Rays Select Joey Gerber

1:35pm: Gerber indeed had an upward mobility clause in his contract, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. That provision forces the Rays to either grant Gerber his release or add him to the 40-man roster if there’s another team willing to sign him to its own 40-man roster. Gerber seemingly had interest from another team, then, and forced the issue with the Rays.

1:15pm: The Rays have selected the contract of right-hander Joey Gerber and transferred fellow righty Hunter Bigge from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL to clear space on the 40-man roster, per a team announcement. Gerber was immediately optioned back to Triple-A Durham, where he’d previously been pitching.

An addition to the 40-man and immediate option back to the minors — the A’s made the same move with outfielder Carlos Cortes yesterday — likely indicates that Gerber’s minor league contract contained a mid-July opt-out clause. Such provisions are common at the season’s midpoint and typically give the team 24 to 48 hours to decide whether to add the player to the 40-man roster or grant him his release.

Gerber, 28, made a brief major league debut with the 2020 Mariners — the team that originally drafted him in the eighth round back in 2018. He pitched 15 2/3 innings and logged a 4.02 ERA but with a dismal 9.7% strikeout rate against a solid 8.1% walk rate.

Gerber’s minor league run-prevention and strikeout numbers were excellent and would likely have gotten him a look in subsequent seasons had he remained healthy. That wasn’t the case. He missed all of 2021 following back surgery and pitched just one inning in 2022 due to a forearm strain that eventually resulted in Tommy John surgery that wiped out his entire 2023 campaign as well.

After a nearly three-year layoff from pitching, Gerber signed a minor league deal with the Yankees for the 2024 season. He pitched 33 1/3 innings of 2.43 ERA ball across four levels, fanning 28.2% of his opponents and issuing walks at a 12.2% rate. He didn’t get a call to the majors and wound up becoming a minor league free agent, ultimately signing with Tampa Bay in mid-December.

Gerber’s earned run average is up to 4.73 with the Rays in 2025, but his strikeout and walks numbers are better than they were in the Yankees’ system. He’s punched out a comparable 28.6% of his opponents but trimmed his walk rate to a much leaner 8.9% mark. The 93.8 mph Gerber is averaging on his four-seamer in 2025 is actually a half-mile improvement over the 93.3 mph he averaged during his brief debut effort with the 2020 Mariners.

This is the second of Gerber’s three option years. Now that he’s on the 40-man roster, he can be shuttled freely between the Rays’ major league club and Triple-A Durham affiliate both this year and next. He’ll be in the mix the next time the Rays need a fresh arm and could be an option to claim a larger role depending on what happens at the trade deadline.

Tampa Bay is three games over .500 and 1.5 back from a Wild Card spot. They’re generally expected to operate primarily on the buy side, but they rode a four-game losing streak into the All-Star break and are generally open to listen on veterans even during contending seasons. A trade of an impending free agent like starter Zack Littell, for instance, could push a current bullpen member like Ian Seymour or Joe Boyle into the rotation. Ace Shane McClanahan is on the mend from a triceps injury and could step into any rotation vacancy that opens up, but further injuries and/or a trade of a veteran reliever with dwindling club control (e.g. Pete Fairbanks, Garrett Cleavinger) could lead to additional opportunities for Gerber and other depth arms.

The 27-year-old Bigge’s move to the 60-day IL is a formality. He’s been out since May 1 due to a lat strain and has thus already spent more than 60 days on the injured list. He’s pitched to a 2.51 ERA in 32 1/3 MLB frames between the Cubs and Rays since making his debut with Chicago last year and being traded to Tampa Bay at the 2024 deadline. He resumed baseball activity late last month and will continue to work toward a late-season return.