Rays Activate Taylor Walls From IL, Option Carson Williams
The Rays are shuffling their infield mix this morning, as Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times relays that shortstop Taylor Walls is being activated from the injured list. Infield prospect Carson Williams is being optioned to Triple-A in the corresponding move.
Walls, 29, has been sidelined to this point in the year by a right oblique strain. He suffered the injury in late March and was expected to be sidelined for at least three to four weeks, but he seems to have beaten that timeline by a solid amount given that he’s returning just 18 days after the injury occurred. The infielder doesn’t offer much in the way of offense to the Rays, as a career .195/.286/.298 hitter who slashed just .220/.319/.380 last year. But he’s a consistent threat to steal 15 to 20 bases a year and plays strong defense at shortstop with +17 Defensive Runs Saved last year for his work at shortstop (and +18 DRS overall).
Walls’s return to the lineup ends Williams’s latest stay in the majors. The 22-year-old was the Rays’ first-round pick back in 2021 and made his MLB debut last year. In 39 games at the big league level, Williams has not yet had any success at the plate to speak of with just a .164/.209/.320 slash line across 131 plate appearances. That hasn’t stopped him from being a consensus top-100 prospect entering this year, but his rankings near the bottom of those lists are a far cry from the consensus top-10 status he had entering last year. That reflects real questions about if Williams will be able to hit in the majors after a rough start to his big league career and him hitting a mediocre .213/.318/.447 with a 34.1% strikeout rate even at Triple-A.
Those numbers won’t play in the majors, so it’s hardly a surprise that the Rays have opted to send their prized shortstop prospect back down to the minors in hopes that more time to develop will help him overcome his contact woes. If he can get back on track hitting-wise, the rest of the package is there for an elite shortstop. He’s got real power with 28 homers (48 extra-base hits) between Triple-A and the majors last year. He’s widely regarded as an excellent defender at shortstop who should have no issues sticking at the position. And his speed has allowed him to swipe between 20 and 30 bags every year. Plus defensive shortstops with 30/30 potential aren’t easy to come by, and one need look no further than the peak of someone like Javier Baez to see how productive a player can be even with a subpar hit tool.
For now, though, it’s only become clearer that Williams needs more time to develop at Triple-A. He should remain there for quite some time at this point, barring another injury to the club’s infield mix. Aside from second baseman Richie Palacios, who is already on the big league bench, non-roster veteran Logan Davidson and his career strikeout rate north of 40% in the majors are the closest thing to a next-man-up available in the Rays organization outside of Williams.
Rays Add Cam Booser To 40-Man Roster
The Rays added lefty reliever Cam Booser to their 40-man roster, the team announced. He will not break camp, as the club optioned him to Triple-A Durham. Tampa Bay placed righty reliever Steven Wilson on the 60-day injured list to open a spot on the 40-man roster. He’s dealing with lumbar disc inflammation and will be out for at least the first two months of the season.
Tampa Bay also announced four expected IL placements. Taylor Walls (right oblique strain) and Gavin Lux (right shoulder impingement) went on the 10-day injured list. Ryan Pepiot (right hip inflammation) and Edwin Uceta (right shoulder impingement) go on the shelf for at least 15 days. The Rays can backdate those moves to March 22.
Booser signed a minor league deal in January. That included an upward mobility clause which required the team to add him to the 40-man roster or cut him loose if another club were willing to give him a roster spot. The Rays opted for the former route, though his two remaining option years meant they can still keep him in the minors.
The 33-year-old southpaw (34 in May) had an impressive camp. He fired 11 innings of one-run ball with 12 strikeouts and four walks. Booser has a 95 mph fastball but leaned more heavily on his mid-80s cutter than anything else this spring. He has pitched in parts of two MLB seasons. Booser found success as a rookie with the Red Sox in 2024 but struggled after being traded to the White Sox a year ago. He allowed a 5.52 ERA with huge walk and home run rates across 31 innings for Chicago, who dropped him at the end of the year.
Taylor Walls To Begin Season On Injured List
March 20: Walls tells Topkin that he’s been told he’ll be sidelined for a “minimum” of three to four weeks.
March 19: Rays infielder Taylor Walls has a right oblique issue and will begin the season on the 10-day injured list, reports Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times. That will likely lead to Carson Williams being the Opening Day shortstop, though Topkin notes the Rays are open to external additions as well.
The Rays came into camp with Walls and Williams as their top candidates for the Opening Day shortstop job. Walls is the more experienced of the two, having appeared in 480 games for the Rays over the past five seasons. He doesn’t provide anything with the bat, having hit .195/.286/.298 in his career. His defensive grades are mixed, with 52 Defensive Runs Saved at short but minus-14 Outs Above Average, but the Rays clearly skew to the positive side based on how they keep committing to him. They are paying him $2.45MM this year.
Williams has a chance to produce more than that in the long run but is still unproven. He is 22 years old, turning 23 in June. He got to make a brief debut in the big leagues last year, getting into 32 games. He hit five home runs but struck out at an awful 41.5% clip while only drawing a walk in 5.7% of his plate appearances. His minor league track record has been somewhat similar, though with more walks. In 111 Triple-A games last year, his 12.4% walk rate was quite good and he hit 23 home runs but with a very high 34.1% strikeout rate.
There are some skills there but Williams is clearly still young and raw. No qualified hitter had a strikeout rate greater than 32.3% last year. He’ll need to cut down on the punchouts and is still a work in progress. Understandably, the Rays feel he could still use some more polishing in the minors, as they optioned him to Triple-A Durham earlier this week.
The Walls injury may change that plan, at least for the short term. It’s unclear exactly how long Walls will be out. If the issue is fairly minor, he might only miss a week of the season since IL stints can be backdated by three days, even at the beginning of the schedule.
Until Walls is back, the shortstop depth will feel light. Prospects Jadher Areinamo, Gregory Barrios and Brayden Taylor are not too far off but neither has played at the Triple-A level yet. Ben Williamson only played third base for the Mariners last year but he has some minor league shortstop experience. He appears to be the club’s bench infielder at the major league level and would be the backup for either Walls or Williams.
As Topkin mentioned, it’s possible the Rays look for outside help. Perhaps they could find someone they like enough to bump Williams back down to Triple-A, but adding some minor league depth behind Williams could also be a possibility. Not a lot of teams are looking to trade starting-caliber shortstops at this time of year but some fringe guys may become available in the coming days. As teams break camp and make their final roster decisions, some will trigger opt-outs and become free agents while others will hit the waiver wire.
MLBTR’s Steve Adams recently took a look at some looming opt-out situations around the league. Orlando Arcia, Paul DeJong, Kyle Farmer and Dylan Moore are some guys with recent shortstop experience on that list, though Joel Sherman of The New York Post reports that DeJong plans not to trigger his opt-out. Moore is reportedly going to trigger his. Guys like Leo Jiménez, Brett Wisely or Tsung-Che Cheng could end up on waivers in the coming days. The Rays acquired Wisely and Cheng in the offseason but later lost both in subsequent moves.
Photo courtesy of Vincent Carchietta, Imagn Images
Rays Notes: Melton, Williams, Woodford
The Rays have optioned top prospects Jacob Melton and Carson Williams to Triple-A Durham to begin the season, the team announced. Melton entered the season with two option years remaining. Williams has a full slate of three option years.
Both players made their big league debuts in 2025 — Melton with the Astros. He came to Tampa Bay by way of the three-team trade sending Brandon Lowe and Mason Montgomery to Pittsburgh and Mike Burrows to Houston. A strong showing this spring might’ve put Melton in position to win a spot in the Opening Day lineup, but he struggled to a .161/.212/.387 showing with a dozen strikeouts in 33 plate appearances.
The rocky spring numbers have little to no impact on Melton’s status as a potential major contributor for years to come. He enters the season ranked 70th on Baseball America’s ranking of the game’s top 100 prospects. The 25-year-old is was a second-round pick in 2022 who saw his stock dip with a middling 2024 season but who rebuilt much of the fanfare surrounding him with a terrific minor league run in 2025.
Melton missed nearly two months last year with a high ankle sprain but hit .286/.389/.556 with a huge 14.7% walk rate in Triple-A prior to being called to the majors. Big league pitching proved to be a challenge the Oregon native, as Melton was stymied for a .157/.234/.186 slash in a small sample of 78 major league plate appearances. He still played good defense and went 7-for-9 in stolen base attempts. However, last year’s rough MLB cameo and this spring’s shaky showing suggest that he could use a bit more seasoning in the upper minors.
At some point, Melton should get a look this season. Tampa Bay’s outfield isn’t exactly composed of established stars. Left fielder Chandler Simpson is the fastest player in baseball but has bottom-of-the-scale power and needs to improve his outfield reads if he’s to become even an average defender. Cedric Mullins signed a one-year deal in free agency and will be hoping for a rebound after a dismal 2025 season. Jake Fraley was non-tendered by the Rays and re-signed to a cheap one-year deal. Jonny DeLuca, Ryan Vilade and Justyn-Henry Malloy give the Rays some right-handed complements to that entirely left-handed outfield slate, but none of the three righties is an established contributor himself.
Williams, meanwhile, was sent down despite strong results this spring. He went 6-for-22 with a pair of doubles and a stolen base (albeit with two other unsuccessful attempts). As with Melton, he’s a touted prospect who struggled considerably in his first exposure to MLB pitching last summer. The 2021 first-rounder appeared in 32 games and took 106 plate appearances but batted only .172/.219/.354. He popped five homers but struck out in an alarming 41.5% of his plate appearances.
Williams has mashed his way through the lower and middle levels of the minors, but he’s been a below-average hitter in Triple-A and in his tiny major league sample. He hit .213/.318/.447 with a 34% strikeout rate in Durham last year. Strikeouts are always going to be an issue for the 22-year-old, but he has above-average speed, plus power and a plus glove at shortstop. Williams typically draws plenty of walks, so the hope will be that he can be something of a three-true-outcome slugger who happens to play a plus shortstop as well. That’d make him an easy regular and lock him in as a fixture with the Rays, but there’s still some work to be done.
For now, it seems likely that Taylor Walls will open the season at shortstop. Trade acquisition Ben Williamson is expected to get some looks there as well (in addition to time at third base and second base).
One other recent cut for the Rays was veteran righty Jake Woodford, who was a non-roster invitee but was reassigned to minor league camp two days back. The 29-year-old right-hander had a nice showing, tossing 7 1/3 innings and holding opponents to a run on four hits and two walks with five strikeouts and a nice 45% ground-ball rate.
MLBTR has learned that Woodford has an upward mobility clause in his contract on Friday. Effectively, that clause will make him available to all 29 other clubs. If another team is willing to put Woodford on its 40-man roster, the Rays have to either select him to their own 40-man roster or let him go to the club that’s willing to do so. Since Woodford is out of minor league options, he’d need a team willing to carry him on the major league roster to step up.
The No. 39 overall pick back in the 2015 draft, Woodford has pitched in parts of six major league seasons between the Cardinals, White Sox, Pirates and D-backs. He has a career 5.10 ERA with a very low 14.9% strikeout rate but strong walk and ground-ball rates (7.6% and 45%, respectively).
Woodford has pitched both out of the bullpen and out of a rotation. He’s totaled at least 21 major league innings each season dating back to 2020. The right-hander logged a 6.44 ERA in 36 innings with Arizona in 2025 and spent the rest of the season in Triple-A with the Yankees and Cubs, combining for a 4.55 earned run average in 61 1/3 innings there. A club that’s incurred some injuries in the rotation this spring and is looking to bring in some length for the bullpen could take a look once that clause triggers on Friday.
AL East Notes: Westburg, Yankees, Rays
Orioles third baseman Jordan Westburg has been no stranger to injuries over the first few years of his time in the majors, and his latest ailments are a partially-torn UCL and oblique soreness. The oblique issue appears to be fairly minor, but he’s received a platelet-rich plasma injection in his elbow in hopes of rehabbing his UCL and will be out until at least May due to the issue. Setbacks of this sort have become all too common for Westburg in recent years. Since making his big league debut in 2023, he’s missed time due to a broken hand, a sprained ankle, a strained hamstring, and an index finger sprain.
When on the field, there’s no question that Westburg has proven to be one of the Orioles’ most talented young players. An All-Star in 2024, Westburg is a career .264/.312/.456 hitter in just over 1,000 career plate appearances and can play capable defense at both second and third base. The .269/.317/.497 slash line Westburg posted in 101 games prior to the aforementioned broken hand during the 2024 season is even more impressive and shows that the 27-year-old has the potential to be a star for Baltimore when he’s healthy enough to take the field at full strength.
Those times have been increasingly uncommon over the past few years, however, and when asked about it by Orioles reporters Westburg seemed frustrated. He told MASN’s Roch Kubatko that he doesn’t know when he’ll be able to play again after his latest PRP injection, and Matt Weyrich of The Baltimore Sun relays that Westburg admitted the constant injuries have taken a mental toll on him.
“I’d like to sit here and say, ‘extremely confident,’ but some of this wears on you mentally,” Westburg said (as relayed by Weyrich) when asked about his ability to stay healthy and be an everyday player for the Orioles. “So, there are doubts, but like I said, I’m going to do my best to kind of see what avenues that I can go down to maybe help bulletproof my body a little bit more. I don’t know if there’s a way to do that, but I’m going to try.”
While Westburg looks to push through the obstacles currently standing between him and a return to the field, the Orioles will be looking to open the season without either him or second baseman Jackson Holliday. That could open the door for Coby Mayo to return to third base and recent trade acquisition Blaze Alexander to see time at they keystone. Utility man Jeremiah Jackson and third baseman Bryan Ramos are among the other players currently on the 40-man roster who could compete for additional time on the infield while Westburg and Holliday are unavailable.
More from around the AL East…
- The Yankees are bolstering their international scouting department with the addition of longtime Cubs front office member Nao Masamoto, according to a report from Patrick Mooney and Brendan Kuty of The Athletic. The pair note that Masamoto has been instrumental to the Cubs’ recruitment efforts with players coming over from Nippon Professional Baseball and their ability to provide a smooth transition for the players (like Seiya Suzuki and Shota Imanaga) who do wind up signing with them. Chicago has emerged as a destination for Japanese talent during Masamoto’s tenure with the club, while the Yankees have struggled to court players like Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Roki Sasaki in recent years. While they were once a top choice for NPB talent themselves, they haven’t rostered a Japanese player since Masahiro Tanaka departed MLB following the 2020 season.
- A pair of Rays players are facing some restrictions as Spring Training games get underway. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reported recently that right-hander Steven Wilson, who Tampa acquired from the White Sox in a trade during the offseason, has been slowed by a back injury entering camp. Wilson enjoyed a solid season with Chicago last year where he pitched to a 3.42 ERA across 59 appearances despite middling peripherals. Also sidelined at the moment is shortstop Taylor Walls, who Topkin notes was scratched from the Rays’ lineup due to oblique tightness. That sounds worrisome for Tampa, but the club has fortunately described Walls’ removal from today’s lineup as purely precautionary. Carson Williams would likely be the next man up to handle shortstop if Walls were sidelined during the regular season.
The Rays’ Second Base Options
The Rays made a pair of significant trades last month, shipping Shane Baz to Baltimore and Brandon Lowe to Pittsburgh on the same day. The Baz move probably means they’re going to dip back into free agency for a cheap back-end starter after signing Steven Matz to a two-year deal. It’s less clear what they have planned at second base, a position that Lowe has locked down (when healthy) for the past seven years.
Free agency doesn’t offer much excitement. It seems safe to assume the Rays aren’t signing Bo Bichette. The open market options beyond that include Willi Castro, Ramón Urías and Luis Rengifo. The biggest swings they could take are on the trade market.
Tampa Bay hasn’t been prominently tied to Brendan Donovan. They’ve had conversations with the Diamondbacks about Ketel Marte going back to the Winter Meetings. Those preliminary talks involved both Baz and Ryan Pepiot. That framework is obviously no longer an option, and while the Rays could make a compelling package involving Pepiot and controllable relief help, Arizona GM Mike Hazen indicated earlier this week that they could soon cut off talks regarding Marte altogether. Each of Jake Cronenworth, Nico Hoerner and Jazz Chisholm Jr. feel like long shot trade candidates.
If the Rays don’t find a clear answer outside the organization, where could they turn at the keystone?
Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times wrote last month that Palacios was likely to be the top internal option. Acquired from the Cardinals over the 2023-24 offseason, the left-handed hitter turned in a .223/.346/.318 line over 316 plate appearances in his first season with the club. He batted .333 with a .396 on-base percentage last year but was limited to 17 games. Palacios fractured his right ring finger during Spring Training and began the season on the injured list. He returned in April but quickly suffered a right knee sprain that kept him out until September.
Palacios had missed two months late in the ’24 campaign with a sprain of the same knee. He has played in barely more than a third of the team’s games over the past two seasons. “(He’s) a player we really appreciate, but he’s got to prove healthy,” president of baseball operations Erik Neander told Topkin in December. “He’s certainly a candidate internally, but we’re going to give ourselves a little bit of time to sort through it.”
At his best, Palacios shows the makings of a potential high-OBP bat. He takes a lot of pitches and has good contact skills with solid line drive rates. Palacios doesn’t have huge power but has a .370 on-base percentage over five Triple-A seasons. While the Rays haven’t given him much of a look against lefty pitching in the big leagues, he has more than held his own in his limited opportunities.
Walls is a more well-known commodity. He’s a 29-year-old who owns a .195/.286/.298 career batting line in more than 1500 plate appearances. He’s not going to produce at the plate. The Rays love Walls as an up-the-middle defensive player. Public metrics have been bizarrely divided on his work. Statcast’s Outs Above Average grades him below average, yet Defensive Runs Saved annually rates him as a Gold Glove caliber infielder.
The Rays’ internal evaluation must align much more closely to the DRS view. They wouldn’t continue bringing Walls back via arbitration if they didn’t consider him a defensive asset. He’ll play next season on a $2.45MM salary and is controlled for 2027 via $3.1MM team option. Walls will get a lot of action in the middle infield, but he’s likely to begin the season on the left side of the bag.
Tampa Bay waived Ha-Seong Kim in August and used rookie Carson Williams as their shortstop for the final month of the 2025 season. The 22-year-old was overmatched, striking out 44 times and batting .172 in 32 games. Williams also struck out in more than 34% of his Triple-A plate appearances. He has power and is a plus defensive shortstop but is likely to head back to Triple-A to continue working on getting his contact rate to a manageable level.
That’d leave Walls as the only real choice to play shortstop in the early going. Free agency and the trade market are even thinner there than they are at second base. Walls could kick over to second base midseason if Williams plays his way back to the majors.
Position Change Hypotheticals
While the Rays generally have a stockpile of multi-positional players, that’s not so much a strength of the current roster. Jonathan Aranda came up as a second baseman but moved off the position for defensive reasons. He has only played 141 innings there in the big leagues and was a full-time first baseman last year. Aranda is a below-average athlete and runner who probably isn’t moving back up the defensive spectrum.
Chandler Simpson was a middle infielder in college but has been a full-time outfielder since being drafted in 2022. Topkin notes that the 25-year-old took some pregame infield drills late in the season, though it’s not clear if the Rays will continue that next year. Despite being one of the fastest players in the sport, Simpson isn’t an especially gifted defensive outfielder. Maybe that’ll lead the coaching staff to give serious consideration to testing him on the dirt in 2026. Simpson stole 44 bases while batting .295/.326/.345 with zero home runs in 109 games as a rookie.
Rays’ Neander Discusses Outfield, Catcher
As the Rays map out their offseason plans, the front office has an area of the roster they’re highlighting as the priority. “The outfield is three spots we’ve got to get right. … I’d probably lean toward the outfield being the area that we’re spending the most time and energy, just trying to make sense of how to best put it together for next year,” president of baseball operations Erik Neander told Mark Feinsand of MLB.com at the GM Meetings (relayed by MLB.com’s Adam Berry).
That’s not to say all three positions will be filled externally. Neander said the club needs to both “(assess) the players we have” while keeping an eye outside the organization for upgrades. They’ve already shuffled the mix in the first two weeks of the offseason. Kameron Misner was traded to Kansas City, while they’ve taken fliers on Ryan Vilade and Jake Fraley. It’s still not a lock that Fraley will be tendered an arbitration contract, which MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects to land at $3.6MM.
Tampa Bay has a lot of semi-interesting outfielders but no one locked into an everyday position. Chandler Simpson, Jake Mangum, Jonny DeLuca and Josh Lowe would probably get the majority of the playing time as things stand. Simpson is the sport’s best base stealer and has elite contact skills, but there’s zero power and he probably doesn’t have the defensive feel to play a good center field. Mangum has a similar contact-only offensive profile. He’s a very good base stealer in his own right and a more natural defender than Simpson, but he feels more like a fourth outfielder than a regular.
DeLuca is yet another speed and defense outfielder with minimal power. He has a little more pop than Mangum provides but has a similarly aggressive approach. DeLuca lost most of the ’25 season to right shoulder and left hamstring injuries. Lowe has a typical right field profile and hit 20 homers a couple seasons ago, but he’s coming off a career-worst .220/.283/.366 showing across 435 plate appearances. He’s entering arbitration and projected at $2.9MM.
Richie Palacios, Christopher Morel and Tristan Peters all occupy 40-man roster spots as well. Palacios bounces between second base and the outfield corners. He was limited to 14 MLB games by a knee sprain. Morel has been a disappointment since coming over from the Cubs in the Isaac Paredes trade. He’s a poor defender who has hit .208/.277/.355 in 495 plate appearances with Tampa Bay. He’s projected for a $2.6MM arbitration salary and could be traded or non-tendered. Peters is a 26-year-old rookie with four MLB games under his belt and unspectacular numbers in Triple-A.
The front office needs to decide whether anyone from that group projects as a long-term everyday player. Rays outfielders hit .251/.306/.356 last season overall. They were last in MLB with 35 home runs. It’d be a surprise if they didn’t add someone who can provide more stability via free agency or trade, even if Neander indicated the heavy lifting probably needs to come internally. “You’re banking on the group you have — a little better health, a little more performance, and then maybe it’s supplemented from the outside,” he told Feinsand.
Neander touched upon two other uncertain positions: shortstop and catcher. He told MLB.com that the club will keep an eye on both markets but broadly expressed confidence in the internal options, especially behind the plate. The Rays are well-positioned defensively at both spots but have limited offensive ceilings.
Taylor Walls and Carson Williams are set to compete for the shortstop job. Walls is well established as a plus-plus defender who isn’t going to provide anything at the plate. Williams, 22, is one of the organization’s top prospects. He’s highly regarded defensively and certainly has more power upside than Walls, but it’s an open question whether he’ll make enough contact to be a regular. Williams struck out at an untenable 34% clip in Triple-A this year and fanned in 44 of his first 106 MLB plate appearances. He hit .172 over 32 games and should probably begin next season in the minors.
Neander said they’d look for ways to make that “a little bit stronger competition than we (have) now.” It’s a weak free agent class, though. They’re obviously not signing Bo Bichette or bringing back Ha-Seong Kim. They’re left with mostly glove-first utility types like Walls behind that. There aren’t many obvious trade candidates available either, but it’s possible they’ll look to waivers or minor league free agency to at least bring in another depth piece.
Nick Fortes and Hunter Feduccia are lined up behind the dish. Neander praised Fortes as a defender and expressed confidence there’s more in the tank with Feduccia, who hit .151 in 36 games after being acquired from the Dodgers as part of the three-team Zack Littell deadline deal. The 28-year-old Feduccia is a career .278/.387/.452 Triple-A hitter who never had an opportunity behind Will Smith in Los Angeles. It’s not surprising the Rays aren’t moving off him after two bad months in his first real look against big league pitching.
“If we can find a way to be better at that position, we will, but those are two guys we appreciate. If we roll into next year and that’s where we are — a lot of players, we’re counting on development from where they were, and that certainly applies to those two and [we] think that they can give us more than they did this year,” Neander said. J.T. Realmuto and Victor Caratini are the only real options on the free agent market, assuming they don’t bring Danny Jansen back. Trade candidates include Jonah Heim, Luis Campusano and J.C. Escarra.
Rays Exercise Option On Taylor Walls
The Rays and infielder Taylor Walls are in agreement on a deal for the 2026 season, per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. The team will be exercising the $2.45MM club option that covers Walls’ second arbitration season but is also adding a club option that proactively covers his third year in 2027. That option is valued at $3.1MM, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reports. Walls is represented by Vayner Sports.
The 29-year-old Walls led the team in shortstop appearances last season, providing quality glovework but little to no production in the batter’s box. The 2017 third-rounder was credited with a superlative 17 Defensive Runs Saved but turned in an anemic .220/.280/.319 line (66 wRC+) at the plate. He did draw walks at close to a league-average clip and has been well above average in that regard throughout his career as a whole. Walls also provided a bit of value on the bases, though his 14-for-20 showing in stolen base attempts wasn’t nearly as efficient as in the earlier years of his career; he entered the season with 52 steals in 62 tries.
Heading into 2026, Walls gives Tampa Bay some cover at shortstop in the event that top prospect Carson Williams needs more time in Triple-A. Williams made his big league debut this year but hit poorly in his first 32 games/106 MLB plate appearances, slashing only .172/.219/.354 with an alarming 41.5% strikeout rate. Williams spent the rest of the season in Triple-A and didn’t exactly light things up there either (.213/.318/.447), though he was just 21 years old for most of his time at the top minor league level.
Williams will head to spring training squarely in the mix for Tampa Bay’s Opening Day shortstop job, but if he struggles in Grapefruit League play, the Rays can send him back to Triple-A Durham for more seasoning and turn shortstop back over to Walls, knowing he’ll at least provide a quality glove and a bit of speed out of the ninth spot in the batting order while Williams rounds out his development. If Williams does nab the shortstop job from the jump next year, Walls can fill a utility role; he’s also drawn strong grades for his defense at second base and third base.
Walls’ 2026 club option contained a $50K buyout, so it was a net $2.4MM decision for the team. He’d have remained under club control even if the Rays had declined the option. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz had projected Walls for a $2MM salary, so the Rays either projected a higher number for Walls or picked up the option at a marginally higher-than-expected rate as a trade-off to secure another club option year at a relatively low rate.
That same scenario will hold true next winter as well. The Rays could decline the option and still keep Walls for a lesser amount in arbitration, depending on how his season plays out. Today’s deal doesn’t buy out any potential free agent seasons. Walls is still under club control through 2027 and is slated to become a free agent in the 2027-28 offseason.
Rays Select Cole Wilcox
The Rays have selected the contract of righty Cole Wilcox from Triple-A Durham, per a team announcement. He’ll join the bullpen and make his major league debut the first time he gets into a game. Infielder Taylor Walls was transferred from the 10-day IL to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster, while right-hander Joey Gerber was optioned to Durham to clear space on the active roster.
Wilcox, 26, was a third-round pick by the Padres in 2020, though that undersells his stock at the time of the draft. Wilcox “slid” into the third round due primarily to signability concerns. A draft-eligible sophomore at the University of Georgia, Wilcox was widely regarded as a first-round talent. San Diego plucked him with the No. 80 overall pick and swayed him with a $3.3MM signing bonus that was a record for a third-round pick at the time. Just five months later, he was traded to the Rays alongside Francisco Mejia, Luis Patiño and Blake Hunt in the Blake Snell blockbuster.
Things haven’t panned out for Wilcox in the years since. He was dominant for the Rays’ Class-A club in 2021 but made just 10 starts before incurring an elbow injury that eventually led to Tommy John surgery. He returned late in the 2022 season but totaled just 16 innings between the Rays’ Class-A and Rookie-level affiliates.
Wilcox spent the 2023 season pitching out of the rotation with Tampa Bay’s Double-A affiliate but struggled to a 5.23 ERA while showing far worse command than he had prior to surgery. He repeated the Double-A level in 2024 and found better success in terms of his bottom-line run prevention numbers; Wilcox dropped his ERA all the way to 3.18, but he did so with a below-average 18.9% strikeout rate. That still prompted a promotion to Triple-A, but Wilcox again struggled with shaky command and diminished stuff. His fastball, which had previously sat 94-97 mph and scraped triple digits, instead sat at 92.5 mph that season.
Tampa Bay moved Wilcox to the bullpen in 2025, and the results are more encouraging. He’s pitched to a 3.70 ERA in 58 1/3 innings. His 10.8% walk rate is still too high, but he’s averaging 95.8 mph on his sinker now that he’s moved into a short relief role. He’s also scrapped his changeup and now relies on a pure two-pitch mix featuring that sinker and a sharp slider that always graded as his best pitch in scouting reports. Wilcox has kept 50.3% of his opponents’ batted balls on the ground, and his 12.3% swinging-strike rate is better than average as well.
At the time of the Snell trade, the Rays had surely hoped that Wilcox would develop into a key member of their rotation. That no longer appears to be in the cards, but with a sinker approaching 96 mph and a quality slider that’s averaging 86.1 mph, he still has the makings of a potentially useful reliever. He’ll get his first opportunity in the majors in the final weeks of the 2025 campaign, but now that he’s on the 40-man roster, Wilcox will have a full slate of three minor league option years and ample runway to prove himself as a member of manager Kevin Cash’s relief corps in subsequent seasons.
Taylor Walls Undergoes Sports Hernia Surgery
Rays infielder Taylor Walls underwent season-ending sports hernia surgery, manager Kevin Cash tells Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times. Walls has been on the injured list since August 12 with what was initially diagnosed as a left groin strain. He’s expected to be ready for Spring Training.
This has been a typical season for Walls, a light-hitting defensive specialist. He hit .220/.280/.319 with four home runs through 317 plate appearances. The Florida State product owns a .195/.286/.298 batting line in more than 1500 career trips. Walls’ value comes entirely from his glove. While Statcast’s Outs Above Average has him as a roughly neutral defender, Defensive Runs Saved grades him as a plus gloveman at each of second base, third base and shortstop.
Walls was the starting shortstop with Ha-Seong Kim on the injured list for a good chunk of the season. Tampa Bay traded José Caballero and waived Kim. They’ve promoted top prospect Carson Williams to take over at shortstop and would have used Walls as a utility player if he’d been healthy. Williams and Junior Caminero are the hopeful long-term pairing on the left side of the infield. The Rays have another club option on Brandon Lowe but could field trade offers over the winter.
The Rays have a $2.45MM club option or $50K buyout on Walls’ services for next year. They could decline the option and go through the arbitration process. He’s controllable for two more seasons in either case.