The Rays announced Monday that they’ve designated right-hander Andrew Moore for assignment. His spot on the 40-man roster will go to top prospect Nate Lowe, who was officially selected to the big league roster earlier this morning.
Moore, a second-round pick of the Mariners back in 2015, arrived in Tampa Bay (alongside Tommy Romero) by way of the trade that sent Denard Span and Alex Colome to Seattle just under a year ago. He made nine starts and pitched 53 innings with the Mariners in his 2017 debut campaign but posted a lackluster 5.34 ERA with just 31 strikeouts (albeit against a particularly stingy eight walks).
While Moore fared reasonably well in Triple-A with the Rays last season following the swap (4.34 ERA in 83 innings), he’s an extreme fly-ball pitcher who hasn’t demonstrated an ability to miss bats at the upper levels of the minor leagues. Moore averaged just 5.8 K/9 in that Triple-A run with the Rays last season, and he’s off to a dreadful start in 2019, having served up a staggering 25 earned runs on 29 hits (nine home runs) and 10 walks with just 10 strikeouts in 17 1/3 innings.
Though his 2019 results are obviously unsightly, Moore isn’t far removed from being a reasonably interesting pitching prospect. Prior to his arrival at the MLB level in 2017, he’d been touted as a potential fourth or fifth starter who relied on plus control and an above-average-to-plus changeup to compensate for his rather average fastball velocity. If he clears waivers, the Rays will surely be glad to continue trying to coax that upside out of the 24-year-old. Moore is in his final option year, however, so a club looking for some upper-level rotation depth could conceivably show interest if it sees something correctable in Moore despite his 2019 struggles.
certianly worth a flyer for a team like TEX or BAL. this year’s results so far look pretty bad, but he looked pretty good in the years prior.
He’ll definitely draw some interest
Controllable 24-year-old starters who have nice command don’t grow on trees.
Dude needs a pitchers park to have a shot. Unfortunately he’ll probably get claimed by Baltimore and have to pitch in that launching pad.
KC is honestly his best hope for a pitchers park and if Baltimore passes then Moore likes fly ball pitchers
Dito on the previous comment. If you can’t turn around & stabilize your pitching career at the K, you aren’t doing it anywhere else and there is some obvious DFA choices starting with Lively, Owings, Boxberger, etc…
Along with NYM’s Pete Alonso, TBR’s Nate Lowe is one of the two minor league 1B I was watching last season. Lowe has slightly less power than Alonso but makes more contact and produces a higher BA. I’m not sure where TBR will use him because of his low defensive range.
I expect TBR to call up 3B Mike Brosseau soon too.