- The Rays placed left-hander Ryan Sherriff on the restricted list April 3 when he decided to take time off from the game, but he has returned to the organization, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports. Sherriff will head to minor league camp in order to get himself back into pitching shape. The 30-year-old has only thrown one-third of an inning for the Rays this season, but he held opposing offenses scoreless over 9 2/3 innings in 2020. Sherriff added another two scoreless frames against the Dodgers in a pair of World Series appearances.
Rays Rumors
Rays Place Collin McHugh On Injured List
The Rays placed reliever Collin McHugh on the 10-day injured list with a back strain, relays Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). Fellow righty Chris Mazza, who had recently been optioned, was recalled to take his place in the bullpen. It’s yet another injury for the Rays’ relief core, which had already lost Nick Anderson, Chaz Roe and Pete Fairbanks in the season’s early going. McHugh, signed to a one-year deal over the offseason, has pitched 5.1 innings for Tampa Bay to this point, allowing eight runs (six earned) but striking out five with just one walk issued.
Is Yoshi Tsutsugo Expendable For The Rays?
- Yoshi Tsutsugo is off to a rough start, with only a .154/.214/.179 slash line over his first 43 plate appearances of the season. This performance has already cost Tsutsugo playing time, and Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times wonders if it might lead the Rays to part ways with Tsutsugo altogether, maybe as soon as May when Ji-Man Choi is off the injured list. It would essentially be a punt on the $7MM salary Tsutsugo is owed this season, and while the low-payroll Rays would be loath to eat that much money, Topkin writes that “the Rays may decide Tsutsugo is a lost cause.” The terms of Tsutsugo’s two-year, $12MM contract prevent him from being sent to the minors without his permission. Tsutsugo was pretty average (98 wRC+, 99 OPS+) over 158 PA in his first Major League season in 2020, with the obvious caveats that he had to deal with the pandemic on top of the difficulties of adjusting to a new league.
Kevin Kiermaier Activated From Injured List
The Rays activated Kevin Kiermaier off the 10-day injured list today, and he played two innings as defensive sub in Tampa Bay’s 6-3 victory over the Yankees. It was Kiermaier’s first appearance since April 5, as a left quad strain sent the three-time Gold Glover to the IL only four games into the new season. While still one of the sport’s best defenders when he is able to play, Kiermaier has been a frequent IL visitor over the years due to a wide variety of injuries, which is why the Rays have fortified their center field depth in the form of Manuel Margot and Brett Phillips.
Offseason In Review: Tampa Bay Rays
Tampa Bay remodeled its pitching staff as the team prepares to defend its American League pennant.
Major League Signings
- Chris Archer, SP: One year, $6.5MM
- Mike Zunino, C: One year, $3MM (includes $1MM buyout of $4MM club option for 2022)
- Michael Wacha, SP: One year, $3MM
- Rich Hill, SP: One year, $2.5MM
- Collin McHugh, RP: One year, $1.8MM
- Chaz Roe, RP: One year, $1.15MM
- Oliver Drake, RP: One year, $775K
- Total spend: $18.725MM
Trades & Claims
- Acquired SP Luis Patino, C Francisco Mejia, C/1B Blake Hunt, and SP Cole Wilcox from the Padres for SP Blake Snell
- Acquired C/1B/OF Heriberto Hernandez, IF Osleivis Basabe and 1B/OF Alexander Ovalles from the Rangers for 1B/3B Nate Lowe, 1B Jake Guenther, and OF Carl Chester
- Acquired 1B Dillon Paulson and cash considerations/player to be named later from the Dodgers as part of a three-team trade with the Phillies. (Phillies acquired RP Jose Alvarado, Dodgers acquired RP Garrett Cleavinger)
- Acquired SP Chris Mazza and RP Jeffrey Springs from the Red Sox for C Ronaldo Hernandez and IF Nick Sogard
- Acquired 1B Evan Edwards from the Marlins for RP John Curtiss
- Acquired cash considerations/player to be named later from the Angels for RP Aaron Slegers
Notable Minor League Signings
- Andrew Kittredge, Hunter Strickland, Yacksel Rios, David Hess, Kevan Smith, Brian Moran, Joseph Odom, Joey Krehbiel, Chris Ellis, Stetson Allie
Extensions
- None
Notable Losses
- Blake Snell, Charlie Morton, Hunter Renfroe, Aaron Loup, Michael Perez, Edgar Garcia, Nate Lowe, Jose Alvarado, John Curtiss, Aaron Slegers
The Rays began their offseason by, as usual, trimming payroll. Declining club options on Charlie Morton and Mike Zunino removed $19.5MM in potential expenditures off the team’s books, though in Zunino’s case, the two sides only temporarily parted ways. Zunino re-signed with the team for $3MM in guaranteed money, plus another $3MM more in total earnings if the Rays choose to exercise another club option on the catcher for 2022.
In short, the Zunino situation saved the team $1.5MM, and they ended up retaining a player they clearly value as a defender. Zunino has yet to show much of anything at the plate as he enters his third season in Tampa, though as we’ll explore later, Zunino wasn’t the only move the Rays made to address their seemingly neverending quest for catching help.
Declining Morton’s option was a bigger call for the Rays, given how the veteran performed over his two seasons with the club. Yet, as always, general manager Erik Neander and his front office looked to maximize the Rays’ value on what (little) they had available to spend. Exercising Morton’s club option would have cost the Rays $15MM, whereas signing three starters and three relievers (Chris Archer, Rich Hill, Michael Wacha, Collin McHugh, Chaz Roe, Oliver Drake) ended up costing the team a combined $15.725MM. Heading into a season where pitching depth may be more important than ever, the Rays managed to get six free agent arms for the price of one pitcher entering his age-37 season.
This is standard operating practice for the Rays, even when the team is reloading for what they hope will be a return trip to the World Series. Not many pennant winners head into the next season having parted ways with two top-of-the-rotation starters, yet that’s exactly what Tampa Bay did in saying goodbye to Morton and in trading Blake Snell to the Padres.
The Snell trade was one of the offseason’s biggest moves for any team, and there was obviously a financial component. Snell is owed $39MM over the 2021-23 seasons, so the Rays again cleared some money. For moving a former Cy Young Award winner with three years of control, the Rays picked up a four-player package that they believe can help them in the coming years and as early as the 2021 season.
Luis Patino, one of the sport’s top pitching prospects, is expected to be called up at some point during the year to add yet another arm to the Rays’ rotation mix. Francisco Mejia is serving as Zunino’s backup and, should Mejia start to show any of his past top-prospect potential, could end up supplanting Zunino in 2021 and onward as the Rays’ regular catcher. Right-hander Cole Wilcox and catcher Blake Hunt are longer-term pieces that could prove useful down the road and give the Rays a pair of recent early draftees with high ceilings to bolster a perennially strong farm.
Time will tell if the Rays made the correct move in trading Snell when they did, and it could be that the deal only occurred because San Diego was the only team willing (or able, given the Padres’ deep farm system) to meet Tampa Bay’s big asking price. It probably also didn’t hurt that the Rays already had a lot of familiarity with the Padres’ prospects given how the two teams have been frequent trade partners in recent years.
With Morton and Snell gone, Tyler Glasnow and Ryan Yarbrough are the provisional top two starters in the Tampa rotation, with Hill, Archer, and Wacha all signed to one-year contracts to round out the starting five. That initial rotation has already hit a snag since Archer is on the injured list with right lateral forearm tightness, though Archer isn’t expected to miss much time.
Josh Fleming has stepped into the rotation in Archer’s place, providing the first glimpse of the second layer of the Rays’ pitching depth. Fleming, swingman McHugh, Patino, Trevor Richards, Shane McClanahan, and Brent Honeywell Jr. could all end up getting regular starts as the season progresses, or at least handle bulk-pitcher duties behind an opener.
Pitching was very much at the forefront of the Rays’ winter plans, as the team reportedly had interest in such names as Martin Perez, Mike Foltynewicz, Julio Teheran, and Anibal Sanchez. Tampa Bay also made strong bids to sign Corey Kluber and acquire Jameson Taillon from the Pirates, though both Kluber and Taillon ended up on the division-rival Yankees.
While there was risk involved in all of those pitchers on the Rays’ target list, they also ended up rolling the dice on the pitchers they did acquire. Archer missed all of 2020 due to thoracic outlet syndrome surgery and hasn’t pitched well essentially since the moment Tampa dealt the right-hander to Pittsburgh at the July 2018 trade deadline. As fun as it would be (well, for everyone besides Pirates fans) to see Archer reignite his career with his former team, it is still very unclear if the righty can be a notable contributor.
The same can be said of Wacha, as injuries and an increasingly large home run rate have drastically worsened the right-hander’s results in the years since his All-Star peak with the Cardinals. Thanks to his increased velocity and strong swinging-strike numbers, however, Wacha did draw some interest from around the league despite some pretty miserable bottom-line numbers (6.62 ERA) over 34 innings with the Mets in 2020.
Hill is a different story, as the southpaw has continued to pitch effectively even as he enters his age-41 season. Since the start of the 2017 campaign, Hill and Morton have very similar numbers — except Hill has only tossed 375 2/3 innings to Morton’s 563 1/3 innings. Since Hill has proven he can deliver front-of-the-rotation production when healthy, the Rays will be particularly careful with his usage to keep him fresh for what they hope will be some important innings come October.
The bullpen also saw quite a bit of turnover, as McHugh and minor league signing Hunter Strickland were added in free agency, and the duo of Chris Mazza and Jeffrey Springs were acquired in an inter-division trade with the Red Sox. Drake, Roe, and Andrew Kittredge were re-signed to new contracts, while Jose Alvarado, Aaron Loup, Aaron Slegers, and John Curtiss were all shuffled out of the relief corps.
Bullpen reorganization is a Rays staple, and the team will need as much depth as it can find from the farm system due to a number of early injuries. Roe (shoulder strain) and Nick Anderson (partial elbow ligament tear) will be out until at least July, while Drake was re-signed with the knowledge that he’d also be out until around midseason due to a forearm problem. Right-hander Pete Fairbanks is also sidelined until May due to a rotator cuff strain.
Given all these injuries, it isn’t surprising that the Rays are at or near the bottom of several team bullpen categories, but this is a problem that needs to be quickly solved considering how quality relief pitching has been a cornerstone of the Rays’ success. If the bullpen is struggling, it puts even more pressure on the starters to not just post quality innings, but to eat innings altogether, which is doesn’t fit the Rays’ usual pitching strategy.
With so much offseason focus on the rotation and bullpen, Tampa Bay did very little with its group of position players. Besides re-signing Zunino and adding Mejia, the Rays are more or less running it back with the 2020 group intact. This isn’t to say that the team didn’t at least check into some notable acquisitions, as the Rays were linked to Kolten Wong, Yoenis Cespedes, and even Marcell Ozuna at different points in the offseason (though according to reports, Ozuna would have only been a realistic addition if he had been willing to accept a one-year contract).
Hunter Renfroe was let go in free agency, and the only other notable subtraction from the position player mix was Nate Lowe, who was traded to the Rangers as part of a six-player deal. Since the Rays also picked up a couple of other first base prospects in Evan Edwards and Dillon Paulson over the winter, Tampa Bay might have felt it had the depth to part with Lowe, especially since the first base picture on the big league roster was also pretty crowded.
Two weeks into the season, however, Lowe is off to a pretty solid start — .245/.327/.510 with four home runs in 55 plate appearances. Not earth-shattering numbers, though they do stand out considering that Ji-Man Choi is injured and Yoshi Tsutsugo and Mike Brosseau are both in season-opening slumps. Lowe was even an above-average hitter (106 wRC+, 109 OPS+) over 245 PA with Tampa in 2019-20, but the Rays never seemed particularly enamored with the idea of giving him an extended look at first base.
While the Rays haven’t gotten off to a good start as a whole in 2021, it’s obviously way too early to write off a team that has made a habit of overachieving. The Rays’ habit of finding hidden gems in trades or low-level waiver pickups also makes it somewhat difficult to evaluate their moves in the moment. Who would’ve thought that postseason hero Randy Arozarena would end up as the headline acquisition of the 2019-20 offseason, for instance? More pivots and roster alterations are certainly likely to occur over the course of the season, as Tampa Bay is perpetually looking to both build and rebuild even while vying for a playoff berth.
How would you grade the Rays’ offseason? (Poll link for app users)
Rays Notes: Archer, Kiermaier
- The Rays placed right-hander Chris Archer on the IL on Saturday with forearm tightness, but they’re optimistic he won’t miss too much time, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times relays. While Archer won’t throw during the next few days, the hope is that he’ll return to the mound by the end of next week. Archer, with whom the Rays reunited on a $6.5MM guarantee in free agency, has been limited to two appearances and 4 1/3 innings in the early going.
- More on the Rays from Topkin, who writes that center fielder Kevin Kiermaier ran “at about 70 percent” Monday and could return to their lineup within a week. Kiermaier went on the IL on April 6 with a left quad strain, and the Rays have since used a combination of Manuel Margot and Brett Phillips in center.
Minor MLB Transactions: 4/12/21
The latest minor league moves from around the sport…
- Rays catcher Joseph Odom has been outrighted to the team’s alternate training site. Odom was designated for assignment last week and cleared waivers. Tampa Bay signed Odom to a minor league deal in the offseason and the 29-year-old catcher has thus far appeared in two games for the Rays in 2021. Odom made his big league debut with the Mariners last season, posting a .338 OPS over 44 plate appearances in 18 games with Seattle.
Rays Option Brent Honeywell
11:37AM: The Rays officially announced the move, with right-hander Trevor Richards called up to take Honeywell’s roster spot.
8:08AM: Brent Honeywell Jr. checked his Major League debut off his bucket list on Sunday: two perfect innings with a pair of strikeouts against the Yankees. The Rays would ultimately lose the game, but it was a strong showing from the 26-year-old Georgian.
Regardless, the plan was never for Honeywell to claim a rotation spot at this time. In classic Rays fashion, this was a spot start for Honeywell, a strategic call-up to share the innings load and progress a young arm in baby steps. He has been optioned back the minors, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Twitter). For Honeywell in particular, there may be added benefit to the short-stint call-up in that he gets to overcome the mental and physical hurdle of making his debut after so many setbacks.
This was Honeywell’s first game action since 2017 when he tossed 123 2/3 innings with a 3.64 ERA at the Triple-A level. At that point, Honeywell appeared on the verge of stardom. Instead of making his debut in 2018, however, Honeywell was set on a Sisyphean cycle of surgery and rehab that included three surgeries.
He was added to the roster at this time because of an injury to Chris Archer. Archer suffered right lateral forearm tightness, but the Rays expect Archer to return after only a short time off. Given that Archer went on the 10-day injured list on April 11th, however, the Rays will need to bring in another arm when Archer’s rotation spot comes back around on Thursday against the Rangers.
Rays Place Chris Archer On Injured List, Call Up Brent Honeywell
The Rays placed Chris Archer on the injured list after he left today’s ballgame. Brent Honeywell will be called up, and he will make his Major League debut opening Sunday’s game, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Twitter).
It wasn’t clear at the time of the injury what exactly happened to Archer, but the injury was apparently severe enough to act quickly in placing him on the injured list. Today was just the second outing of the year for the 32-year-old. Archer suffered right lateral forearm tightness, per ESPN’s Marly Rivera (via Twitter), who adds that the Rays hope Archer will miss just one start.
Honeywell has long been a top prospect for the Rays, but injuries have slowed his path to the Majors. Baseball America had him ranked among the Rays’ top prospects in every season since 2015. He landed in their top-100 prospects in baseball from 2016 to 2020, peaking at No. 14 overall before the 2018 season. Tomorrow will mark an incredible achievement for Honeywell, even if he is unable to become the star hurler the Rays once hoped. Still, expectations are high, and if Honeywell can stay healthy, he still is projected to become a capable piece of the rotation. That said, chances are he’s not on the roster to stay. The Rays will understandably watch his inning count closely.
Chris Archer Leaves Game Due To Forearm Tightness
3:40PM: “Fortunately, it’s nothing serious,” Archer told the Tampa Bay Times’ Marc Topkin and other reporters. Cash also sounded optimistic, saying that Archer could only have tendinitis and might miss just one start, though an injured list stint is likely.
2:11PM: Archer left the game due to right lateral forearm tightness, the team announced.
1:41PM: Chris Archer exited today’s start against the Yankees due to an apparent injury. After DJ LeMahieu’s one-out double in the third inning, Archer was visited on the mound by Rays manager Kevin Cash and the team trainer. That ended Archer’s day after 42 pitches and 2 1/3 scoreless innings (four strikeouts, three hits, no walks).
While there hasn’t yet been any word on the nature of Archer’s injury, it doesn’t bode well that the right-hander has run into another issue in the wake of a lost 2020 season. Archer missed all of last year after undergoing thoracic outlet syndrome surgery, and was also limited to 119 2/3 innings with the Pirates in 2019 due to thumb and shoulder problems. Between Nick Anderson, Chaz Roe, and Pete Fairbanks, the Rays have already taken a lot of injury hits to their bullpen this season, and now a potential absence for Archer threatens their rotation depth.
Archer signed a one-year, $6.5MM free agent deal with the Rays in February, returning to the site of his early-career heyday. Archer was a two-time All-Star during his original stint in Tampa from 2012 until the 2018 trade deadline, when the Rays sent him to the Pirates in what is now one of the more infamous trades in Pittsburgh baseball history. Between Archer’s injuries and struggles with the Pirates, the team unsurprisingly declined their $11MM club option on his services last fall.
