wood

    8 years ago

    Good buy-low pickup for the Rays. Not sure why the Rockies didn’t pounce after Murphy broke his arm. Seemed like the logical fit.

    Reply
  3. Dookie Howser, MD

    8 years ago

    Way to be credible, Marc Topkin!

    twitter.com/TBTimes_Rays/status/845067420079403008

    1
    Reply
    • greiunfioewfm

      8 years ago

      In Topkin’s defense, all his sources are in the Rays front office and I can definitely see why the they thought they were on the outside looking in. Norris took less money to come to Tampa

      twitter.com/RobertMurrayFRS/status/845341348077039…

      Reply
  4. kc38

    8 years ago

    Yeah I can’t find one reason it’s bad. Assuming he was had cheap he has more experience and pop than all are other options to start the year. I see sucre and Norris starting season on 25 man

    Reply
  5. sunshipballoons

    8 years ago

    “Thus, as opposed to going with the unexciting trio of Luke Maile and Curt Casali as their primary catchers”

    um??

    Reply
    • Connor Byrne

      8 years ago

      Thanks. I had Sucre in there – hence “trio” – but removed him and neglected to change it to “duo.”

      2
      Reply
      • agentx

        8 years ago

        Any official word on Sucre, or are you assuming quite reasonably that the Norris will relegate Sucre to AAA to start the season?

        Reply
  6. GOP Lizards

    8 years ago

    Not sure why Halos did not pick him up. Not exactly like they are solid at catcher.

    Reply
    • a37H

      8 years ago

      I don’t know if you are joking but the Angels have never made a free agent mistake or made a bad roster move in general in the past 20ish years…

      1
      Reply
    • metseventually 2

      8 years ago

      They’re not solid in a lot more than just catcher.

      1
      Reply
  7. Hubcap26

    8 years ago

    Love Norris when he’s on he’s dang good.

    Reply
    • SamFuldsFive

      8 years ago

      And when he’s off he’s historically bad.

      2
      Reply
    • YourDaddy

      8 years ago

      Norris had the worst season for a full time catcher in over 100 years last year. He had one good season in 2014, but its been all downhill since then.

      2
      Reply
      • davidcoonce74

        8 years ago

        this just isn’t true Norris was bad but not historically bad The Padres have had worse regular catchers in just the last ten seasons.

        Reply
      • davidcoonce74

        8 years ago

        Norris’ 2016 season, since 1917, ranks somewhere like the 900th worst catcher season since then. I think you’re using just a *bit* of hyperbole.

        1
        Reply
        • YourDaddy

          8 years ago

          What stats are you using? Notice I said FULL TIME catcher. 100 games played at catcher and 400 PA. He was the worst offensive catcher in most offensive categories including BA and OBP. WAR doesn’t apply for catchers. Even the guy who created the stat says its completely useless as a comparative stats for catchers. Not a single bit of hyperbole. Norris was the worst. Down vote all you want. It wont change the facts and you can go look too. Baseball Reference Play Index.

          1
          Reply
  8. raysdaze

    8 years ago

    Go back to Canada, hoser!

    1
    Reply
  9. Logjammer D"Baggagecling

    8 years ago

    I mean really he’ll play in a pretty empty stadium it will be spring training year round in St. Petersburg

    1
    Reply
  10. jorleeduf

    8 years ago

    They are taking all of the Nats’ catchers

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Please login to leave a reply.

Log in Register

    Top Stories

    Yordan Alvarez Shut Down Due To Setback With Hand Injury

    Giants Exercise 2026 Option On Manager Bob Melvin

    Astros Place Jeremy Peña On Injured List With Fractured Rib

    Tucker Barnhart To Retire

    Tyler Mahle To Be Sidelined Beyond Trade Deadline

    Reds Release Jeimer Candelario

    Dave Parker Passes Away

    Griffin Canning Diagnosed With Ruptured Achilles

    Pirates Reportedly Have Very Few Untouchable Players At Trade Deadline

    Griffin Canning Believed To Have Suffered Achilles Injury

    Mariners Looking For Corner Infield Bats; Ownership Willing To Bump Payroll

    Wander Franco Found Guilty Of Sexual Abuse

    Mariners Place Rowdy Tellez On Release Waivers

    Max Meyer To Undergo Season-Ending Hip Surgery

    Whit Merrifield Announces Retirement

    White Sox Sign Noah Syndergaard To Minor League Deal

    Corbin Carroll Placed On IL With Wrist Fracture

    Hoops Rumors Has The Latest On NBA Draft, Free Agency

    Mets Option Francisco Alvarez

    Reds To Promote Chase Burns For MLB Debut

    Recent

    Padres To Select Eduarniel Nunez

    Brewers’ Connor Thomas To Undergo Elbow Surgery

    Yordan Alvarez Shut Down Due To Setback With Hand Injury

    Jorge Mateo To Miss 8 To 12 Weeks With Hamstring Strain

    Reds To Sign Buck Farmer To Minor League Deal

    Pirates Trade Hunter Stratton To Braves

    Rockies Designate Sam Hilliard For Assignment, Select Austin Nola

    Orioles Select Jacob Stallings, Designate Emmanuel Rivera For Assignment

    Rangers Select Billy McKinney, Transfer Tyler Mahle To 60-Day IL

    Marlins Claim Nick Nastrini

    MLBTR Newsletter - Hot stove highlights in your inbox, five days a week

    Latest Rumors & News

    Latest Rumors & News

    • Sandy Alcantara Rumors
    • Luis Robert Rumors
    • Alex Bregman Rumors

     

    Trade Rumors App for iOS and Android App Store Google Play

    MLBTR Features

    MLBTR Features

    • Remove Ads, Support Our Writers
    • Front Office Originals
    • Front Office Fantasy Baseball
    • MLBTR Podcast
    • Trade Deadline Outlook Series
    • 2025-26 MLB Free Agent List
    • Contract Tracker
    • Transaction Tracker
    • Extension Tracker
    • Agency Database
    • MLBTR On Twitter
    • MLBTR On Facebook
    • Team Facebook Pages
    • How To Set Up Notifications For Breaking News
    • Hoops Rumors
    • Pro Football Rumors
    • Pro Hockey Rumors

    Rumors By Team

    • Angels Rumors
    • Astros Rumors
    • Athletics Rumors
    • Blue Jays Rumors
    • Braves Rumors
    • Brewers Rumors
    • Cardinals Rumors
    • Cubs Rumors
    • Diamondbacks Rumors
    • Dodgers Rumors
    • Giants Rumors
    • Guardians Rumors
    • Mariners Rumors
    • Marlins Rumors
    • Mets Rumors
    • Nationals Rumors
    • Orioles Rumors
    • Padres Rumors
    • Phillies Rumors
    • Pirates Rumors
    • Rangers Rumors
    • Rays Rumors
    • Red Sox Rumors
    • Reds Rumors
    • Rockies Rumors
    • Royals Rumors
    • Tigers Rumors
    • Twins Rumors
    • White Sox Rumors
    • Yankees Rumors

    Navigation

    • Sitemap
    • Archives
    • RSS/Twitter Feeds By Team

    MLBTR INFO

    • Advertise
    • About
    • Commenting Policy
    • Privacy Policy

    Connect

    • Contact Us
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • RSS Feed

    MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

    Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

    hide arrows scroll to top

    Register

    Desktop Version | Switch To Mobile Version