There was a time in the not-so-distant past that Tampa Bay shuffled through closers every season. Manager Kevin Cash took over in 2015. Over the next eight seasons, the club had seven different saves leaders. Alex Colome was the only reliever to pace the team in back-to-back seasons (2016 and 2017). That changed in 2023, when Pete Fairbanks took over as the full-time closer.
Fairbanks racked up 75 saves over the past three seasons. He’s been Cash’s go-to stopper when healthy. The right-hander ranks third in franchise history with 90 saves. He would have almost certainly passed Colome (95) and Roberto Hernandez (101) had he remained with the organization for another year. Instead, Tampa Bay declined Fairbanks’ $11MM option and allowed him to hit free agency. He signed a one-year, $13MM deal with the Marlins on Christmas Eve.
The Rays will now need to fill the void left by Fairbanks. Considering the organization didn’t want to pay a reasonable price to keep him, the new closer will likely be an internal choice. Tampa Bay has a long history of manufacturing solid relievers, with Fairbanks himself being part of that lineage. These are the potential candidates…
Uceta was the primary high-leverage righty behind Fairbanks last season. He led the bullpen with 76 innings and tied for the team lead with 21 holds. Uceta only had one save in 2025, but he previously served as the closer when Fairbanks missed time in 2024. The right-hander recorded the first five saves of his MLB career that season.
The closer-caliber stuff is there for Uceta. His fastball, changeup, and cutter all had whiff rates above 31% last season. He has a 15.5% swinging-strike rate for his career. The main issue is the long ball. Uceta gave up 11 home runs in 2025, which ranked in the top 10 among relievers. He had a healthy 34.4% fly ball rate and a massive 29.5% pulled air contact rate. A propensity to allow fly balls to the pull side is a scary trait for a reliever called on to protect small leads.
Acquired at the trade deadline for Taj Bradley, Jax was set to be the closer in waiting. He had been the setup man in Minnesota behind Jhoan Duran, though he had forced somewhat of a timeshare in 2024. Jax earned a career-high 10 saves that season. He opened the year as the closer with Duran dealing with an oblique injury, and was still called upon to finish games even when the incumbent returned. The 2025 campaign didn’t begin as smoothly, as Jax had a 4.50 ERA when he was dealt to Tampa Bay, but a 2.08 SIERA and a 1.79 xFIP suggested he had been unlucky.
The change of scenery didn’t help Jax. He allowed seven earned runs in his first 7 1/3 innings with Tampa Bay. Jax allowed three home runs in that stretch, including a game-losing three-run blast to Cal Raleigh in early August. He closed the season with 10 scoreless appearances, though they mostly came in low-leverage spots. Jax also served as an opener in two games down the stretch.
Garrett Cleavinger (honorable mention)
FanGraphs’ bullpen depth chart lists each of Uceta, Jax, and Cleavinger as closers. It’s fair to include Cleavinger, given his high-leverage work last season. He matched Uceta with 21 holds as the preferred lefty setup man. However, Cleavinger’s candidacy has a clear flaw. He’s the only left-handed reliever on the 40-man roster. There’s virtually no chance he’ll get the closer job without another lefty in the bullpen.
Baker had the makings of the unheralded reliever that Tampa Bay turns into a shutdown guy. He spiked a 32.5% strikeout rate through three months last season with the Orioles. The Rays traded for him in early July. Baker made a significant pitch mix tweak in 2025, doubling his changeup usage and prioritizing it ahead of his slider. The changeup was Baker’s best whiff pitch by far. It also held opponents to a measly .128 batting average.
While the jump in strikeouts was nice, Baker still got hit incredibly hard. He gave up barrels at a 12.6% clip, which ranked in the 1st percentile. His 48.3% hard-hit rate put him in the 3rd percentile. Unless Baker can find a way to miss bats and limit damage, he’s likely ticketed for the middle innings.
While he might not break camp with the team, Bigge looms as the potential closer of the future. Tampa Bay acquired him at the 2024 trade deadline in the deal that sent Isaac Paredes to the Cubs. Bigge had dominated at Triple-A that season, earning his first big-league promotion. He pitched well in his brief time in Chicago, then continued to excel with the Rays.
Bigge’s 2025 season was wrecked by two injuries. He went down with a lat strain in early May. In June, he was hit in the face by a 105 mph foul ball. Bigge suffered multiple facial fractures due to the incident. He did not make it back on the mound.
Bigge has the premium velocity and putaway pitch (a wipeout slider) to succeed as a closer. His recovery timeline isn’t clear, but he should be available to contribute on the big-league club at some point. Considering the long layoff, Bigge might be more of a 2027 closer candidate.
Photo courtesy of Matt Marton, Imagn Images
It’s Esteban Yan time, baby.
You rang?
Colome out of retirement.
Go Big with Bigge
For Rays fans, does it even matter? Ownership has traded just about anyone reliable away. This season is a lost cause.
For Rays fans, it does. I would guess you’re not one of them. Do you really consider those they traded away to be that reliable? Seems they were traded because weren’t.
It also matters for those of us who play fantasy baseball. Cmon Uceta!!!
Been a fan since 1998 and lived through all of their closets from Hernandez, the Esteban Yan days, Rick White, Farnsworth, Percival, Balfour, Boxberger, Colome, etc.
For the ownership, they only trade away reliable people. You aren’t going to get anything worthwhile back if you don’t have something valuable to give away. Baz is going to have a breakthrough in 2026. Josh Lowe is a 30-30 guy when healthy. I would’ve rather tried Mangum or Misner in the outfield over Fraley, and a washed up Mullins. Simpson has wheels, but what happens when he only hits .220? DeLuca is a coin flip and could be a valuable player or a bust. Keeping Parades would’ve been better than getting 200 K, .200 AVG Morel (who got released, btw) and Bigge, another pitcher Kyle Snyder will get to ‘spin rate’ his arm into Tommy John Surgery in 2026. Pepiot is also the next Rays arm that Snyder is going to burn to the ground.
My point is that I would’ve rather tried rather have Josh Lowe, Baz, hell I would love to get Arozarena, Paredes, and Glasnow back instead of the prospects with ‘potential’, Bigge, and Gavin Lux. There are Rays fans who are satisfied with a record over .500 and a Wild Card banner (which they aren’t going to get for the 2nd straight year in 2026), and true fans who have been waiting for a championship since 1998. When the last time you tried to go big and sign decent free agents you signed Greg Vaughn, Vinny Castilla and Jose Canseco, you need new owners (yes I know they just got a new ownership group, but have they went all in this year???!). 2008 has left a bitter taste in my mouth and 2020 was even worse because they traded away Snell instead of doubling down. Don’t say I’m not a Rays fan when I’m pissed off that the owners won’t invest in the club and I question some trades.
Karen – The Rays have clearly planned for a lockout in 2027 and a master plan that includes entering the lockout year with a stacked farm system and very few players whose control expires in 26-27. Assuming the Lockout doesn’t extend to 2028, the Rays should open 2028 with a number of new pitchers on the Major League team (ie: guys like Hopkins, Johnson, Forret, Nichols, Baumeister, Brito, Suarez, etc., all of whom I’m pretty high on), and hopefully a few new bats in the field. Their future success will depend on how well they navigate the 2026 Trade Deadline, though, as they should trade everyone whose control expires in 2026-27, which fortunately for the Rays includes a number of top pitchers (e.g., Ras, McClanny, Matz, Jax, and Cleavinger). Throw in Diaz, Mullins, Lux, Fraley and Uceta (who could have a true breakout year) and the Rays will be very busy in July trading high value players. If they can nail the Trade Deadline this year, the future should look very very good for the Rays, which will just so happen to coincide with the opening of the new stadium, at which point spending can increase. 2026 may be a rough year though.
Interesting point. I wonder if the “value premium” paid in July for players with 1.5 years of control will disappear in 2026…
Why is everyone so certain of a lockout.? It’s more the owners fighting with themselves than against the MLBPA.
I’m disappointed in this new ownership group. I don’t believe they are on steady financial ground. Just a typical smoke and mirrors Florida .con man corporation making their money off of a corrupt state gov’t.
Cleaver,
The owners will lock out the players to try to get them to pay for the ownership infighting instead of working that out among themselves via changes to revenue sharing.
It could, either because of the risk of a lockout or because more teams are selling and they are selling more players than usual, but…. teams that are trying to win a WS will still be willing to pay up for talent in an attempt to go for it.
They will be fighting with the MLBPA soon enough. Don’t worry. Breaking the union shouldn’t be hard if the owners are willing to allow for faster free agency and a decent salary floor.
You could be right on the new ownership group, but I think it’s too early to say. They need to have their new stadium finalized and a media rights deal in place to have an idea of what their revenue situation is. Until then, it’s hard to fault them for sticking with the status quo.
mp,
I’m not sure faster free agency and a decent (I read that as higher) salary floor would qualify as “breaking the union.” That sounds like giving the union two big concessions.
Every time I have a discussion about a salary cap in baseball, I usually hear that the players will NEVER agree to that. I think that’s a stupid, self-destructive position that only benefits about 25 players in all of baseball, but nothing I say usually matters on this point.
mp,
I think NEVER is a slight, but only slight, exaggeration. Yes, the lack of a cap largely benefits the very highest earners, but it also allows the league minimum to be increased significantly, and the middle-tier FAs probably see some benefits, such as several #4 starters getting contracts around 4/$70M the last few years.
The biggest issue with a cap is the revenues that would be used to determine the ceiling and floor are highly suspect and open to manipulation. Owners have a very long record of hiding revenues in a number of creative ways, so why would the players trust them to be honest now?
Yeah, I’ve heard the “hiding revenue” argument before. Who cares? Seriously, who cares? Baseball has been around for over 100 years and both sides know how much the players have been paid every one of those years. The parties need to come up a defined amount of revenue, whether it includes everything or not, and just make sure that the players receive a greater percentage of that revenue stream than they’ve received over the past 5 or 10 or 20 year period. Players benefit because they are getting more money (and that money stream increases over time as revenue increases) and teams benefit because there’s a cap and floor requiring teams to spend but not spend so much that competitiveness becomes a joke. The Dodgers just paid more in tax than several teams paid overall on player salaries. The optics of that are horrible. Baseball has to fix this problem. The question is how to get the players on board? Will a lockout be required? Probably so., and we can all thank the Bryce Harpers of the world for it.
Who cares? Well, if the players agree to a percentage of certain revenue streams, who wouldn’t expect owners to shift significant revenue to non-shared streams? Owners have shown for several decades they have no interest in playing fair. They are completely untrustworthy. So I care.
Baseball already has a soft cap, the CBT, and essentially no floor because grievances get buried. Firm those up and increase revenue sharing instead of expecting the players to fix the owners’ problem through a salary cap.
You’re not going to have one without the other (cap and floor). Players can say it’s an owners problem all they want, but if the fix helps the players with no corresponding benefit to the owners, then I suspect a lot of owners will say the system is just fine as is. Like it or not, most fans think there’s a problem, and when the fans think a sport isn’t fair, they tend to tune out. I saw a headline the other day that said MLS was more popular than baseball now. Fixing the competitiveness problem is in everyone’s interest. Also, a CBA is only good for 5 year periods, so the defined revenue term can (and will) be modified as revenue streams change.
Jax could easily be a top 15 closer in 2026
If he can rebound, sure, he’s got the stuff. FWIW I do feel like he’s the guy to own in fantasy over Uceta who will be more the fireman.
Im glad Dodgers ownership doesn’t run the team this way.
last I checked .. dodgers couldn’t win the “dodger way” .. so they had to steal friedman from the rays
It also isn’t an apt comparison considering we’re talking about a top three market in the US vs. a much smaller market. Not making excuses for the Rays not spending, but just flagging that this isn’t an apt comparison. If the Dodgers owners had to own a small market team, they would do things very differently.
The Rays might have traded away a lot of familiar faces (per usual) and there is a lot of skepticism about this upcoming season, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t going to try to win games. Closer by committee, with Uceta leading the pack.
The players might try to win, but ownership doesn’t care as long as they bring in enough fans to generate a set level of profit.
Agreed. I’m not worried about the bullpen or a closer-by-committee in 2026. I suspect the Rays pitching staff will be very good overall in 2026, especially if McClanny returns to the fold and one of Boyle/Seymour takes the next step.
If they don’t want Jax as their closer the Twins will trade Taj Bradley for him (hmm sounds familiar for some reason). I liked him on the Twins he will get back on track next year I’m sure and take over the closer role.
I sec
ond Jax as their closer.
He could use the Mortal Kombat theme music
youtu.be/yKSd0l33S4o?si=21dF9vGwy2YSmRQx
Uceta. His HR% was not much above MLB average last season and the season before it was far below average.
When are they moving ? Is there really a future for them in current location ?
Nothing is finalized yet, but the Rays have selected a location in Hillsborough County (ie: Tampa) and have signed a MOU for development with the current owner. They now need to get government financing lined up, which is obviously the hardest part of the project. Rays fans hope to hear good news on that front relatively soon. Considering all the “connected” owners and advisors on Team Rays, I feel fairly confident it will work out.
Let the team pay for its own stadium instead of burdening the taxpayers to increase the wealth of the wealthy.
If you want to talk philosophically, there are other places for that besides a sports website. I live in the real world.
Jax and I think he’ll be really good. Probably a trade candidate in July too.
It’s business as usual for the Rays. They will find someone within their organization as is usual for them. Rays are probably looking at 2027 and 2028 to be competitive again anyway.
it’s the rays and when Fairbanks was hurt in previous runs, the committee was their go to. expect this in 2026 with no one guy getting more than 15