Rays Sign Brooks Pounders, Deck McGuire

The Rays have reached minor-league agreements with righties Brooks Pounders and Deck McGuire, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times was among those to report on Twitter. Both will enter MLB camp.

Pounders, 29, has some swing-and-miss ability but hasn’t yet translated that into results at the MLB level. He has allowed 43 earned runs and 14 long balls through 45 2/3 innings over the past four campaigns, though he also carries a much more promising 47:12 K/BB ratio. Pounders spent most of 2019 at Triple-A, where he worked to a 4.31 ERA with 10.5 K/9 against 3.2 BB/9 over 56 1/3 frames.

As for McGuire, he’s a former first-round pick who has appeared in the majors but has not reached his initially perceived ceiling. The 30-year-old owns a 5.23 ERA in 51 2/3 frames in the majors. He struggled last year with Korea’s Samsung Lions, managing only a 5.05 ERA with 8.0 K/9 and 5.3 BB/9 in 21 starts before being cut loose.