The Rays announced Tuesday that lefty Ryan Yarbrough has been optioned to Triple-A Durham. Right-hander Luke Bard is up from Durham in his place.
This is the first optional assignment to the minors for Yarbrough in three years, as the 30-year-old southpaw had entrenched himself on the Tampa Bay pitching staff with generally solid performances. Last year’s 5.11 ERA was unsightly, but Yarbrough still soaked up a team-leading 155 innings on the heels of the shortened 2020 season — at a time when all 30 teams were extra cautious with pitcher workloads. Despite the career-worst ERA, Yarbrough was tendered a contract in anticipation of a return to his 2018-20 form, when the southpaw notched a 3.94 ERA with a 20.3% strikeout rate and very strong 5.8% walk rate over 344 2/3 innings.
That, however, hasn’t come to pass. Quite to the contrary, in fact, as Yarbrough will lug a career-worst 5.65 ERA to Durham for the time being. Yarbrough’s most recent outing against the White Sox was one of the worst of his career, as he was tattooed for six runs on eight hits and two walks with no strikeouts in just 1 2/3 innings.
Right-hander Shane Baz is nearing a return to the big league rotation, where the team already has Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, Corey Kluber and spontaneous Rays breakout du jour Jeffrey Springs all pitching quite well. Yarbrough could be out of a rotation spot at that point anyhow, and since he just started on Sunday, the Rays will take this time to get a fresh arm into the bullpen in the form of Bard.
Yarbrough has more than four years of Major League service time but does not have the five years needed to refuse an optional assignment. He’ll work with the Rays’ staff in hopes of engineering a rebound, although it’s worth pointing out that his downturn over the past two seasons coincides with a drop to a career-low 86.7 mph average on his fastball.
Tampa Bay controls Yarbrough through the 2024 season, but given this year’s struggles and now this demotion to the minors, he’ll be a clear non-tender candidate at season’s end if he can’t get back on track. With Baz on the mend and Luis Patino, Yonny Chirinos, Brendan McKay and (ideally) Tyler Glasnow eventually to follow, the Rays may feel Yarbrough is best deployed as a reliever. It’s also feasible, given their annual payroll limitations, that they’ll look to move Yarbrough and shed some of his salary as the trade deadline draws nearer. That’ll depend on the health of the rest of the staff, of course, but the Rays — as is the case every year — aren’t exactly hurting for pitching depth.
The Rays send pitchers up and down.
Produce in a reasonable amount of time and continue to produce, or you’re off their 25 man. Maybe playing for another organization.
That, or Yarbrough doesn’t have elite stuff by any stretch and thus relies on guys to chase. If the velocities and/or spin rates of his pitches change even a little bit he’s prone to falling pretty hard and pretty quickly. He’s not getting away with being a little off with his command sitting in the 70s and 80s like he does. Kyle Hendricks in Chicago is another great example or recently released Dallas Keuchel. Yarbrough is more of a backend innings eater and the Rays have squeezed a hell of a lot out of a guy who doesn’t really register as impressive.
Other than the transaction wire, do you watch? Yarb is awful, hasn’t been even passable for a couple years.
But hey, if bashing makes u feel better, have at it.
In his previous 4 starts before Sunday he went 18 innings pitched with only 4 earned runs. To say he hasn’t even been passable is just wrong. They were playing their 13th game in 13 days, you could see from actually watching the game he just didn’t have his stuff in the first but they needed him to take one for the team and get as many outs as they could
A big waste of a $3.85 M signing
As a Sox fan I feel like I have seen a lot of this guy and to be honest im surprised he doesnt have a worse stat line. Kudos to him for going three years without being sent down, kind of amazing really.
Yankees maybe should trade Andujar for Yarbrough. Both might do better in different uniforms.
@alumofuf- no thnx. Hopefully the Yankees trade Gallo and keep Andujar.
Every time I watch Yarbrough pitch I wonder if every single left handed throwing person in America is currently in the MLB.
Good. Now send Brujan down. Send Walls down. Give Edwards or Jones a chance. Or anyone else, frankly. Walls is a very good defensive player, but that’s it. There are plenty of those types. These guys were top prospects, but don’t have it. Sorry.
Edwards has only 37 AAA at-bats.
Jones is slashing .213/.309/.402 with a 35% strikeout rate at AA, with 9 errors in 29 games at SS (which is why he’s a future outfielder). Neither of them is going to come up and crush it.
The better option, if it exists, is to package some of these minor-league middle infielders for a legit major stopgap until BLowe and Franco get back.
Walls may have bought himself a reprieve tonight.
Curtis Mead. His bat is ready.
Always seemed to kill the Jays , looked it up and not quite as good as I thought. Still pretty good … 18 games 9 starts w-L 8-2 era 3.19 79 innings whip 1.11 if he pitches like that always he’d be making 20 mill a year.
WHY CANT WE BRING UP JONATHAN ARANDA
This. That’s a great question.
Walls may have bought himself a reprieve tonight.
Yarbrough has pride, unlike the other five foos.