2:08pm: The teams have announced the swap. Tampa Bay opened a spot on the 40-man roster by transferring Uceta from the 15-day IL to the 60-day IL.
12:55pm: The Rays are going to acquire right-hander Casey Legumina from the Mariners, reports Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. The Mariners, who designated Legumina for assignment last week, will receive minor leaguer Ty Cummings in return, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Tampa has a full 40-man roster and will need to make a corresponding move to make the deal official. Legumina is also out of options and will need an active roster spot when he reports to the team.
Legumina, 29 in June, is in his fourth major league season. He got limited looks with the Reds in 2023 and 2024. He was designated for assignment before the 2025 season and flipped to the Mariners. Seattle gave him a decent amount of time in the big leagues last year but he didn’t do much with the opportunity. He tossed 49 2/3 innings, allowing 5.62 earned runs per nine. His 25.1% strikeout rate was pretty good but he also gave out walks at a high clip of 11.4%.
As he struggled to produce decent results, the Mariners optioned him to the minors a few times. That burned his final option and left him out of options here in 2026. He held his roster spot to begin the year but couldn’t turn a corner. In 11 2/3 innings, his 4.63 ERA was an improvement compared to last year but with less impressive underlying numbers. He showed better control by only walking 5.7% of opponents but also saw his strikeout rate drop to 17%.
Maintaining that ERA was going to be tough, as a big factor is that he hasn’t allowed a home run yet. Also, his velocity is noticeably down. His four-seamer averaged 94.3 miles per hour last year but is down to 93.5 so far this year. His sinker has gone from 93.8 to 93 mph while his slider has dropped from 81.1 to 79.7 mph.
That got him bumped off the Seattle roster but the Rays will take a shot on him. Tampa is out to a strong 13-11 start but it’s no thanks to their bullpen. Their relief pitchers have a collective 5.64 ERA, worse than every team in the majors apart from the Astros and Royals. Injuries have taken a toll on the depth. They lost Manuel Rodríguez to Tommy John surgery last year. Both Steven Wilson and Edwin Uceta began the season on the injured list due to spring injuries. Since the regular season started, they have lost Garrett Cleavinger and Mason Englert to the IL.
The healthy guys haven’t stepped up. Yoendrys Gómez, Ian Seymour and Griffin Jax have each thrown at least nine innings and no one in that trio has an ERA below 7.00. Bryan Baker, Hunter Bigge, Kevin Kelly and Cole Sulser have been a bit better but each member of that quarter has an ERA above 4.00. There’s room in there for Legumina to earn some innings, especially if he can regain some of last year’s strikeouts and velocity.
To get Legumina on their big league club, the Rays are subtracting from their farm system. Cummings, now 24, was acquired as the player to be named later in the 2024 trade which sent Randy Arozarena to Seattle. Now the Mariners get Cummings back a little over a year later.
The right-hander has mostly worked as a starter in his minor league career. Prior to the first trade, he tossed 116 1/3 High-A innings in 2024 with a 4.17 ERA, 24.7% strikeout rate, 9.2% walk rate and 50.3% ground ball rate. In 2025, he pitched in Double-A and Triple-A, logging 123 innings. His ERA improved to 3.29 but with a reduced 17.6% strikeout rate and 47.1% ground ball rate. So far in 2026, he’s been pitching in relief in Double-A. He tossed 5 1/3 innings over three appearances with a 1.69 ERA, 33.3% strikeout rate, 5.6% walk rate and 45.5% ground ball rate.
Perhaps the Mariners are intrigued by that recent bullpen move or maybe they will want to stretch him back out. Either way, they are probably happy to get back a guy they drafted, while giving up a guy they had already cut from their roster. Cummings will be eligible for the Rule 5 draft this December if not added to the 40-man roster.
Photo courtesy of David Frerker, Imagn Images
Watch Tampa turn him into a monster.
Ahh, the good old days when the Rays actually did that.
Don’t look at their trades over the past few years…they have not turned out well.
I don’t know. Matz and Martinez have looked pretty good so far.
they weren’t trades, and let’s see how the season holds up.
I could mention Taj, who looks a heck of a lot better (so far).
Or some guy named Sanchez in Philly…I think we stole Curtis Mead for him, that’ll show him.
I could go on. I’d love to see Matz and Martinez clean up this year, but I ain’t holding my breath.
@Sideline – don’t forget Taj’s new teammate Joe Ryan
It almost seems like they haven’t been nearly as sharp without Friedman. Not sure how long ago he’s left but the timeline sort of checks out. As a Pirates fan, I am quite grateful for the haul of players we got from them, even if Lowe has one year on his deal. They got a mediocre AAA outfielder in return and jumped into a 3 team deal for Ben Williamson. Game changer.
The Rays were on the verge of being a powerhouse until it came out that Wander likes ’em too young. It’s been a steady fall off after that, now they’re doing yet another tear down.
I doubt it on this one.
Does he like cookie
He does but he’s more of a veggie monster
Tampa getting chock full of nuts berries and legumes
Legum…eninas?
Few stadium food are more baseball than peanuts. Leguminas as a last name can only help
The days of the Rays making brick w/o straw are over. 🤣
Strawman argument
DDT
Yea it is. 🤣
unfortunately true. this is not the same FO that used to win trades over and over…
If the Mariners pitching lab couldn’t coax much of anything out of him, I doubt the Rays can.
Legomania
every time the Randy trade is mentioned, my heart hurts. That was the beginning of the end for my favorite team. still haven’t recovered.
As a Mariners fan I’m fine with this.
I’m not so sure what we can say for these two pitchers Cummings has shown some recent upside while Legumina may have a higher ceiling if the ladder will reach high enough,
This is the kind of trade that wouldn’t have even been noticed pre-internet. Odds are very good that Legumina eats some middle innings in Tampa and Cummings never breaks into the majors with Seattle. It’s fine.