In a few weeks, we’ll be running a two-team mock expansion draft here at MLBTR. Currently, we’re creating 15-player protected lists for each of the existing 30 teams. You can catch up on the rules for player eligibility here.
So far, we’ve done the Yankees, Red Sox, Blue Jays, and Orioles. The Rays are next.
In reality, if the Rays were faced with an expansion draft, they’d make a bunch of trades to minimize the damage of losing quality players given their impressive depth. I decided to lock down only seven players:
Charlie Morton
Blake Snell
Tyler Glasnow
Austin Meadows
Brandon Lowe
Brendan McKay
Wander Franco
That leaves some very tough calls among these 29, of which you can only choose eight:
Willy Adames
Jose Alvarado
Nick Anderson
Randy Arozarena
Anthony Banda
Jalen Beeks
Michael Brosseau
Diego Castillo
Yonny Chirinos
Ji-Man Choi
Yandy Diaz
Oliver Drake
Peter Fairbanks
Brent Honeywell
Kevin Kiermaier
Andrew Kittredge
Nate Lowe
Manuel Margot
Jose Martinez
Brian O’Grady
Michael Perez
Colin Poche
Hunter Renfroe
Trevor Richards
Daniel Robertson
Chaz Roe
Yoshitomo Tsutsugo
Joey Wendle
Ryan Yarbrough
With that, we turn it over to the MLBTR readership! Click here to select exactly eight players you think the Rays should protect in our upcoming mock expansion draft. Click here to view the results.
lordy
To Tim: Any thoughts letting some readers do a mock draft along with MLBTR? You could turn it into a contest of sorts. Could be fun. Great series and great site!!!
That would be dope
Why did so many pick Hunter Renfroe? He is a good hitter and teammate, but is not the future of the organization.
Same could be said for relievers regarding the future. Renfroe is a better bet to still be on the team/ in the league, than even someone like Nick Anderson.
because it’s a name people recognize, most don’t know half of these guys
That’s true.
Maybe because he’s a 3 win player with average or better offense and a strong arm in right?
He’s a super super good defender actually and he’s a pretty decent hitter with upside
Adames, Renfroe, Diaz all seem like locks to me. id add Yarby and Chirinos, then Tsutsugo and Arozarena. Honeywell’s injuries make him a potential candidate tp expose, but i think its worth protecting him, and my final guy is one of Castillo, Alvarado, or Anderson. i picked Castillo due to age and somewhat greater relative consistency and track record than the other two.
actually that’s 8. nix Honeywell then.
i prefer Richards as a player to Renfroe to be honest, but i think he has greater trade value and could be swapped for more.
This was a tough one, the Rays would definitely be losing some valuable pieces. I would protect a lot of the young controllable rotation pieces and position guys that have proven they can contribute at the MLB level.
Chorinos, Honeywell, Richards, Yarbrough
Diaz, Lowe, Arozerena, Adames
Anyways you do this, they are either losing valuable swingmen/SP’s or high K/9 RP’s, given the volitility of starters I would keep the swing/Sp as they can pitch multi innings or as an opener if some of your starters go down. These expansion teams would have some nice bullpens from what I’ve seen NYY and Rays forced to expose.
I forgot they have two Lowe”s, I protect Anderson Or Renfroe over him .
The Rays are the perfect example of why there should never, EVER, be another expansion draft.
Why? If anything the Rays show that there’s enough talent in the game to support another two teams. I get that it would suck for the Rays to lose players, but the draft would be designed to minimize the damage to any one team.
Doesn’t matter how much talent there is. There are barely enough fans to support the teams that exist. The Rays have no fanbase–and no, a new stadium won’t solve it. Miami can’t fill the stands, Oakland’s got problems they can’t seem to solve. The very last thing baseball needs is two more small market teams that can manage to be genuine title contenders once or twice each generation.
You can say the rays have no attendance, but to say they don’t have a fanbase is disingenuous as they pull pretty good tv numbers
So a couple markets out of 30 having trouble drawing fans means that there isn’t enough interest in baseball across the nation? Strange way of looking at things…
Since 2008, the Rays have been genuine title contenders in 7 or 8 seasons, twice winning the division and 5 times getting into the post-season. That certainly is not once or twice in a generation.
In fact, between 2008-2013, the Rays won the second most games in the majors, behind only the Yankees who also got into only one world series, although they did win theirs.
They play the game differently and I appreciate the success they’ve had.
Care to explain why?
How do you propose the expansion teams start out then?
I propose the sport not expand. Not in the foreseeable future anyway.
This goes back to my rant yesterday on MLB’s marketing. They don’t market players like the NBA or even NFL does. I’ve talked to casual baseball fans who don’t even know who Mike Trout is! MLB needs to find ways to market their players whether by commercial, or by getting mic’d up on the field. There are many ways to do it, and MLB has the money to do so.
Garbage. The rays organization has brought so much to the table. Consider how many teams would be affected if the Rays didn’t exist.
Why did you put Wander Franco in the locks section? He’s not on the 40-man roster so he can’t be drafted.
They did the same with Toronto and Nate Pearson, they are/were expected to become MLB contributors in 2020 and therefore would be added to the 40-man before the expansion draft. Both are two of the most valuable prospects in the game and would be considered locks to protect, that’s my interpretation anyways.
That’s correct, I decided to include top 100 prospects with a 2020 ETA. I did leave Honeywell up to you guys since he is coming back from injury and the Rays are stacked.
Here’s who I chose:
Adames
Anderson
Arozarena
Chirinos
Honeywell
Renfroe
Tsutsugo
Yarbrough
Chirinos and Yarbrough are both nasty, and I think both will lowkey be huge parts of that rotation. Arozarena is a good young center field prospect, and it would suck to have him get snatched up right after they got him. Honeywell is such a smooth pitching prospect, his delivery is just so easy, and when he’s healthy, he’s dominate. I believe Tsutsugo has what it takes in to play in MLB, he has crazy amounts of power. (Same can be said for Renfroe) Anderson is my only reliever, because even though I like Castillo and Alvarado, Anderson is just so nasty. Adames is an underrated shortstop, and I have to believe that when Franco, Brujan, and Edwards emerge from the minors, he’s gonna be a trade piece.
TLDR; Rays are loaded.
Loving this series, but I gotta say I’m confused by Morton being a lock. Yes, he’s been great recently but he’ll pitch next year at 37, doesn’t exactly have a clean bill of health, and is one year of control at $15 million if the option vests. I don’t think it’s in any way a bad deal, but given the Rays’ willingness to move on from expensive veterans in favor of young, controllable upside, I don’t think he’d be a lock, especially over guys like Adames, Chirinos, and Yarbrough
If the expansion draft had similar to rules to how the NHL handled Vegas, I think the Rays would trade Morton before the draft or make a deal with the expansion team, Morton being involved. They would definitely be an interesting team in an expansion draft.
I don’t see the value of keeping Morton if I was Tampa.
At the most he has 2 more years at a high cost.
If I was a big market team in win now mode I would but not Tampa.
They have to look at the cost factor much more than the production factor.
Kinda of like I am not getting any player because I am only getting 1 maybe 2 years of Morton.
How is wander Franco a lock when he’s never even played a major league game yet, this post is ridiculous
care to look at the rules as mentioned by previous posts in the series?
probably because he’s an 80-hit tool ss who has a high probability to become a franchise cornerstone
I chose Adames, Anderson, Brosseau (he’s pretty underrated), Chirinos, Diaz, Honeywell, Renfroe, and Yarbrough. I suppose Honeywell could/should be swapped out for one of the center fielders, but the upside is just too tantalizing if he can manage to stay healthy.
Brousseau is definitely underrated. I enjoyed watching him play. However, Diaz is a lock, so he’s your third basemen. Adames/Franco at SS and Lowe at 2B.
Even if Brosseau is taken, they still have Wendle/Robertson to fill in. I’d assume a different player would be selected over Brosseau, making him not worthy of protecting. Especially given his age and small sample size.
That’s true too. He’s a good guy to have around either way.
Yandy Diaz
Willy Adames
Randy Arozena (letting Kaimair and Margot go)
Nate Lowe…possibly Jose Martinez
Nick Anderson
Diego Castillo
Trevor Richards
I’d go Robertson over Brousseau. Robertson has better OBP ability
Maybe it was said but do team have to protect prospects?
For this exercise, I’ve auto-protected most top 100 prospects who have a 2020 ETA, with the exception of Honeywell here.
Lowe is massively overrated. A K% over 50% against LHP isn’t valuable at all.
Yeah he only had an .850 OPS and was worth a measly 2.6 WAR in a half-season of games/ab’s…the only way that’s overrated is if people are comparing him to Mike Trout or Mookie Betts, and I haven’t heard anything like that. Solid player
You guys should do an article of the rise and fall of the top pitchers in the NL West from each team from 2000-2010. Diamondbacks Brandon Webb, Dodgers Chad Billingsley, Giants Tim Lincecum, Padres Jake Peavy, and Rockies Ubaldo Jimenez
Charlie Morton? Absolutely worth protecting but I thought FA to be were not eligible
vesting option
Really? I thought it was 2/30 and everyone was surprised he went more than one. Ehhh… short term is not my strong suit.
What is his contract?
He is 37.
If I was Tampa I would leave unprotected because I wouldn’t want to lose a cheaper controllable pitcher.
If Portland, Oregon and Memphis, Tennessee are the two expansion teams, I’d let MLB teams protect 25 of their 40-man roster. Anything less than that and the two new teams would be the early NY Mets for years. Overall talent is already watered down since the day the Mets and Astros were expansion teams.
I guess it’s all a moot point because MLB has not announced they are expanding to 32 teams. I’m sure the folks in Oklahoma City, San Jose, Nashville, Las Vegas and Charlotte hope they do.
If it happens, shared TV money and merchandise money might be all that can keep some teams alive. Do the Marlins even average 10,000 paying customers each night?
They do… 10,016 per game to be precise 🙂
Are they all paying customers? The Yankees have more fans in a remote section of their upper deck than the marlins have in their entire ballpark.
JMHO, but if this year’s “No Fans In The Stands” comes to pass, get ready for big ticket price increases next year. Prices for decent seats are already way too high. In Philly, where I have a season ticket plan I share with 6 others, my Hall of Fame section seats are on average $70 per ticket. We have four seats, so when I take my three youngest grandkids to the game. I’m at $300 after paying $20 to park. That’s a big number to pay for just one baseball game. And that’s before I even buy one hot dog, soda or any merchandise for the Munchkins.
Wendle and Diaz are the only position players worth protecting. The other 6 pitchers to protect I would base on arbitrarily take 6 that aren’t named Jalen Beeks with the most service time remaining and let the depth cover whatever was lost
There is no way anybody actually meant to vote for Nate Lowe. Did everyone just mix him up with Brandon Lowe?