- The Rays have outrighted Hank Conger to Triple-A Durham, after the catcher was designated for assignment earlier this week. Conger managed just a .194/.265/.306 slash line and three homers over 137 plate appearances for Tampa this season. Perhaps even most ominously, Conger’s struggles worsened after he was optioned to Triple-A in July, as he has managed just a .503 OPS over 116 PA for Durham.
- The Rays have selected the contract of veteran southpaw Dana Eveland, the team announced. He’ll take the 40-man roster spot of Tyler Sturdevant, who was DFA’ed earlier today. Eveland has himself been designated for assignment twice this season by the Rays (accepting outright assignments both times), and the lefty has an 8.55 ERA, 8.1 K/9 and 6.8 BB/9 over 20 relief innings out of Tampa Bay’s bullpen this season.
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Rays Rumors
Rays Designate Tyler Sturdevant For Assignment
The Rays have designated right-hander Tyler Sturdevant for assignment, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.
The 30-year-old Sturdevant is in his first season with the Rays organization. He has thrown 18 1/3 major league innings this year and recorded a 3.93 ERA, 6.87 K/9 and 2.95 BB/9. Sturdevant was even better with Triple-A Durham, where he logged a 3.66 ERA, 11.25 K/9 and 2.75 BB/9. Previously, he spent seven years with the Indians organization after going in the 27th round of the 2009 draft. Sturdevant served a 50-game suspension for performance-enhancing drugs last season.
Rays To Sign Alexei Ramirez
The Rays have signed veteran shortstop Alexei Ramirez, who was recently released by the Padres, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (via Twitter). The signing of Ramirez comes less than a week after the news that shortstop Matt Duffy would likely undergo season-ending surgery to alleviate a nagging Achilles injury.
The 34-year-old Ramirez inked a one-year, $4MM contract with the Padres on the heels of a disappointing 2015 season — albeit one that saw him finish with a strong .282/.329/.426 in the season’s final three months — but received woeful results from the longtime White Sox infielder. Ramirez batted just .240/.275/.330 through 444 plate appearances with the Friars, and while he’s long graded out as a plus defender at short, Defensive Runs Saved pegged him at -17 this season, with Ultimate Zone Rating offering a similar assessment (-15.1).
Furthermore, Tampa Bay’s decision to sign Ramirez rather than bring the recently demoted Tim Beckham back to the Majors sends a strong message to the former No. 1 overall pick (as Topkin tweets). Beckham was demoted for a trio of baserunning blunders just prior to roster expansion, two of which directly stemmed from a lack of hustle. While the 26-year-old showed some improvement at the dish this season, hitting .247/.300/.434 in 215 plate appearances, he’s yet to justify his elite draft spot or even cement himself as a viable long-term option for the Rays.
Details on Ramirez’s contract aren’t yet clear, but it’s presumably just a one-year Major League pact, meaning it would run only through the end of the 2016 season. The Rays, then, would be on the hook for nothing more than the pro-rated portion of the league minimum. While that’s a fairly negligible investment, it’s still something of a mildly unexpected bonus for the Padres, who will save about $70K due to the Rays’ unexpected expenditure.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
Rays Fire Hitting Coach Derek Shelton
- The Rays have dismissed longtime hitting coach Derek Shelton and promoted minor league hitting coordinator Chad Mottola to take his place, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Shelton had served as Tampa Bay’s hitting coach for the past seven seasons and spent five years as the Indians’ hitting coach prior to that. The timing of the move is somewhat strange, Topkin points out, but the thought process behind the switch is to allow Mottola to begin building his rapport with the Rays’ hitters as soon as possible. Mottola will serve as the team’s hitting coach at least through the end of the 2017 season, he adds. President of baseball ops Matt Silverman and manager Kevin Cash indicated to Topkin that perhaps Shelton’s message had grown stale. Said Silverman: “…the connections with the players, we think that there is a possibility and a hope that some of that can improve with a different person in that chair, with a different voice, different relationships, a fresh start.”
Matt Duffy Expected To Undergo Season-Ending Surgery
TODAY: Duffy will likely remain active through the end of the week before having the surgery, Topkin tweets.
YESTERDAY: Newly-acquired Rays infielder Matt Duffy is expected to undergo season-ending surgery, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The procedure would “address the lingering soreness stemming from his earlier left Achilles injury,” per the report.
Duffy, acquired as the headliner in the swap that sent Matt Moore to the Giants, has continued to struggle at the plate since heading to Tampa Bay. All told, he owns only a .260/.312/.360 batting line over 364 plate appearances on the year. He has hit five long balls and swiped eight bases, though he has also been caught five times after going 12-for-12 on stolen base attempts a year ago.
The Rays are obviously banking on a return to form at the plate. Duffy benefited from a .336 BABIP in 2015, but nevertheless impressed with a solid .295/.334/.428 batting line. Even with some regression, a slightly above-average bat would conceivably make Duffy a highly valuable asset, as he rated as an outstanding defender at third with strong baserunning contributions last year. There are some questions there, too, however: Duffy hasn’t compiled stellar metrics since converting to short, though it’s a very small sample and he had primarily played at the hot corner of late, and his baserunning numbers took a huge dive in 2016 (-3.0 BsR, per Fangraphs).
Certainly, the nagging injury could go a ways toward explaining Duffy’s assorted struggles. He told Topkin that the soreness has lingered, with particular problems when playing on the turf infield at Tropicana Field. A surgical option has been on the table since June, the infielder noted, but the timeline for making a decision had shortened. “The only thing would be the recovery time,” said Duffy. “We want to be 100 percent sure that we’re ready to go by next season. I guess that’s one of the concerns.”
Tampa Bay still has plenty of time to make good on its end of the bargain, and certainly won’t be overly concerned with keeping Duffy on the field late this year with the postseason out of reach. The club controls him for four more seasons, and will be obligated only for the league minimum in 2017.
The need to replace Duffy for the rest of the season presents the Rays with many options, which Topkin details. Tim Beckham and Taylor Motter do not appear ticketed for the majors, he says, which could open the door for a move back to short for Brad Miller and/or some time there for Nick Franklin. Another player who could get a chance is prospect Daniel Robertson, though Topkin suggests the club may actually be “more likely” to go outside the organization and add a short-term veteran such as Alexei Ramirez.
Rays Designate Hank Conger For Assignment
The Rays announced on Monday that they have designated catcher Hank Conger for assignment. His roster spot goes to 28-year-old lefty Justin Marks, whose contract has been selected from Triple-A Durham. The Rays also announced that they’ll recall Mikie Mahtook, Richie Shaffer and Steve Geltz as part of their latest wave of September call-ups.
Conger, 28, was acquired from the Astros this winter in exchange for cash considerations but struggled tremendously at the plate in his lone season with Tampa Bay, hitting just .194/.265/.306 in 137 plate appearances. That’s a significant departure, at least in terms of OBP and slugging, from a 2015 season that saw Conger slash .229/.311/.448 with 11 homers in 229 plate appearances for the Astros. Houston deemed Conger expendable after he developed an alarming issue in throwing out baserunners, as he halted just one of 43 attempts against him in 2015. Conger was much better in that regard this year (albeit still below average), throwing out 19 percent of potential thieves. He’s also long graded out as an above-average pitch framer behind the dish, per Baseball Prospectus.
Marks will be entering just the second big league stint of his career. He tossed two innings for the 2014 Royals but has otherwise spent the bulk of the past four seasons in Triple-A between the Royals, Rangers, A’s, D-backs and Rays. In 419 innings at that level, Marks has a lackluster 4.83 ERA, but he’s been considerably better in 2016, posting a 3.79 ERA in a career-high 145 innings. Marks has averaged 8.1 K/9 against 3.4 BB/9, and lefties have batted just .185/.253/.348 against him this season.
31-Year-Old Knuckleballer Eddie Gamboa Debuts
Rays righty Eddie Gamboa made his big-league debut Friday at the age of 31, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times notes. Gamboa spent his entire career in the Orioles organization before signing a minor league deal with the Rays last offseason. He had a strong season for Triple-A Durham (2.68 ERA, 8.5 K/9 and 3.7 BB/9 in 94 innings), finally earning his shot in the Majors as the oldest Rays player to debut in the bigs since “The Rookie” Jim Morris in 1999. Gamboa throws about 80% knuckleballs, so he joins R.A. Dickey and Steven Wright as one of the very few knuckleballers currently in the big leagues. Here’s more from the East divisions.
Rays Release Desmond Jennings
AUG. 30: Jennings has now cleared release waivers and is officially a free agent, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.
AUG. 27: Tampa Bay has officially released Jennings, according to Bill Chastain of MLB.com.
AUG. 26: The Rays will release veteran outfielder Desmond Jennings tomorrow, the club has announced. He had been on the 15-day DL with a knee injury.
This isn’t the first time that Jennings has succumbed to leg problems. The 29-year-old was shelved earlier this year with a hamstring strain and underwent surgery last year on his left knee.
Injuries have coincided with a rather notable decline in performance of late, and Jennings no longer profiles as the quality everyday player he once was. Between 2011 and 2014, he contributed nearly 2,000 plate appearances of .249/.327/.402 hitting while swatting 47 home runs and stealing 86 bases. In the two seasons since, Jennings owns a .222/.295/.347 batting line with eight long balls and seven swiped bags in only 333 turns at the plate.
Jennings was earning $3.3MM in his second season of arbitration eligibility. Even if he catches on with another organization and makes it back to the majors this year, Tampa Bay will remain on the hook for the remainder of that less a pro-rated portion of the league minimum salary. Jennings profiled as a likely non-tender candidate at year end, but will instead hit the open market a bit early.
While there’s obviously plenty of reason for pessimism with regards to Jennings’s future in the game, there are still some positives. Defensive Runs Saved rates him as a quality defender, though that assessment wasn’t shared by UZR. And Jennings is still relatively youthful, as he won’t turn 30 until October. Clubs looking for a bounceback candidate or fourth outfielder will surely consider him this winter, at least assuming he is able to show that he’s back to full health.
Cobb Lined Up To Return Sept. 2-3
- After 15 months of rehab from Tommy John surgery, right-hander Alex Cobb is lining up to make his return to the Rays’ rotation next weekend, writes Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Cobb has already made seven rehab appearances and is set to make one final Triple-A start on Saturday before being activated on Sept. 2 or 3, per Topkin. Cobb hasn’t pitched for the Rays since the end of the 2014 season, as he initially suffered the injury that preceded his UCL tear in Spring Training 2015. The timing on that deal was remarkably poor, Topkin notes, as Cobb’s agents were in discussion with the Rays about an extension at the time of his initial injury.
Marlins Claim Oswaldo Arcia, Place Derek Dietrich On 15-Day DL
The Marlins have claimed outfielder Oswaldo Arcia off waivers from the Rays, the club announced. He’ll take the active roster spot of Derek Dietrich, who hits the 15-day DL with a right knee contusion, and occupy the 40-man spot of first baseman Justin Bour, who moves to the 60-day DL.
[Related: Updated Rays Depth Chart]
Adding an outfielder has long been said to be on the Miami to-do list. While picking Arcia off the waiver wire may not have been the club’s top preference, he’ll help fill the corner outfield mix with Giancarlo Stanton expected to miss much of the remainder of the year.
The talented 25-year-old has had his ups and downs, but was carrying a useful .259/.328/.444 in his 61 plate appearances in Tampa Bay before his release. Still, he parted ways with the Rays by way of his second trip to DFA limbo on the year, so teams obviously have reservations about Arcia’s ability to regain his former trajectory.
Unfortunately, the addition will come even as Dietrich becomes unavailable, joining Bour as injured southpaw hitters who could provide some pop at first base. Arcia represents another lefty bat to help bolster the lineup, but it doesn’t seem that he’ll be an option at first, which he has never played as a professional.
Though Miami has moved Bour to the 60-day DL, that doesn’t seem to change his ability to return when ready. He was placed on the DL retroactive to July 3, and isn’t expected back before the middle of September anyway.
