Headlines

Go To Pro Hockey Rumors
Go To Hoops Rumors

Rays Rumors

NL West Notes: Marquez, Rays, Lamb, Padres

By | at

As Ron Burgundy and the Channel 4 News Team race to the finish at Padres games, let’s take a look around the NL West…

  • As the Rockies make a rare visit to Tampa Bay this weekend, Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times looks back at the trade that sent German Marquez from the Rays to the Mile High City.  This deal may be known as “the German Marquez trade” in hindsight, though back in January 2016, Marquez was a little-known minor leaguer who had yet to even reach Double-A when he and Jake McGee were sent to Colorado in exchange for Corey Dickerson and infield prospect Kevin Padlo.  In 2017-18, however, Marquez developed into a stalwart member of the Rockies’ rotation, posting a 4.05 ERA, 9.5 K/9, and 3.56 K/BB rate over 358 innings.  Marquez’s “abilities and the ingredients were there to have this type of impact in time…so in that way [I’m] not surprised,” Rays GM Erik Neander said.  Dickerson was traded after the 2017 season and Padlo is still at high-A ball, though Neander said that Dickerson contributed some solid offensive production to help the Rays.  “To make trades at the volume and frequency at which we do you have to be very comfortable knowing you’re not going to get them all right,” Neander said.  “That’s something we understand and expect, and are willing to accept that because we think the total volume of the transactions we make are best for our organization…Without knowing exactly what winning a transaction even means because a lot of them are made with different goals at the time between the teams.”
  • In a bit of a reversal from a statement earlier this weekend, Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo told the Arizona Republic’s Nick Piecoro and other reporters that Jake Lamb will still see some action at his old third base position.  Lovullo even considered using Lamb at the hot corner on Saturday to get some work in, as Lamb spent much of Spring Training learning on his new first base role, and also was briefly sidelined with a back problem.  While Lamb hasn’t been much of a defender at third, it can’t hurt to keep him sharp at the position for the sake of roster flexibility.
  • The Padres’ young rotation will be tested by an upcoming stretch of 11 straight games, MLB.com’s AJ Cassavell writes.  There aren’t any offdays scheduled for the Padres between April 6-16, which could prove tricky for a team carrying two hurlers (Chris Paddack, Matt Strahm) on pitch limits, and southpaw Nick Margevicius, who had never pitched above A-ball before making his MLB debut on Saturday.  “All options are on the table, from bullpen days to openers to protecting certain starters by pushing guys back and having guys step in front of them in the rotation.  We’ll be creative,” manager Andy Green said.  Cassavell also isn’t ruling out the possibility of a spot start by another minor leaguer, or perhaps even a newly-acquired pitcher joining the rotation mix.

Rosenthal’s Latest: Kimbrel, Keuchel, Eloy, Pillar, Joyce

By | at

There isn’t much indication that Craig Kimbrel or Dallas Keuchel are closing in on new contracts, though that hasn’t stopped teams from keeping in touch with the two free agents.  Ken Rosenthal and Dennis Lin of The Athletic (subscription required) list the Mets and Brewers as two of the clubs checking in on both pitchers, though Milwaukee is more focused on Kimbrel as a potential add.  The Rays are also still maintaining contact with Kimbrel, after reports during Spring Training suggested Tampa Bay was at least considering signing the closer.  Rosenthal and Lin described the Mets’ interest in Keuchel and Kimbrel “as a matter of due diligence,” with MLB.com’s Anthony DiComo and Newsday’s Tim Healey (both Twitter links) adding that it doesn’t seem likely that either pitcher will end up in a Mets uniform.

Here’s more from Rosenthal, via his most recent Full Count video for FOX Sports…

  • Eloy Jimenez’s career-opening extension with the White Sox included “an understanding” that Jimenez and his camp wouldn’t pursue a service-time grievance with the league and players’ union.  Jimenez’s agents expressed public displeasure last summer when their client wasn’t given a late-season promotion, and the young slugger had been ticketed to begin this season in Triple-A before he inked his extension, which opened the door for Jimenez to join Chicago’s Opening Day roster.  The evidence seems to pretty clearly suggest that the White Sox were aiming to extend their control over Jimenez for an extra year, though the Sox are far from the only team that deploys this strategy with top prospects.
  • The Giants are the only team known to be involved in the Kevin Pillar trade market, though Rosenthal notes that the Blue Jays have also talked with multiple other teams about the center fielder.  Pillar offers two years of team control and a center field glove that was elite from 2015-17, as per the UZR/150 and Defensive Runs Saved metrics.  Last season, however, Pillar’s glovework was rated closer to average overall, and he has yet to post even league-average run production over his six MLB seasons.  If a trade did take place, Pillar would join Kendrys Morales, Russell Martin, and Troy Tulowitzki as Jays veterans sent out of town as Toronto makes room for its younger players.
  • The Braves acquired Matt Joyce from the Giants last weekend, just three days after Joyce joined San Francisco on a minor league contract.  Rosenthal provides some details on the transaction, stating that while the Giants were prepared to part ways with Joyce regardless, Atlanta chose to send some cash to the Giants in a trade rather than simply sign Joyce when he became available.  Since league offices were closed last Saturday on the day of the trade, Joyce’s arrival in the Braves’ spring camp could have been further delayed had the two sides been required to wait for the contract to be officially approved.  With a trade, however, Joyce was able to get some time in Atlanta’s camp, which led to his placement on the club’s Opening Day roster (Joyce marked his first PA with his new team by swatting a pinch-hit homer).

Injury Notes: Reds, Wood, Rays, Duffy, Jays, Marlins

By | at

Reds left-hander Alex Wood, who’s on the injured list with lower back tightness, isn’t nearing a return. While Wood is progressing in his recovery, it may have been “a little aggressive” on the Reds’ part to expect a mid-April debut, manager David Bell said Sunday (via Bobby Nightengale of the Cincinnati Enquirer). Given that Wood has been battling back problems since late February, he’ll need to build up his innings before taking a major league mound again, Nightengale notes. Wood’s situation is undoubtedly a significant disappointment for the Reds. After all, Cincinnati acquired the ex-Dodger’s final year of team control with the hope that he’d slot in near the top of its made-over rotation for the entire season.

More injury updates from around the league…

  • The back and hamstring issues that forced Rays third baseman Matt Duffy to open the season on the injured list will shelve him until at least mid-May, Rodney Page of the Tampa Bay Times writes. This is the latest unfortunate injury-related development for Duffy, who missed 71 games two years ago and sat out another 30 during what was still a productive campaign in 2018. Yandy Diaz and Daniel Robertson have occupied third in Duffy’s absence so far this season.
  • The Blue Jays have shut down lefty Clayton Richard for two weeks on account of a right knee stress reaction, Scott Mitchell of TSN reports. Richard, acquired from the Padres in the offseason, had been slated to make his Blue Jays debut against Baltimore on Monday. That start will instead go to righty Sean Reid-Foley, whom the Jays will need to recall from Triple-A Buffalo. Meanwhile, southpaw Ryan Borucki, who’s on the IL with elbow discomfort, is making progress but will miss at least one more start, manager Charlie Montoyo revealed Sunday (per Shi Davidi of Sportsnet).
  • The Marlins announced that they’ve placed right fielder Garrett Cooper on the IL with a left calf strain. Cooper said he’ll sit out a few weeks, Joe Frisaro of MLB.com tweets. It’s the second consecutive early season injury for Cooper, who began 2018 as the Marlins’ starting right fielder before going down for months with a partially torn wrist tendon sheath. His newest injury led the Marlins to recall power-hitting outfielder Peter O’Brien from Triple-A New Orleans.

Rays Acquire Aaron Slegers From Pirates

By | at

Per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, the Rays have acquired righty Aaron Slegers from the Pirates for cash considerations. To make room on the 40-man, Tampa has transferred lefty Anthony Banda to the 60-day IL.

Slegers, 26, was designated for assignment Thursday by the Pirates after being claimed off waivers from Minnesota in January. At a towering 6 foot 10, Slegers stands as one of the tallest pitchers in MLB history; despite the relative enormity, though, he’s not a fireballer: the longtime Twin’s averaged just 90.3 MPH on the four-seam in his brief MLB career thus far.

Deployed mostly as a starter during his six-year minor-league career with Minnesota, the Indiana product consistently struggled to miss bats, cratering to a caeeer-low 6.01 K/9 in 15 starts with Triple-A Rochester last season. He didn’t crack the organization’s top 30 prospects, per Baseball America, at any point during his tenure with the club.

The Rays will assign Slegers to Triple-A Durham, the team announced immediately, where he’ll slot in with a host of capable others in offering starter (or post-opener) depth for the parent club.

MLB Awards “Championship Belt” During Arbitration Symposium

By | at

Major League Baseball hosts an annual symposium on arbitration wherein delegates from each team come together with the league to make recommendations for upcoming arbitration hearings. There is a ceremony near the end of the symposium when a “championship belt” is awarded to the team that best accomplished the “goals set by the industry,” per The Athletic’s Marc Carig. Passed annually from one year’s winner to the next, The Belt is a chintzy, plastic “prize,” intended as a moment of levity and morale for what can be a difficult process on all sides. In this thoughtful article, Carig digs into the arbitration process, its history, the toll it takes on those involved, and of course, The Belt.

Clearly, given the tumultuous relationship between Major League Baseball, the owners, and the Players’ Association, the optics here aren’t great. However harmless the intent (or however private), an award for essentially best limiting the earning potential for players is not likely to sit well with the MLBPA – or the public for that matter. MLB confirmed existence of The Belt, explaining it as “an informal recognition of those club’s salary arbitration departments that did the best.” This season, the finalists were the Astros, Braves, Cubs, Indians, Rays, and Twins.

Executive Director of the MLBPA Tony Clark reacted with a statement (via Twitter), saying, “That clubs make sport of trying to suppress salaries in a process designed to produce fair settlements shows a blatant lack of respect for our Players, the game, and the arbitration process itself.”

Quick Hits: Keuchel, Chapman, Tropicana Field

By | at

Paul Goldschmidt became the first Cardinal ever with a 3-homer game this early in the year, the Dodgers and Diamondbacks battled it out for over 6 hours in LA, and the new-look Padres are in first place after a 2-0 start. In other words, baseball action is underway. So, too, is Dallas Keuchel finding an early season groove, though he’s stuck behind the scenes.  The slick-fielding, bearded lefty throws a 95-pitch simulated game every five days to stay ready for a fashionably late start to the 2019 season, whenever that may be. Meanwhile, agent Scott Boras is working the phones, in talks with multiple teams, per MLB Network’s Jon Morosi (via Twitter). It’ll be a short season wherever he signs, but hopefully his current regimen will ease Keuchel into a faster (and smoother) transition than some late-signees in year’s past. In other news around the MLB…

  • There’s growing interest in Aroldis Chapman’s drop in velocity as he averages “only” 95.3 mph on his famed heater, per George A. King III of the New York Post. Especially after a similar drop in velocity led to Dellin Betances starting the season on the injured list, scouts in New York are keenly tracking Chapman’s velo moving forward. As of now, they’re split on its significance. There is attributing the dip in velocity to the colder weather, there’s supposing the Yanks are making an intentional effort to make Chapman less of a “thrower” and more of a “pitcher,” and there are those more focused on an increase in breaking ball usage and the lack of swing-and-miss in Chapman’s game thus far. Regardless, there’s hardly sample enough to sound the alarms two days into the season. New teammates Zack Britton and Adam Ottavino keep the Yankees well-stocked in back-end options should Chapman’s dip in velo prove a harbinger of an underlying health issue.
  • The Rays are fine-tuning their new blue-lit roof in an effort to improve visibility, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Though the goal for the blue lighting is to make the white baseball more visible to outfielders, it’s a failed initiative thus far. Tommy Pham and Austin Meadows, at least, reported more difficulty tracking the baseball after some post-game testing. The Rays will continue to tinker with the brightness and hue of the Trop’s roof, but Major League Baseball may have a say as well before the new lighting is implemented in-game. The enclosure at Tropicana Field has long been a source of quirky drama, and this new lighting venture certainly adds to the singular nature of playing professional baseball in Tampa Bay.

Angels Acquire Adrian Rondon From Rays

By | at

The Angels have acquired infielder Adrian Rondon from the Rays, per club announcements. Cash considerations are headed in the other direction.

When he was inked back in 2014 out of his native Dominican Republic to a ~$3MM bonus, Rondon was considered a top talent. Now twenty years of age, he has yet to move past the Class A level and carries only a .206/.271/.321 batting line through parts of four professionals seasons.

Rondon’s outlook on the field is at best uncertain, but the Halos will see if they can unlock some of his former promise. He’ll join another fading young prospect with a top-notch pedigree, Kevin Maitan, in the Los Angeles farm system.

Rays Broached Extension Talks To Willy Adames, Brent Honeywell

By | at

The Rays have traditionally been pretty aggressive in locking up young players to early-career extensions, as evidenced by their recent deals with Blake Snell and Brandon Lowe.  Beyond that duo, Willy Adames and Brent Honeywell told Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times that they had also been approached about long-term deals.

Adames has been a consensus top-25 prospect in baseball in each of the last two seasons, and he now projects as Tampa’s everyday shortstop after hitting .278/.348/.406 during 323 plate appearances in his 2018 rookie season.  Adames didn’t specify when the Rays first brought up an extension, whether it was this offseason, during last season, or perhaps even before Adames made his big league debut altogether.

For speculation purposes, if a long-term deal was explored this past winter, recent extensions for Tim Anderson and Paul DeJong stand out as comparables for Adames.  Both shortstops also had less than a year of service time, and each landed six-year pacts with two club option years, with Anderson getting a guaranteed $25MM and DeJong (signed a year later) $26MM in guaranteed money.  It’s probably safe to assume Adames would’ve gotten a bit more, both due to his top-prospect status, and since those deals were almost topped in value by the extension Scott Kingery signed with the Phillies before he ever set foot on a Major League field.  (This is also basically the deal Lowe signed, except with one fewer club option year.)

While Evan Longoria and Matt Moore each had just a small bit of MLB service time when they inked their extensions with the club, the Rays have never extended a player who has never appeared in the Major Leagues.  A Honeywell extension would’ve therefore been a precedent-setting deal for both the team and for the league as a whole, as no pitcher has ever signed an extension before making his debut in the Show.  Moore came closest, as he had just 17 days of regular-season service time when he inked his five-year, $14MM extension (with three club option years) back in December 2011.

It’s hard to use a contract that’s over seven years old as a comparable, plus Honeywell’s health situation also adds another unique wrinkle to his case.  Honeywell said the Rays discussed the long-term deal after he underwent Tommy John surgery in February 2018.  While we can assume that the team’s offer reflected that injury risk, it still represents some courage on Honeywell’s part in betting on himself to recovery from the surgery, rather than getting at least one multi-million dollar payday out of his professional career before even throwing a pitch in the majors.

It’s worth noting that Honeywell received an $800K bonus when drafted, so he has already obtained some financial security.  Honeywell was a second-round pick (72nd overall) for the Rays in the 2014 draft, and he has been perhaps even more highly-touted than Adames, with three consecutive years as at least a top-30 prospect in the eyes of Baseball Prospectus, and MLB.com and Baseball America.  The three publications had Honeywell respectively ranked 11th, 12th, and 14th on their top-100 lists prior to the 2018 season.  Honeywell has a 2.88 ERA, 9.9 K/9, and 4.92 K/BB rate over 416 professional innings, and he was expected to make an impact in Tampa’s rotation last season before injury struck.

Most teams, of course, probably at least float the idea of early-career extensions to much of their young talent.  The Rays in particular have made a habit of this tactic, given the team’s financial limitations.  Tyler Glasnow and Daniel Robertson didn’t want to comment to Topkin whether or not they had been offered long-term deals or not, while Jose Alvarado said he’s be open to discussions with the club (which could hint that the Rays haven’t yet talked to Alvarado).

The front office, for its part, seems to be open for business.  GM Erik Neander said that the Rays “would love to keep the one-[extension]-a-day pace here if we could. We’re very high on the group of players that we have here. It’s a group we believe in. And when there are opportunities to find overlap between our players and our organization that increases the chances they can be here for a longer period of time, that’s something that we will continue to explore whenever those opportunities present themselves.”

Matt Duffy To Begin Season On Injured List

By | at

The Rays have elected to shut down infielder Matt Duffy for two weeks, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, citing back and hamstring injuries. Duffy, then, will begin the regular season on the injured list, and his absence may extend beyond the minimum 10 days on the IL.

Injuries have plagued Duffy’s entire tenure with the Rays. The now 28-year-old third baseman was acquired from the Giants in July 2016, suffered an Achilles injury later that summer and missed the entire 2017 season as a result. He also spent a bit of time on the disabled list due to a hamstring strain in 2018 as well, though he managed to suit up for 132 games last year.

Defensive metrics have typically regarded Duffy as a superlative option at third base, and at the plate he’s mixed strong contact skills with a solid walk rate. He’s only demonstrated modest power at his best, however, and most of his pop eroded in 2018 (.072 ISO, four homers in 560 plate appearances).

With Duffy sidelined to begin the season, Tampa Bay will likely turn to Joey Wendle at third base, with recently extended Brandon Lowe seeing regular work at second base. Offseason pickup Yandy Diaz can also play third, but he’ll line up at first base and designated hitter as well in the season’s early stages.

AL East Notes: Red Sox, Tepera, Norris, Trumbo

By | at

Chris Sale’s freshly-inked 5-year contract extension will leave the Red Sox searching for answers to a number of questions as they move forward, writes Rob Bradford of WEEI. With Sale’s contract including an opt-out after 2022, the Red Sox could find themselves in a tricky situation at that time. Bradford notes that the contracts of fellow starters Nathan Eovaldi and David Price expire after 2022, and lefty Eduardo Rodriguez is controllable through 2021, meaning that if Sale chooses to exercise his opt-out clause, the team could find itself wanting for starters. Of course, it’s far from a foregone conclusion that Sale will opt for free agency after the third year of his new contract, but it is certainly a situation that Red Sox brass will monitor as that time draws nearer. Pressure could be on the Red Sox to find and develop a new guard of young pitchers to fill the shoes of big-name Boston starters.

Some other notes from the AL East…

  • The Blue Jays received some encouraging news today, with manager Charlie Montoyo informing reporters (including Sportsnet’s Shi Davidi) that right-handed reliever Ryan Tepera, who has recently been dealing with elbow inflammation, will not require surgery. Having been cleared, Tepera will resume throwing on Tuesday. Montoyo added (Twitter link) that fellow right-hander Bud Norris is expected to be ready to play on Opening Day and will pitch an inning today.
  • Orioles designated hitter Mark Trumbo will begin the season on the IL, reports Dan Connolly of The Athletic. After undergoing knee surgery last September, the slugger will have to wait to make his 2019 debut. With Trumbo on the shelf, Orioles manager Brandon Hyde may look to allocate DH at-bats by committee, though Trey Mancini appears the most obvious candidate to fill that role. While it remains unclear just how much time Trumbo will miss, he said that it could be a month or more before he’s able to take the field (via MASN’s Roch Kubatko on Twitter).
  • The Rays will get right-handed pitcher Sam McWilliams back, according to Juan Toribio of MLB.com (Twitter link). McWilliams had been selected by the Royals in December’s Rule-5 Draft, but will be returned to his prior club after failing to crack Kansas City’s Opening Day roster. McWilliams, who is not on the Rays’ 40-man roster, will report to minor league camp with the Rays.
Show all

MLB Trade Rumors is not affiliated with Major League Baseball, MLB or MLB.com

Do not Sell or Share My Personal Information

hide arrows scroll to top