Rays outfielders Hunter Renfroe and Brian O’Grady have cleared waivers and become free agents, Juan Toribio of MLB.com tweets. The Rays designated both players for assignment last week.
Renfroe was a relatively high-profile acquisition for the Rays last winter, when they landed him in a trade with the Padres. He was coming off a 33-home run season at that point, but Renfroe wasn’t nearly that productive in his lone campaign with the Rays. The 28-year-old slashed just .156/.252/.393 (76 wRC+) with eight home runs in 139 plate appearances in 2020. Consequently, neither the Rays nor any other team deemed him worthy of a projected $3.5MM arbitration salary for next year.
O’Grady, also 28, became a Ray when they got him from the Reds before last season. He amassed 48 plate appearances with the Reds in 2019 and batted .190/.292/.429 with two home runs. O’Grady only totaled five PA with the Rays in 2020, however.
Practically any outfielder, reliever, or starter I could say…”Rangers…” on, but I really don’t care for Renfroe right now, and tbh I don’t think we really need a LF if Solak is just going to be there… so much for that.
Hunter is better in right with that arm
Two easy pick ups for some teams
Hunter Renfroe to the Rockies? Brian O’grady to the marlins?
Renfroe to the Rockies O’grady to the marlins?
Hunter to the Bucs. We need ANY OF’er at this point. We were playing Tucker out there in 2019.
I was thinking the same thing. The Bucs could do a lot worse for an outfielder… and actually they have been doing a lot worse.
Pirates should take a look ! They need power from somewhere.
He has a history of playing better when he gets regular playing time. He didn’t get that with the Rays, and it showed. I think there are a lot of teams that would take 30+ HRs with a .240-ish BA and well above average defense in RF.
Exactly, Renfroe gets 500 plus at bats he slugs 30+ homers. Renfroe has a bit of streak in him.
I could very well be wrong, but I think maybe the Ray’s took a bath in that Hunter Renfro trade?? Am I wrong that someone like the Royals, the Rangers, possibly the Mariners should give Hunter Renfro a 1 year deal to see if there might be something there on Renfroe???
Thinking the Rockies could use him because their entire OF consists of lefty bats, although I presume Ian Desmond is returning.
Perhaps Baltimore to complement Hays and Santander.
Santander is a GG caliber RF’er. Renfroe is very strong out there as well. Don’t think it’s a fit to put one of them in left. Would mitigate some of their value. And the Orioles have Mountcastle and Yusniel Diaz coming up at some point.
Move Renfroe to LF that would be fine. I figured Mountcastle would take over 1B and Baltimore can start the Chris Davis release ceremony. Pending that Renfroe flames out, and that part is possible, Diaz is up and taking over.
In hindsight Baltimore just dropped a power guy in Nunez so perhaps Renfroe wouldn’t be on their radar. It’s a reminder that the O’s have some offensive firepower and nobody’s talking about it.
Mancini probably plays 1B this year. With Davis getting some undeserved ABS as well. I don’t think the O’s intend to move Mountcastle there yet. Sisco also could get some 1B abs, IMO.
Renfroe is a very good RF’er and I have to imagine some team wants him there. His skillset would do fine in LF but it definitely doesn’t get maximized out there. With Mountcastle and Diaz I doubt we add him. Cedric Mullins and DJ Stewart probably did just enough to get in the mix for abs too.
Renfroe can be a stud, but he’s the type of player who has to play every day. So what if he only hits .240-ish if he gives you 30+ HRs.
I take it Mountcastle is the new 3B then?
It’s not .240 that matters… it’s the .290 OBP career… that’s really bad
Who cares? As a slugger his job is to drive in runs, not get on base. And when he’s hitting jacks, he’ll get more walks.
The Rays also got Xavier Edwards in that deal. He could turn that trade around, particularly if the Padres non tender Pham.
Renfroe is a beast and a decent defender, but he is very streaky and moves way too much air with that bat of his. He might do very well in Coors Field though.
So when a player gets released, like Renfroe; does the team he signs with have to pay him what he would have gotten at arbitration??
Would CLE be interested in his bat?
No. They can sign him to any kind of contract they wish and he signs. Now, if he signs for a year and he still has an arb year or two left, then he enters arbitration at that time.
With just under four full years of service time, whoever signs Renfroe can control him via arbitration through 2023.
No. Tampa never tendered Renfroe a contract for 2021, so now they don’t have to pay him anything.
I agree with the two above me. This only applies because it’s the off-season and Renfroe was on his rookie contract (he hadn’t been tendered a contract this offseason). In season or a player not on their rookie deal, the releasing team pays the whole contract minus the league minimum.
If he played for SD, Cleveland is always interested.
Rays will take WAY less for snell than what people think. Rays see his decline so they are unloading at peak value. Also they have a reputation of making a lot of trades while not always getting the return you’d expect em to get
Where was Snell mentioned in this article?
Ugh, he goes to the Giants. A la Alex Dickerson and turns his career around.
Giants have a lot of luck with ex-Padres.
“ugh” is not a word. Please make an effort to expand your vocabulary.
According to Meriam-Webster ‘Ugh’ is in fact a word.
Definition- ‘used to indicate the sound of a cough or grunt or to express disgust or horror’
So in fact the horror and disgust of watching an ex-Padre again succeed with the Giants would be discouraging to say the least.
Correct. It’s an utterance. Which is a conveyance of a sound. Perfectly valid in English. Please try expand your world view outside of your own backside.
Also I think you’ll find it is in the dictionary.
Ugh
used to express disgust or horror.
dictionary.com/browse/ugh?s=t
Don’t you feel like a bit of a twit now?
Proof once again that steroids cause brain dysfunction…
Cream – i don’t comment on here much anymore these days, but your stupidity brought me out of retirement. This is the 2nd BS cooment i’ve seen from you in the past couple of hours. Stop trolling and find something better to do with your life. This one was especially amazing because you were dead wrong. Get a life, man.
*comment (i know)
Creamandtheclear is Bleach Injector, the other troll who would accuse people of using non-words when they were actually using…real words. Embarrassed himself so much he changed names. Too big of a jerk to just give it up.
Another case of low brow trolling. It’s a forum….who cares?
Rays should pick up Renfroe to plug the gap in their lineup/outfield they’ve been yet to fill since they traded Tommy Pham after the 2019 season.
The Rays just released him, man
He was also the literal player that they traded Tommy Pham for. It’s called sarcasm, man.
The Rays traded Pham for Renfroe and “slapd*ck” prospect Xavier Edwards last year.
Lay the Rangers sign Renfroe then the Braves could trade for Gallo
Gallo and Riley in the same line-up is a bad idea.
Two of the three big trades Tampa Bay made last offseason are not looking good. And everyone thought it would turn out in the Rays’ favor.
Yeah because Tommy Pham is lighting it up in SD
Pham actually hit very well in the playoffs but he sure seems injury prone.
3 for 11 with 4 SO, no XBH, and a .606 OPS in the playoffs is not all that good.
@libertyfighter … Um, no he didn’t.
He may have referred to Pham’s overall career postseason numbers.
I can see a team adding Renfroe as a platoon bat vs lefties and is a plus defender at either corner OF position
Tigers let him rake, flip him.
Too many K’s for Renfroe (28% career), terrible OBP (.290 career), but he has pop and is underrated defensively in a corner, with CF a possibility if needed. No speed that impacts. The kind of guy you park in the 6-7 hole in a lineup, and hope he runs into 35 of them a year.
Worth about 3M tops; anything else is an overpay.
Renfro could hit 45 hr’s in Coors field. He has always had a cannon for an arm and really turned himself into a pretty good fielder.
So nearly one year later, who won the Rays/Padres trade (Tommy Pham and Jake Cronenworth for Hunter Renfroe and Xavier Edwards)?
I’ll go with the Padres, but maybe there are differing opinions out there.
Really comes down to who has the better career out of Cronenworth and Edwards.
Here we go these two guys will be someone that the Brewers may take a shot at. I honestly wonder if Renfro could switch to firstbase and possibly hit 40+ in MILLER PARK.
Low OBP, good D, and a nice guy? Hunter will fit right in as a corner OF in KC.
So he’s got a power bat and good to very good defense including a strong arm. Ks at 28% which isn’t atrocious in this day and age.
How hard can it be for a professional to bring that down to ~20% which would be more than acceptable?
OBP is awful at ,290. Same general thought- he busts his butt to raise it to .330 to .350. Some of which will naturally accrue just by not striking out as much.
He goes from non-tender to multiyear contract at a 50% to 100% raise.
What FO can’t figure this out, much less his flipping agent.
Renfroe is never going to be a big OBP guy, but he is way better than he looked in 2020. He’s streaky as hell, so you have to deal with long stretches of extreme mediocrity to unlock the good in him. The way the Rays were using him was never going to work, you can’t plug him in and expect production immediately.
Give him 400ab and he will hit 30-35 bombs. Put him in Toronto, Colorado, Cincy or Milwaukee and you’ll look like a genius.
He’s not nearly as streaky as Wil Myers.
I missed the part about Wil Myers in this story?
You said “streaky,” so I gave you streaky.
I know rbi’s mean nothing but renfroe hits over 30 Homer’s and only gets 64 rbi? Ray’s had a good lineup… cant blame it on that.
You’re mixing up years. The Padres were one of the worst OBP teams in the league whe Renfroe was there. Reyes didn’t drive in a lot of runs either, because nobody got on base! He only got 134 PA’s with the Rays, so if he would have hit 30 HRs, you’d be hiving him the MVP.
The Padres had very poor OBP when Froe hit all those Homers!
I’d love to see the RS pick him up. I’d miss JBJ’s defense, but Benni, Verdugo, and Renfroe are passable in the OF. The money saved could be used to sign someone like Wong who provide real defense in the IF. And Fenway might be really nice to Renfroe.
Good call JB on the Bosox picking up Renfroe. Guess this closes the book on JBJ, but you were also right in money best spent elsewhere, Replaced a LH streaky CF with a RH streaky RF with a bit more pop.
Renfroe and the Indians,makes sense for both parties.
Come on home big boy. Like Wil Venable, I will never give up on you figuring it out. Venable never did.
It’s hard to believe that Renfroe struggled as much as he did in 2020. I think the new environment didn’t do him any favors. Maybe Padres management knew something. I was surprised to see Tommy Pham for Hunter Renfroe. They are both good players but Renfroe has age and team control on his side, Pham is over 32 now.
Pham is prone to weird baserunning errors and sometimes sketchy defense. But he is still a solid hitter. He has overcome a lot of adversity in his life to get to where he is today and realize his dream. I think he’s one of those guys who will kick around into his late 30’s.
I was surprised, too. Especially given Pham’s serious health issues. Even more surprising, Preller knew about the UCL and the degenerative eye condition, and he still went through with it.
Pham is already 33. He has keratoconus, a degenerative eye condition, which effects both eyes and his eye sight will get worse every year. He has had significant injuries each of the past 2 seasons and like most players over 30 those will get more frequent. His best years are in the rear view mirror.
I was surprised when the Padres traded for him, but now we know they were really trading for Cronenworth.
No. I think the Padres were trading for the 2018-2019 Pham and they got an injured Pham. Breaking his hand was not his fault, but those are the types of injuries that linger and you are right that he is not getting any younger. Players start declining after their age 30 season and 2021 will be his age 33 season. I would be surprised if he is on the team. There are better options for $8 million.
why have a conversation with yourself pads fans?
@Pads Fans …
Preller KNEW Pham was injured when he got him. He KNEW Pham was dealing with a UCL issue that could require (and still may require) TJ surgery. He also KNEW about the degenerative eye condition. I don’t know what Preller was hoping for, but to any objective observer the chances of Pham returning to his peak was just wishful thinking.
I won’t be surprised if Pham is on the team, because – Preller. But, you’re right, there are much better options for the money.
His home town of Crystal Springs was hit hard by weather and COVID in 2020. Both he and his wife are from there and that had to weigh on his mind. This season there were many players that didn’t play up to their career averages because of COVID.. Great kid. Hope he catches on with a team that will give him consistent at bats. He will give them 30 HR and plus defense in the corner OF.
Renfroe probably won’t be signing anywhere until they decide the future of the DH in the NL
Why? He’s one of the best defensive OF’s in the game!
I’ve been pining for him to come to Cleveland since I heard about his FA. There’s definitely a fit and they cleared more than enough room by letting DeShields and Naquin walk.