The Rays will release left-handed reliever Dan Jennings, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports. In doing so, they’ll pay one-fourth of Jennings’ $2.375MM salary (~$584K), a non-guaranteed arbitration award.
The Rays finished slightly below .500 last year (80-82), but they were in the playoff hunt in July, which led them to trade first base prospect Casey Gillaspie to the White Sox for Jennings. Despite both that decision and Jennings’ productive career to this point, he wasn’t able to earn a spot in Tampa Bay this season. The Jennings-less Rays will go forward with Jose Alvarado and Ryan Yarbrough as the only lefty relievers on their 40-man roster.
Jennings, who will turn 31 next month, debuted with Miami in 2012 and has since thrown a combined 279 2/3 innings of 2.90 ERA ball with the Marlins, White Sox and Rays. While Jennings’ strikeout and walk rates haven’t been pretty (7.31 K/9, 4.09 BB/9), he has managed to induce ground balls at a 55.2 percent clip. And since 2015, Jennings has been among the game’s most effective relievers at generating infield pop-ups, having done so at a 15.8 percent rate – good for 15th in the league. Adding to his appeal, Jennings has been roughly as effective against both right- and left-handed hitters. He has a small reverse platoon split, in fact, as lefties have posted a .690 OPS against him and righties have logged a .687 mark.
penny pinching bottom dwelling trash. Rays, 2018.
They’re still easily the best run team in Florida, though, and things would probably improve if they got a new stadium (unlike that other team where the new stadium was wasted on them while at the same time keeps them from relocating).
It is a bunch of crap that these Teams are allowed to “ rebuild “ by fielding AAA teams. There has to be a floor salary cap as well as a real cap sealing .
No
Yes! Tired of half the league fielding minor league teams.
Where are all these major league players who are not playing, or do you take half of the players from the better teams to stock the last place teams? Where would the better teams be then?
A hard salary cap would probably hurt more than it helps, but yes a salary floor would be wonderful.
Are you sure you meant to comment on this post? Dan Jennings will be playing for an actual AAA team in 2018.
If a team cannot sustain at least a 100M payroll, which isn’t much today, they should be contracted and moved. Harsh but it’s bad for the game to see so many teams this season just not even trying and throwing a bunch of also-rans in the starting lineup.
Can’t force payroll floor on anyone, especially a huge one such as the 100 mil minimum you propose you believe isn’t much.
Forcing a floor would cause all sorts of problems including shunning deserving youngsters for costly older players with declining skills..
The Rays gambled on Jennings and it didn’t work out for them.
The point here is that the low market Rays still compete for the playoffs.
Honestly, I’m getting to a point where I would almost rather see a front office comprised of Ruben Amaro Jr., Dave Littlefield, Jim Bowden and Dave Stewart take over this team. One thing to note: the Rays gave up one of their top prospects in Gillaspie to get Jennings. I really don’t know how much longer this can keep up before the league has to step in. Especially because of their brand new TV deal.
Can they step in ?
Dave Littlefield? Seriously?
Not sure where you get your information but Gillaspie was not one of our top prospects at all. He’s a 25 year old 1B only prospect who slashed a whopping .223/.297/.373 last season in AAA. He absolutely would not have a 40 man roster spot this season had he not been traded.
I agree with you, I’m not a fan of Gillaspie, however Baseball America had him at #74 overall before the 2017 season.
He was traded at mid season though. He definitely wasn’t one of their top prospects anymore. However, he was a decent prospect. Not looking like it’s going to hurt them at all though.
He might need a visit to Dr. Cooper. I would prefer Dan Jennings to Aaron Bummer at this point. The White Sox may be able to flip him again, if he gets fixed.
I agree. I enjoyed watching him pitch for the White Sox, and his addition to their bullpen is a low-cost improvement.
Jennings was awful in a WhiteSox uniform. If Gillaspie never plays a game for the Sox it’ll still be a great trade for the Sox. His brother Conor was the best hitter on the Sox a few years back on a bad Sox team & had a great postseason for S.F. maybe Casey will become a decent platoon 1B/DH
Great business Rays, congrats!
Dave Littlefield and Ruben Amaro Jr have been banned from working in Pennsylvania but Florida is still OK.
Looking like a bad trade last year
This isn’t about $$.. Rays are keeping 4 long relievers (2 of which were starters last season in AAA) to experiment with the 5th day being a bullpen day. This meant that both Jennings and Hudson needed to beat out Chaz Roe and Jose Alvarado for the short relief roles . They simply didn’t, both were awful both last season and in the spring.
He might be a good pick up for the Brewers for awhile then they would be able to let some young pitchers get more seasoning
He could be a good pickup for them as a left handed bullpen option (though his stat line against lefties isn’t great) but he would have little effect on any of the Brewers’ young pitchers as the guys that need seasoning are all starters and Jennings is a bullpen arm only.
Great pickup for literally every team!
Are you trying to talk sense or logic in here? Good luck!
Heck, even if it is about money then so be it. I would rather bring up MiLB’er for 1/3 of the cost (including the buyout portion) and see what he has. Jennings isn’t in their long term plans so why not save a buck and let the young guys learn against the big guys. As long as it doesn’t wreck their confidence it is far better than facing minor league hitters.. But again, that’s just logic and it doesn’t work on these boards. No no .. far better to lose with a bunch of old guys with little to no profit to roll into the next year.
If they’re all actually ready for the big leagues, maybe, but teams are dumping decent veterans in order to rush their prospects, which is more likely to stunt their development than uncover the next Albert Pujols ahead of schedule.
Besides, it arguably doesn’t even save money long term, since these promoted prospects will then reach arbitration sooner than they would otherwise.
He’d be an upgrade over shereve, the Yankees should give him a call
I think Jennings will be picked up before sunset. He’s a serviceable lefty reliever, and there are a number of teams who only have 1 LHP in their bullpen.
Since the Tigers have first dibs on American League waiver claims, would love to see Avila put a claim in on him, even if it was just to flip him at the trade deadline
Is he related to the former Marlins GM of the same name?