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Tristan Peters

Rays Trade Tristan Peters To White Sox

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The Rays traded outfielder Tristan Peters to the White Sox for cash or a player to be named later, according to announcements from both clubs. Tampa Bay had designated Peters for assignment on Tuesday when they finalized their two-year deal with Steven Matz. Chicago had a couple openings on the 40-man roster and didn’t need to make another move.

Peters, 26, entered the professional ranks as a seventh-round pick by Milwaukee in 2021. The lefty-hitting outfielder was traded twice as a prospect — first to the Giants for reliever Trevor Rosenthal, then to Tampa Bay for infielder Brett Wisely. Peters got his first major league call this past August. He spent a week on the active roster and got into four games, going 0-12 with seven strikeouts. He otherwise spent his second straight full season with Triple-A Durham, batting .266/.355/.429 with 15 home runs across 555 plate appearances.

That was an improvement over Peters’ first season at the top minor league level. He’d hit .238/.344/.402 and connected on 12 homers in 2024. Peters has posted subpar exit velocities but shown solid strike zone awareness while making a decent amount of contact. He’s capable of playing anywhere in the outfield and has a couple minor league options remaining. The Sox can keep him in Triple-A without exposing him to waivers so long as they continue carrying him on the 40-man roster.

Barring a surprise trade of either player, the White Sox will open 2026 with Andrew Benintendi and Luis Robert Jr. as their respective left and center fielder. The out-of-options Everson Pereira, himself an offseason trade pickup from Tampa Bay, probably enters Spring Training as the favorite in right field. Chicago has journeyman speedster Derek Hill penciled in for a bench role, while utilityman Brooks Baldwin could factor into either corner spot. It’s one of the weakest outfield groups in MLB and would be especially barren if the Sox finally line up a Robert trade by next summer’s deadline.

Rays Designate Tristan Peters For Assignment

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The Rays announced that outfielder Tristan Peters has been designated for assignment. That’s the corresponding move for their signing of left-hander Steven Matz, whose two-year deal is now official.

Peters, 26 in February, got to make his major league debut in 2025. The Rays added him to their 40-man roster in August but he was mostly kept on optional assignment. He only got into four games with 12 plate appearances in total. He didn’t get a hit or a walk and struck out seven times.

That’s obviously a small sample size. In the minors, Peters has done a lot of things well without a standout tool. His 11.7% walk rate and 18.1% strikeout rate are both a bit better than average. He has hit a few home runs but never more than 15 in a season. He can also steal about 15ish bases a year. He can play all three outfield slots.

The total package was enough to get him up to the big leagues but the Rays don’t view him as a key building block. Now that he’s been bumped off the 40-man, he’ll be in DFA limbo for a week at most. The waiver process takes 48 hours, so the Rays could take five days to see if there’s any trade interest. Peters still has a couple of options and just a handful of service days. If any club acquires him, he could be a depth outfielder with roster flexibility and years of cheap control. If he is passed through waivers unclaimed, he would stick with the Rays as non-roster depth.

Photo courtesy of Steven Bisig, Imagn Images

Rays Sign Steven Matz

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December 16th: The Rays have now officially announced the Matz signing. Outfielder Tristan Peters has been designated for assignment as the corresponding move. Per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, it is indeed a $15MM guarantee, with a $7.5MM salary in each year. There’s also a $500K assignment bonus if he’s traded.

December 9th: The deal is for $7.5MM per year, according to Brittany Ghiroli and Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic. Unless there are other factors such as bonuses or options, it seems to be a $15MM guarantee.

December 8th: The Rays are reportedly in agreement with free agent left-hander Steven Matz on a two-year contract. The signing is pending a physical, and salary terms for the VC Sports Group client have yet to be reported. Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times first reported the sides were closing in on what was likely to be a two-year contract. The Rays’ 40-man roster is full, so they’ll need to designate someone for assignment once the contract is finalized.

Matz spent the 2025 season working out of the bullpen. The 11-year big league veteran split the season between the Cardinals and Red Sox. He combined for 76 2/3 innings of 3.05 ERA ball. Matz has a long background as a starter and worked in a swing role with St. Louis as recently as 2024. He could compete for a rotation spot or work multiple innings out of Kevin Cash’s bullpen.

The 34-year-old just wrapped up a four-year, $44MM free agent deal that he’d signed with St. Louis. That didn’t go as the Cardinals planned. Matz had a difficult time staying healthy. He missed most of the 2022 season to a shoulder impingement. A lat strain shelved him in the second half of the following season, and a lower back injury wiped out much of 2024.

Matz combined for just 197 1/3 innings over the first three seasons. He posted a 4.47 ERA with an average 21.9% strikeout percentage. The Cards only gave him a pair of spot starts this year. He still frequently worked into a second inning out of the bullpen but wasn’t tasked with as significant a workload. Matz managed to stay healthy and turned in arguably his best season since 2021.

Over his first 55 innings, the southpaw turned in a 3.44 earned run average while striking out 20.7% of batters faced. The Cards dealt him to Boston at the deadline. His already middling strikeout rate dropped another six points with the Red Sox, though he managed to outperform his peripherals with a 2.08 ERA through 21 2/3 innings. Matz ranked among the bottom 10 relievers (minimum 50 innings) with a 7.8% swinging strike rate. He succeeded with excellent control, issuing walks at a career-low 3.6% clip. He pitched particularly well as a specialist, holding left-handed batters to a .211/.242/.341 batting line in 129 plate appearances.

Tampa Bay has a pair of power lefty relievers in Garrett Cleavinger and Mason Montgomery. Cleavinger is quietly one of the best in the game. Montgomery has the stuff to be an impact arm in his own right, but his control remains a significant question. He still has a pair of minor league options and can bounce between Tampa Bay and Triple-A Durham. Matz provides a different look as a control specialist but has decent velocity, averaging 94.5 MPH on his sinker.

There’s a decent amount of uncertainty in the rotation behind Drew Rasmussen and Ryan Pepiot. The Rays have Shane McClanahan and Shane Baz lined up for spots. McClanahan will be on an innings limit after consecutive missed seasons. Baz was inconsistent and is at least a theoretical trade candidate. Ian Seymour is probably the in-house favorite to work as the fifth starter, but Tampa Bay is likely to add a veteran innings eater or two. It remains to be seen if the Rays will give Matz an opportunity to compete for a back-end rotation job.

Image courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images.

Rays Release Logan Driscoll

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The Rays announced Friday that they’ve released catcher Logan Driscoll, who’d been on the 40-man roster in Triple-A. Driscoll suffered an ankle injury back in March and hasn’t played yet in 2025. Injured players can’t be placed on outright waivers, so the Rays — needing a roster spot for the selection of first baseman Bob Seymour — will cut Driscoll loose entirely. Seymour’s previously reported promotion has now been made official, and Tampa Bay optioned outfielder Tristan Peters to clear a spot on the 26-man roster.

Driscoll, 27, made his big league debut with Tampa Bay last September, appearing in 15 games and taking 37 plate appearances. He batted .171/.189/.257 in that tiny sample. The former No. 73 overall pick (Padres, 2019) was far better in the minors, hitting .292/.367/.473 with seven homers, 24 doubles and a triple in 294 Triple-A plate appearances.

Driscoll originally came to the Rays alongside Manuel Margot in the 2020 trade sending righty Emilio Pagan to San Diego. He’s a career .269/.348/.437 hitter in parts of five minor league seasons. Given that he hasn’t suited up for a game all season, it’s hard to imagine Driscoll getting onto the field in 2025, but his former draft status and solid minor league track record make him an interesting option for teams eyeing catching help in the 2026 season.

Rays Place Taylor Walls On 10-Day IL With Groin Strain

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The Rays have placed shortstop Taylor Walls on the 10-day injured list with a left groin strain, the team announced. In a corresponding move, outfielder Tristan Peters was recalled from Triple-A.

Walls has been Tampa Bay’s primary shortstop this year, with 77 starts and 94 appearances at the position. It was particularly noteworthy that he still got his fair share of starts at shortstop when both he and Ha-Seong Kim were healthy. Kim signed a two-year, $29MM deal with the Rays over the offseason (a sizeable deal by their standards) with the expectation that he would become the starting shortstop. While injuries have limited Kim to just 18 games this year, the fact that Walls has shared the position with Kim lately shows how highly the Rays must think of Walls’ defense. Indeed, Walls was scheduled to start at shortstop on Saturday before he was scratched from the lineup. Kim has since started at shortstop in each of the team’s last three games.

Manager Kevin Cash explained that Walls still felt “closer to 75% rather than 100%” before today’s matchup with the Athletics, so the team decided he needed “a couple days to let [his groin injury] continue to calm down” (per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times).

Tampa Bay will be just fine in the middle infield in Walls’s absence. Kim can play shortstop full-time (with Tristan Gray around as a backup), and All-Star Brandon Lowe can return to playing second base on a daily basis. Lowe had recently started a handful of games at first base and DH to make room for Kim at second base when Walls was starting at short. The problem is that with Lowe at second base and Yandy Díaz at first, the Rays are left without a good option to DH. All-Star Jonathan Aranda is on the IL with a broken wrist (hence Díaz’s return to first base). He remains hopeful he’ll return this season (per MLB.com’s Joey Johnston), but it’s far from a guarantee. For as long as Aranda is out of the equation, the Rays are at their best with Walls and Kim sharing middle infield duties while Lowe and Díaz cover first base and DH. They have not yet offered a timeline for Walls’s return, but they will hope his groin strain proves to be minor.

Entering play today, the Rays are 5.5 games back of the last AL Wild Card spot. They’re a talented team, with a +43 run differential that is far more impressive than their sub-.500 record. However, they’re running out of time to make a comeback. Both FanGraphs and PECOTA have their postseason odds below 5%. With Aranda out indefinitely and Shane McLanahan officially done for the season, they can’t afford for much else to go wrong.

Rays Designate Connor Seabold For Assignment, Select Tristan Peters

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The Rays announced that they have placed outfielder Jonny DeLuca on the 10-day injured list, retroactive to August 7th, with a left hamstring strain. They have selected fellow outfielder Tristan Peters to take his active roster spot. To open a 40-man spot for Peters, right-hander Connor Seabold has been designated for assignment. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reported on the moves prior to the official announcement.

Peters, 25, gets called up to the big leagues for the first time. The Brewers selected him in the seventh round of the 2021 draft. He was sent to the Giants in the 2022 trade which sent Trevor Rosenthal to Milwaukee. A few months later, he was flipped to the Rays in the deal which sent Brett Wisely to the Giants.

Since joining the Rays, Peters’ offense has been up and down. Splitting his time between Double-A and Triple-A, he has a combined .264/.358/.425 line since the start of 2023. His 11.8% walk rate and 17.5% strikeout rate are both decent figures. However, he has modest power. His career high for home runs in a season is 12, set last year. He was on pace to get past that, having hit 11 so far in Triple-A this season. His 2025 slash line is .282/.370/.453, good for a 117 wRC+.

He doesn’t show up on lists of the top prospects in the system but he seems to be a solidly well-rounded player. His strikeout and walk rates are better than par. He doesn’t hit a ton of home runs but has notched a few. He generally gets to double digits in terms of stolen bases as well, having swiped 11 bags this year. He has also played all three outfield spots. He’ll jump into the club’s outfield mix, replacing DeLuca. Since this is his first time coming up to the show, he has a full slate of options and can be easily sent back down in the future.

Seabold, 29, signed a minor league deal with the Rays in the offseason. He was selected to the big league roster in May but he has largely been on optional assignment since then. He has only appeared in three games of the Rays, having tossed 6 2/3 innings, allowing one earned run on seven hits and three walks while striking out seven.

His work in the minors hasn’t been strong this year. He has been in a swing role, having made ten starts and six relief appearances. In his 61 innings, he has a 6.49 ERA, 21% strikeout rate and 9.6% walk rate.

Seabold now heads into DFA limbo. Since the trade deadline has passed, he’ll be placed on waivers soon, if he hasn’t already. It’s been a few years since he looked good in affiliated ball but he had a good year in Korea in 2024. He tossed 160 innings for the Samsung Lions with a 3.43 ERA, 23.8% strikeout rate and 6% walk rate.

Photo courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images

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