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Indians Claim Johnny Field

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The Indians have claimed outfielder Johnny Field off waivers from the Rays, per club announcements. He had been designated for assignment recently.

Field will begin his tenure in the Cleveland organization on optional assignment at Triple-A. If he holds onto a 40-man spot through the trade deadline, he could become an option for an Indians team that has clear needs in the outfield. Of course, he’s also a candidate to be sent back on waivers and stashed if he clears.

The 26-year-old Field received his first taste of the big leagues this year, but struggled to a .21/.253/.373 batting line over 179 trips to the dish. But he has shown quite a bit better in the upper minors, unsurprisingly. He’s a .756 OPS hitter in 805 Triple-A plate appearances and carries a .769 OPS in 697 Double-A plate appearances. While he doesn’t jump off the page in any area, Field is a solid all-around prospect who can play all over the outfield.

Cubs May Have Interest In Rays' Eovaldi

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  • MLB.com’s Mark Feinsand pegs the Cubs as a possible Nathan Eovaldi suitor. It’s easy to see the connection: the Rays right-hander holds out some real promise of being a weapon down the stretch, but his injury history and thin recent track record will likely limit the return the Tampa Bay organization can achieve. Meanwhile, the Cubs are arguably well-positioned to take a risk on a dynamic arm, as they have a decent array of at-least serviceable hurlers already on hand and also perhaps lack the upper-level prospect capital to chase down a more valuable commodity.

Rays Place Blake Snell On Disabled List

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The Rays announced Monday that they’ve placed top starter Blake Snell on the disabled list due to left shoulder fatigue. He’s already undergone an MRI and been cleared of any structural damage, the team added. Righty Chih-Wei Hu is up from Triple-A Durham to take his spot on the roster.

The absence of any structural damage is obviously a major sigh of relief for the organization and fans alike, and Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times tweets that Snell looks to be in line for only a minimal DL stint. In the short-term, Snell’s absence and the likely trade of right-hander Nathan Eovaldi within the next eight days will further change the composition of what has already been baseball’s most unique pitching staff in 2018.

With Snell out, the Rays will lean on Eovaldi and Chris Archer in traditional starting roles. As an impending free agent, though, Eovaldi is all but assured of changing teams before the non-waiver trade deadline, at which point Archer will be the lone arm that’s been utilized as a starter this season. Ryan Yarbrough is still fairly stretched out, having made a four-inning appearance just this past weekend, and he could be asked to soak up more innings as the state of the Rays’ roster changes.

The Rays have been utilizing Ryne Stanek in their newly created “opener” role with a great amount of success, though they’ve had a fairly wide cast of relievers start games on the remainder of the team’s “bullpen days” over the course of the season. Sergio Romo, Wilmer Font, Matt Andriese and Andrew Kittredge have all started multiple times this season, and rookie Hunter Wood is slated to make his second start in that unorthodox role later tonight.

Tampa Bay does have both Jake Faria and Yonny Chirinos on hand in the minors as options to come up and step into a more traditional rotation role, although at this point it’s difficult to forecast exactly how the organization will proceed with its pitching staff in an increasingly experimental season. To the Rays’ credit, while they’ve taken their share of flak for so aggressively moving away from conventional pitching roles, the team sits at 50-49 in arguably the toughest (or at least the most top-heavy) division in all of Major League Baseball.

Rays Shopping Rentals, Willing To Trade Prospects For Long-Term MLB Pieces

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  • The Rays aren’t planning to operate as a strict buyer or seller over the next eight days, Passan writes. Tampa Bay is marketing rental pieces like right-hander Nathan Eovaldi and injured catcher Wilson Ramos to other clubs but is also willing to part with prospects to acquire affordable, controllable pieces that can be retained for years to come. Passan spoke to someone familiar with the Rays’ talks surrounding Chris Archer who said he’d be “completely stunned” if Archer were actually traded this summer given the three reasonably priced years of control he has remaining on his contract.

Rays Outright Ryan Weber

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  • Rays right-hander Ryan Weber cleared waivers and was outrighted to Triple-A Durham, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Weber, whom the Rays designated July 14, has already been outrighted twice this season. The 27-year-old has spent the majority of the campaign in Durham, where he has recorded a sterling 2.05 ERA with 6.27 K/9, 2.05 BB/9 and a 51.9 percent groundball rate in 74 2/3 innings. The St. Petersburg native has scuffled with his hometown club, however, as he has yielded three earned runs on five hits and two walks (one strikeout) over a small sample of 5 1/3 frames.

Dodgers Scouting Rays

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  • Along with Baltimore’s closer, Zach Britton, the reliever-needy Dodgers are interested in Orioles setup man Brad Brach, according to Bill Shaikin of the Los Angeles Times. The Dodgers have also scouted the Marlins and Rays and “monitored” Athletics closer Blake Treinen, Shaikin adds, though it seems improbable he’ll go anywhere with the A’s making a major push for a playoff spot. Conversely, as a pending free agent on a rebuilding team, the 32-year-old Brach is a good bet to end up in another uniform in the coming weeks. The problem for Baltimore is that Brach is in the midst of his least effective season in a while, with a 4.34 ERA/3.61 FIP and a 4.34 BB/9 in 37 1/3 innings. On the positive side, Brach has struck out upward of nine hitters per nine and generated swinging strikes at a solid clip (13.2 percent).

Latest On Chris Archer

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JULY 21: There is “significant interest” in Archer, according to FOX Sports’ Ken Rosenthal (video link), though he doesn’t specify which teams are pursuing him. Regardless, there’s no guarantee a trade will happen, as Rosenthal says the pitcher “would almost certainly need to show” a return to form in his final two pre-deadline starts for a deal to occur.

JULY 20: Rays starter Chris Archer has been one of the most consistently discussed potential trade chips in baseball for several years, yet he has stayed in Tampa Bay even as many rotation mates have been traded away. Now, though, it could finally be time for a deal to go down, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times writes.

Archer, who turns 30 later this season, expressed a desire to “experience winning” in comments to Topkin. Though Archer chose his words carefully and hardly issued anything approaching a trade demand, the right-hander perhaps at least hinted that it might be best for the sides to part ways — depending, at least, upon the Tampa Bay organization’s intentions. As he put it:

“If I’m going to be here. I want the process of not going to the playoffs to be expedited. … I’ve seen the transition. I’m not saying I’m not happy, but I know that we are still transitioning. And the faster we can speed that up and get back to the 2008 through ’13, ’14 days, the better.”

Ratcheting up the contention timeline hardly appears to be the present priority for a Rays front office that has been hard at work moving large contracts and adding future-oriented assets. While the team’s solid play has been quite a pleasant surprise, the postseason seems out of reach in a monumentally stratified American League.

It came as no great surprise, then, when the Rays shipped out Alex Colome and Denard Span earlier in the season. And the club’s focus at the trade deadline figures to be on finding homes for a few pending free agents while also weighing bigger potential swaps. With the Rays having perhaps already placed emergent starter Blake Snell out of reach, the attention seems likely to end up on Archer.

To be sure, Archer has not been at his best this year — or, in truth, for the past two seasons either. Despite still-strong K/BB numbers, continued mid-nineties velocity, and a steady ~12-13% swinging-strike rate, Archer has allowed more than four earned per nine since the start of 2016. And this year, he’s allowing hard contact at a career-worst 41.5% rate.

Along with the less-than-exciting results, the cheapest years of Archer’s early-career extension are now in the past. But he certainly still remains a respected arm who comes with an appealing price tag. The deal promises him $7.5MM next year and includes $9MM and $11MM options that come with $2MM in cumulative buyouts.

With the end of the deal now in sight, and Archer no longer nearly the incredible value as he once was, the stars could be lining up for a move. It doesn’t hurt that, given the shabby state of the market for rental starters, teams in search of higher-end arms will be forced to go after pitchers whose present clubs are not compelled to make a move. That could drive prices up, though at some point there’ll presumably also be enough demand to interest one or more selling organization. Archer is one of several starters in the same general boat, as we covered in our recent ranking of the 75 top deadline trade candidates.

As Topkin notes, at the end of the day the Rays will need to see enough of a return to make it worth their while to part with a player who still holds plenty of upside. Particularly given that Archer only just returned from the DL, his next few outings my help determine whether another organization puts a compelling offer on the table.

Rays Promote Justin Williams

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The Rays have promoted outfielder Justin Williams to the major league club for the first time, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports. To make room for him on the active roster, they’ve optioned lefty reliever Hoby Milner to Triple-A.

Williams, who’ll turn 23 next month, was the Diamondbacks’ second round pick in the 2013 draft. He came to the Rays as part of the return for sending right-hander Jeremy Hellickson to Arizona, and has posted above-average offensive numbers at every level of the minor leagues since then. At the Triple-A level so far this year, Williams has posted a .276/.323/.392 slash with a 6.7% walk rate and a 21.0% strikeout rate. At the Double-A level last season, he managed to hit .301/.364/.489 across 409 plate appearances.

MLB Pipeline ranks Williams among the club’s top ten prospects, checking in at #8. Though he hit a career-high 14 home runs last season, the publication notes that scouts expect him to develop more pop in his bat due to the fact that he still hits a lot of ground balls; something that could change as he continues to improve his swing. Baseball America describes him as a hitter who makes consistent contact and manages the strike zone well, in part due to improving pitch recognition. BA goes on to say that he turns on inside pitches well but may need to make some adjustments in order to do a better job covering the outside of the plate.

Rays Designate Johnny Field

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The Rays have designated outfielder Johnny Field for assignment, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reports (Twitter links). That opens 40-man space for the team to select the contract of catcher Adam Moore.

Field, 26, debuted this year and posted a .213/.253/.373 slash line with six home runs in 179 MLB plate appearances. Clearly, that’s not going to get it done, though it was only a first attempt at the game’s highest level. Field, who is capable of playing in the corners or up the middle defensively, has a .270/.320/.436 batting line in his 805 career plate appearances at Triple-A.

As for the 34-year-old Moore, this represents a return to the majors after a one-season absence. He had appeared in every one of the prior eight MLB campaigns, yet saw action in less than one hundred total games. Outside of a lengthy run in 2010, in fact, Moore has taken just 74 total plate appearances. H carries a .215/.259/.309 slash in 158 plate appearances this year at Triple-A.

Rays To Select Adam Moore

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The Rays are set to select catcher Adam Moore’s contract from Triple-A Durham, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The club will have to make a corresponding 40-man move to create a spot for Moore, as Topkin notes.

The 34-year-old Moore signed a minor league contract with the Rays in February and has since batted just .215/.259/.309 in 158 plate appearances with Durham, though he has thrown out 33 percent of would-be base stealers. Moore has caught runners at a similar clip (31 percent) throughout his minor league career and, despite this year’s struggles, carries a .733 OPS in 2,352 Triple-A plate appearances with multiple teams. He also comes with some major league experience, having combined for 292 PAs and a .197/.237/.303 line with the Mariners, Royals, Padres and Indians between 2009-16.

During his first action in Tampa Bay, Moore will back up Jesus Sucre in Wilson Ramos’ absence. Ramos was a key contributor to the Rays’ 49-47 start and looked like a prime trade chip as a result. Unfortunately for the Rays, though, he suffered a hamstring injury last weekend and is likely to be on the shelf beyond the July 31 non-waiver trade deadline.

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