The Rays announced Wednesday that they’ve signed infielder Taylor Walls to a one-year deal with a club option for the 2026 season. In doing so, the two parties avoided an arbitration hearing. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports that Walls will earn a $1.4MM guarantee: a $1.35MM salary this coming season with a $50K buyout on a $2.45MM option for the ’26 campaign. The price of that option would be bumped by $50K, to $2.5MM, if Walls tallies 450 plate appearances, Topkin adds. Walls is represented by Vayner Sports.
Walls and Tampa Bay had exchanged figures last week, with the shortstop filing for a $1.575MM salary to the team’s $1.3MM submission. (MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz had projected a $1.3MM salary for Walls.) It’s the first trip through the arbitration process for the infielder, who’s under team control through 2027 regardless of the outcome of that 2026 option.
The 28-year-old Walls had a brutal season at the plate in 2024 but is a talented infield defender capable of handling multiple positions. In 252 plate appearances, he slashed only .183/.282/.248 with one homer, five doubles, three triples and 16 steals (in 20 attempts). Walls did continue to show a disciplined approach, walking in 12.3% of those 252 turns at the plate — right in line with his career 12.1% mark. His contact profile was sub-par, however. Walls averaged only 86.2 mph off the bat with a bleak 24% hard-hit rate, and he punched out in 26.6% of his plate appearances.
Defensive metrics are divided on Walls, who’s primarily been a shortstop (1983 big league innings) but also has ample experience at second base (524 innings) and the hot corner (419 innings). Defensive Runs Saved and Ultimate Zone Rating think he’s a flat-out plus with the glove. DRS, in particular, credits Walls with a whopping career mark of +35 at shortstop alone (plus another 15 DRS between second and third). Statcast has generally favored his work at third base but is down on Walls at shortstop, pegging him at two outs below average in each of the past two seasons.
The Rays clearly feel Walls is better than Statcast measures him to be. At least insofar as making the plays he’s supposed to, there’s good evidence to back that up. Walls was charged with only three errors in last year’s 625 innings of defense. He made a combined eight errors across three positions in 792 innings in 2023.
Even if the Rays decline Walls’ option for the 2026 season, he’d be under team control and arb-eligible a second time. They’d likely only do so if they felt Walls comfortably projected for less than the 75% raise his option value represents — although in that scenario, he’d be a potential non-tender candidate as well.
For now, Walls is the favorite to open the 2025 season at shortstop, though he’ll have some competition from fellow middle infielder Jose Caballero. In all likelihood, one will start the year at short and the other will fill a utility role, although Osleivis Basabe could get himself back into the mix if he shows signs of a rebound from a dreadful 2024 season this spring.
The Opening Day assignment doesn’t necessarily carry as much weight as who’ll finish the season at shortstop, though. Walls, Caballero and to a lesser extent Basabe will all be in the mix, but all eyes will be on 2021 first rounder Carson Williams, whom Baseball America just this morning tabbed as MLB’s No. 11 overall prospect. Williams, regarded as a plus defender at short, posted a .256/.352/.469 slash in a pitcher-friendly Double-A setting this past season, putting him about 42% better than average in that league, by measure of wRC+. The 21-year-old (22 in June) is likely ticketed for Triple-A to begin the season and could make his MLB debut at some point this summer, depending on how he fares early on.
Hopefully DFA once Carson Williams is ready, can’t stand him
Hard to believe that the penny pinching Rays would blow over a mil on this one dimensional player. Poor contact, no power, poor OBP. The minors are full of guys like him. Don’t get the thinking here. If he was released, he’d be looking for a minor league deal.
Agree with you. Either way when his time with rays are through he will be looking at a minor league deal. I see a player like him , he should be in winterball trying to improve his offense
Dude sucks, he’s had over a 1000 at bats in his mlb career and look at his slash line. He defines quad A player. At some point you have to hit a little bit and he’s actually been 33% worse than your average player for his entire career. In terms of pressure, the Rays typically have lowest mlb attendance so it’s not like 20,000 plus are booing him after every at bat. Please define what you mean by “shines” this year and I will gladly bet you he will be worse. There’s a reason his buyout is 50k, that’s a joke in itself.
@Tom
I feel like the Rays said ‘take the 50K buyout or your off the team”. Walls is probably a smart guy and knows what we’re all saying. Once his career with the Rays is done, so is his major’s career. Sure another team like the Reds or White Sox night employ him … Maybe the Dodgers want a defensive bench player (and Friedman is guilty of drafting him). But his time as a full time player on a competitive team is over after the Rays.
$50K is the lower buyout figure I’ve ever seen on an option year. Almost a guarantee that the second year won’t get picked up…
Rays fans can hope
I think the second year is just window dressing so the parties could sign a “multi-year” deal during the period where you otherwise need to wait for the arbitrator’s decision.
How is this guy any sort of a millionaire? He has been nothing but terrible every single year he’s played.
This guy is the poster boy for conflicting WAR numbers. Baseball Reference loves him with a career 7.4 bWAR, almost all with the glove. Fangraphs hates him with 0.5 fWAR over exactly the same seasons.
The truth is probably somewhere in-between. My personal eye-test says Walls is a good and versatile fielder, though I can’t buy B-R’s wild enthusiasm. But Fangraphs sells him way too short IMO.
One thing everybody can agree on: Walls can’t hit. But the Rays knew that already.
BRef uses DRS. Fangraphs uses Statcast. He looks good, but Statcast measures to within millimeters and milliseconds.
I want to see what their defensive metrics are at the end of the year after playing the 81 home games outdoors.
If Walls cannot perform well defensively then he is totally useless. I hope it happens because I’m ready to move on and have been for 3 years.
I agree, @Rays! He’d be alright to carry if you have a good lineup because of his defense, but we have multiple Taylor Walls-types in this lineup and he is the worst of all of them.
Going to hit .180 and block Carson Williams and Junior Caminero from playing time. Great, cheap move to avoid the service time clock on 2 guys who could actually help the Rays win.
And that’s the irritating part. Even though Deluca seemed to be a similar player, glove, but no hit, he eventually came around the last 2 months and contributed. He had slack because he was a rookie. We all know who Walls is now. Just taking ABs from someone else.
Remember. We’re Rays fans. Their prospects always need more ‘seasoning’. Even if they’re mashing in the minors. Even if they’re striking guys out. Even if they’re stealing successfully. ‘seasoning, seasoning, seasoning!’
Carson Williams would be a better choice at SS this season, even without experience in AAA. So would Junior. This signing makes zero analytic sense. Does Walls have some dirt on somebody in the Rays Front Office?
I take it back. I misread the posting. This signing does make sense.
* First, RFO assumes Williams needs another season of minor league ball. No surprise. So, they keep Walls for another year.
* They don’t want to pay him what he is asking, so they give him barely above what they were offering. What gets Walls to agree is the team option, which equates to a nice payday for 2026.
In short, Walls gave up his chance to fight for his figure because he thinks the Rays will keep him for the 2026 season. LOL.
I would still take any other cheap vet over Walls. Any change would be an improvement kn the team. We can’t have 3 guys who are gonna strike out half the time (Walls/Morel/whatever catcher we have). Gonna put a lot of pressure on Yandy to get on base and he’ll probably regress in trying to do too much.
This is a poorly constructed team. Rays brass are hoping for a team full of ‘bounce-back’ candidates, but there’s no reason to believe this team will even be competitive. Especially after the rest of the AL East improved.
Anything over a minor league deal is overpaid. What is it with the Rays and their fetish for guys like this? Sub .200 average players int help you win.
Should’ve added that he get 450 ABs AND hit over .240.
I am shocked, SHOCKED by how many people can defend him. He makes up most of his WAR on defense, but is dreadful offensively. So dreadful in fact that after the Rays move on from him he will likely never get another big league contract. Probably only minor league contracts. He’s also just not a very likeable guy, so the sooner we move on, the better. I’d take a guy who can hit . 220 and have worse defense instead of a guy who hits . 180 and has excellent defense.
You gotta score runs to win and this team can’t score runs. Alex Jackson and Taylor Walls on the same roster and you can see why the Rays had a bottom-barrel offense last year.
Once we move on from Cash (that’ll never happen) and Walls, it will be such a refreshing sight. But Rays brass like crap offensive players because they can pay them and keep them (aka nobody else wants them). But then they score on average 2 runs/game and can’t win in the postseason. It’s not a mystery why the Rays can’t and won’t make it to the World Series this year (and why they didn’t make it last year). This year will be painful Rays fans. Let’s bunker down and watch Taylor Walls hit short popups in the infield.
You should see all these guys on this Rays FB page defending Alex Jackson, Morel, Walls, Siri, Cash, $ternberg, and the front office. They are clueless that they will never win a title until the ownership changes.
I know very well how blindly following the Ray’s fanbase can be. They simply enjoy the game casually and there’s nothing wrong with it. But seeing people defend Walls on a baseball site was pretty shocking. I thought we’d universally agree that Walls is a terrible player.
But when they sent Walls down, he performed well. I wouldn’t use luck nor injury as excuses for him being bad. He’s just a bad player. There’s nothing wrong with that but bad players should not be on ML rosters. We now have a league half full of them, so maybe it’s more a problem with the game than the Rays. Either way, it’s time to move on from Walls forever. Showing flashes in 6 game stretches 3 times a year isn’t gonna cut it.