The Rays got two pieces of bad news today, with Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times relaying both (Twitter links). Right-hander Shane Baz will undergo Tommy John surgery which will keep him out of action through the end of the 2023 campaign. Furthermore, Brandon Lowe won’t return here in 2022 due to an ongoing back issue.
Baz will end his 2022 season with only 27 innings pitched over six starts, as arthroscopic elbow surgery and then an elbow sprain (which has kept him on the injured list since July) limited his ability to get onto the mound. Unfortunately, those elbow problems have now resulted in the worst-case scenario of TJ surgery, and Baz now faces another completely lost season in 2023.
It was just over a year ago that Baz made his MLB debut, making three starts for the Rays at the end of the 2021 season and then getting another start in their playoff rotation during the ALDS. While entrusting an inexperienced pitcher with a big postseason start didn’t work out well for Tampa Bay, it was a sign of just how much faith the Rays have in Baz as one of the key arms of their future. The righty had become one of baseball’s top pitching prospects during his excellent 2021 minor league season, and thus entered 2022 as a favorite for AL Rookie Of The Year honors.
Instead, Baz will now be out of action until Opening Day 2024. It is a testament to the Rays’ pitching depth that they are still in prime position to return to the playoffs even without Baz or several other notable injured hurlers (such as another Tommy John patient in Tyler Glasnow, who has missed all of 2022 but might be close to returning for some bullpen work late in the regular season or in the postseason). Still, losing Baz to TJ surgery is naturally a blow to the Rays’ present and future plans, given how young and controllable pitching is such a key plank of Tampa Bay’s strategies.
Between 2022 and 2023, Baz will bank two full seasons of Major League service time while on the injured list, though he still isn’t eligible for arbitration until after the 2024 season. Assuming he is able to return from rehab in good form, he can use 2024 as a platform for a decent arb payday, but obviously Baz’s first priority is just getting healthy.
In regards to 2022 alone, having Lowe for only 65 games was an even bigger short-term problem for the Rays than losing Baz, given how Lowe is an established big league talent. After top-10 finishes in AL MVP voting in each of the last two seasons, Lowe hit only .221/.308/.383 over 266 plate appearances, as he was limited by three separate stints on the IL. One of those absences was a minimal 10-day stint due to a biceps contusion, but Lowe was mostly hampered by his lower-back problem.
It remains to be seen if Lowe might require a surgical fix to fully solve his back problems, and if so, such a procedure might impact his readiness for the start of the 2023 campaign. Arbitration isn’t a factor for Lowe, who had two guaranteed seasons remaining on a six-year, $24MM extension he signed back in March 2019, and he is owed at least $15MM more on that deal (which includes two club options). Given how the Rays are always open to dealing veteran players, it would seem like Lowe’s injury and down year would certainly lessen the chance of a trade, but a move cannot be entirely ruled out.
Such a decision would hinge on how comfortable the Rays are with their other options at second base. Isaac Paredes, Taylor Walls, Jonathan Aranda, and Vidal Brujan have handled most of the workload with Lowe out, with varying degrees of success. Walls is a premium defender who hasn’t hit much, while Paredes has shown some pop in his first season with the Rays, and Aranda has gotten off to a solid start in his first month in the big leagues. Tampa will now be counting on this mix to help them in the postseason, with Lowe no longer a possibility.
Ugh. Two lost years for Baz. He looked so good last year. Maybe Bradley can come thru next year.
The makings of a Championship
GCole ACE hahahahahahaha
They were done before this news.
“Worst trade in MLB history.”
Not. Even. Close.
Larry Anderson for Jeff Bagwell gets my vote
Doyle Alexander for Smoltz gets mine.
Cubs shipped out Lou Brock for three guys who would barely play in Chicago and when they did, they did not do well.
Doyle Alexander did exactly what you want for a trade deadline pick up. 9-0 down the stretch. It wasn’t a good trade in the long run, but there are definitely worse. How about Bob Sykes for Willie McGee?
Doyle Alexander was WONDERFUL for the Tigers and did exactly what he was supposed to do in that trade. For that matter, so did Larry Andersen. When you trade a prospect for a veteran designed to get you into the postseason that year, it’s not a bad trade because in both cases the veteran performed exceedingly well and both teams made the playoffs.
Neither were bad deals for Detroit or Boston. They were outstanding deals for Atlanta and Houston respectively, but that doesn’t make it bad for the other team.
Doyle Alexander helped the Tigers get to the World Series, even though they lost to the Cardinals. Yes, Smoltz ended up with a HOF career w the Braves (for the most part). They say hindsight is 20/20.
lcs, not world series.
twins beat him twice there to knock out the tigers.
and folks forget, the braves lost a doyle trade, too.
braves got him from the blue jays for duane ward, ward helped the jays win 2 world series, and was a terrific set up man and closer before the arm went bust in 1994.
yep.
and if the red sox win the world series that year, not a single sox fan would care 1 bit they traded bagwell.
thing folks forget about bagwell, though, is that they had several guys ahead of him on the depth chart, one of whom (mo vaughn) would win the mvp in 1995.
That’s not even the worst ‘both teams got what they wanted in a rental’ trade. The Expos gave up Grady Sizemore, Brandon Phillips and Cliff Lee for two months of Bartolo Colon. Colon was lights out and the Expos made the playoffs, but the Indians got three all-stars in return and started a monster trade tree that helped them stay competitive for a couple decades.
FWIW, Babe Ruth for cash considerations was a pretty bad trade.
For the first year or so, it did look like one of the worst trades ever. Now a few years later, the Rays still won the trade since Archer was a net negative and they got some a couple years of great baseball from Meadows, Baz & Glasnow. Even if Baz & Glasnow don’t pitch another inning for them, the Rays will won the trade pretty easily, it’s just no longer as lopsided as it could have been since they all got hurt.
Too soon to tell. Certainly, the Pirates got nothing from Archer. Interesting that all three of the players the Rays received will have had major IL stints. Hard to predict if Meadows will ever come back.
That sucks for the Rays and Baz. Never like to hear about TJ surgery, no matter how frequent it happens anymore.
Tampa did win the Archer trade, but it was by attrition.
Pretty much a tossup. All 4 players involved have spent significant time on the IL since the trade.
Meadows had a solid season for them and then they flipped him for Paredes who has 20 homers this season, people keep forgetting about that part too
You shouldn’t really consider follow up deals when judging the original deal. It’s not Pittsburgh’s fault that Detroit was foolish enough to give up Paredes for a clearly not working Meadows.
I mean, meadows was still an asset they acquired which they then used for another asset. I get the point you’re trying to make but to me they still got paredes as a direct result of the first trade
What are you smoking? Meadows was healthy, and Paredes had shown no power to that point, though he had hit for average in the minors. Now he can’t hit for average and only plays because Lowe is injured. What psychic power did you have that you foresaw Meadows coming down with Vertigo after the trade occurred, and then had Achilles problems? Too early to judge, especially if Lowe and Meadows are both healthy, next year.
Hiflew: It’s called the domino effect or six degrees of separation. The players are considered assets to the team. Similar to stocks. They invest, hold, trade/sell them to try to improve their portfolio (team) either for the short term or the long term.
Yeah as a Pirates fan I feel better about this deal every year. Still a black mark in our history but not the all time worst trade it once looked like.
Nooooo. Come on rays you need to beat the blue jays to save the Astros season!!
Noooo!!! Rays you need to be the blue jays to keep them away from the Astros
Never get excited for how good your pitching looks, especially prospects. Always a matter of time, just hope they can bounce back and you can get some good years out of them when healthy. Teams like Detroit also had tons of top starting pitching prospects and it hasn’t amounted to much.
Could be a big offseason for the Rays between Yandy Diaz, Ji-man Choi, Shane Baz, and Brandon Lowe, with all the prospects they need to find a spot for or trade.
It sure seems like Tampa has more arm injuries than most teams. Maybe it’s because they’ve got a farm system full of “throwers” rather than “pitchers”. We’ll see if McClanahan is the next victim of their development philosophy.