Evan Reifert has one of the best sliders in the minors. In the words of our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen, “the pitch is incredible, a low-80s knee-buckler that he throws about as much as his fastball.” Moreover, the numbers are as good as the observations. As Eric noted when profiling the 23-year-old right-hander for our 2023 Tampa Bay Rays Top Prospects list, Reifert’s slider “generated the top whiff rate of any pitch in the 2022 minors at a whopping 70%.”

Overall, the numbers were that of a work-in-progress. Pitching between three levels — the majority of his 31 relief outings came with High-A Bowling Green — Reifert logged a 4.58 ERA and issued 20 free passes over 37.1 innings. He was also overpowering; thanks largely to his signature pitch, the Wilton, Iowa native fanned 62 batters.

Assigned to the Arizona Fall League’s Mesa Solar Sox to build on what had been an injury-interrupted campaign, the erstwhile Milwaukee Brewers prospect — Tampa Bay acquired him in exchange for Mike Brosseau in November 2021 — proceeded to put up eye-popping numbers. In eight AFL appearances comprising 11.1 innings, Reifert registered 25 punchouts and allowed just one hit.

Reifert, who is currently on the injured list at Double-A Montgomery, discussed his wipeout slider during spring training.

———

David Laurila: You have a plus-plus slider. What is the story behind it?

Evan Reifort: “I was pretty young. I was growing up playing travel ball, and I have a great uncle who was a really good pitcher back home in Iowa. His name is Ron Reifert.”

Laurila: Did your great uncle play pro ball?

Reifert: “He did not. Unfortunately, polio kind of got to him — I believe it was polio — so he was unable to go on to play pro ball, but he pitched at the University of Iowa and was really good. That’s kind of where I started learning how to throw a slider, from him. I was probably 10 or 12, and from there it’s morphed into the pitch it is today. I found a grip that I liked and have even modified it since then. It’s definitely gotten harder and sharper over the years. But yeah, all I really do is rip it and let it do its thing.” Read the rest of this entry »

Friday night’s game at Tropicana Field featured a rare sight: the Rays trailing a team by a 1–0 margin. It was a blink-and-you-missed it moment, with a run in the top of the second inning putting Tampa Bay behind for the first time since Tuesday night, and just the second time all season. But it didn’t last long: on the first pitch of the second inning, Harold Ramirez hit a Ken Waldichuk offering for a solo homer into the right field corner, kicking off a six-run inning that also featured a grand slam by Isaac Paredes. The Rays never looked back, beating the A’s, 9–5, on Friday and then 11–0 on both Saturday and Sunday to run their record to 9–0.

It’s an understatement to say that the Rays are off to the best start in franchise history (their previous record for season-opening wins was three) or the best of any team this year. By consecutive victories to open a season, they’re off to the best start in 20 years, and by run differential, they’re doing some things not seen in the majors since the late 19th century — and some never seen before. Read the rest of this entry »

David Ross was 38 years old and still strapping on the tools of ignorance when he was featured here at FanGraphs in February 2016. The title of the piece was David Ross: Future Big League Manager, and as many in the industry had suggested it would, that supposition soon came to fruition. The longtime catcher is currently embarking on what will be his fourth season at the helm of the Chicago Cubs. I recently asked Ross how he approaches the job philosophically now that he’s firmly in the trenches.

“My style — the way I approach being a manager — is leadership and direction, but I’m also still a player at heart,” Ross told me. “I understand what these guys are going through, competing for jobs and different roles. Communicating through that as a former player, someone who experienced it, I can relate to them. I try to keep a player’s mindset as part of my decision-making.”

Jed Hoyer was the club’s General Manager when the Cubs hired Ross following the 2019 season. I asked the now President of Baseball Operations about the process that informed that decision. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about recent WBC highlights, whether the WBC should be held more often (7:44), extensions for Corbin Carroll and Keibert Ruiz (19:50), MLB preparing to take over streaming for some teams amid the Diamond Sports bankruptcy (21:22), Trevor Bauer departing for Japan (31:17), and an Effectively Wild theme song contest (35:43), then continue their 2023 season preview series by discussing the Tampa Bay Rays (42:57) with Adam Berry of MLB.com, and the Detroit Tigers (1:15:04) with Cody Stavenhagen of The Athletic, plus a Past Blast from 1980 (1:53:29) and trivia answers (1:57:34).

Audio intro: Jaquan Grant, “Baseball Rich”
Audio interstitial 1: David Lawrence, “I Wander On”
Audio interstitial 2: Camden, “You Little Tiger”
Audio outro: Gilles Cardoni, “Super 80”

Link to Puerto Rico “perfect game”
Link to Mitch Bratt story
Link to Meneses homers
Link to Zach Buchanan on Meneses
Link to Ohtani homer
Link to Ohtani strikeout
Link to story on Satoria
Link to Satoria interview
Link to Pool A tiebreak story
Link to “change my mind” meme
Link to Caribbean Series wiki
Link to Baseball World Cup wiki
Link to MLBTR on Carroll
Link to Buchanan on Carroll
Link to tweet about Carroll
Link to MLBTR on Ruiz
Link to story on Diamond and MLB
Link to MLBTR on Bauer
Link to Jim Allen on Bauer
Link to story about P-G strike
Link to union info about strike
Link to strike fund
Link to FanGraphs playoff odds
Link to FG payroll breakdown
Link to Rays offseason tracker
Link to Rays depth chart
Link to Emma B. on Brady Williams
Link to Adam’s spring preview
Link to Adam’s author archive
Link to Tigers offseason tracker
Link to Tigers depth chart
Link to Dan S. on breakout hitters
Link to Cody’s spring preview
Link to Cody on Comerica dimensions
Link to Cody on Maton
Link to Cody on injury prevention
Link to Cody on Turnbull
Link to Cody’s author archive
Link to Cody’s Tigers podcast
Link to 1980 article source
Link to David Lewis’s Twitter
Link to David Lewis’s Substack
Link to Ryan Nelson’s Twitter
Link to Damon on the Bananas
Link to MLBTR on Diamond
Link to EW episode on sharting
Link to Hernández tweet
Link to Shane McKeon’s Twitter
Link to Shane’s website

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Gerrit Cole faced Jordan Walker for the first time on Wednesday, and he came away impressed. The New York Yankees ace induced a ground-ball out from the top prospect in the St. Louis Cardinals system in the first inning, but then surrendered a line-drive single to him on a 95-mph heater a handful of frames later. When Cole met with members of the media mid-game — standard fare for starters during spring training — I asked him about his matchups with the fast-rising phenom.

“I thought he put a good swing on it,” Cole said of Walker’s knock. “It was a good adjustment from the first at-bat. It was a good pitch, a borderline ball, and one of the better swings of the day, for sure.”

Cole needed clarification as to whom he was opining on before offering the praise. Understandably focusing on preparing for the regular season, he admitted — this with the caveat that he wasn’t being disrespectful — he didn’t know where Walker was hitting in the St. Louis lineup.

Walker was understandably very aware of Cole. Asked about what the five-time All-Star had said — the question came from a St. Louis scribe whom I’d shared the quotes with — he was equal parts pleased and humble.

“It means a lot, man,” said Walker, who is No. 12 on our Top 100 and at age 20 has a legitimate chance to break camp with the Cardinals. “He’s a helluva pitcher. His stuff was really electric today. His stuff was really jumping. His slider was good. So it means a lot to hear that from him. A wonderful pitcher.”

As Cardinals fans are discovering, the 6-foot-5, 220-pound Stone Mountain, Georgia native is more than just a star in the making. He also exudes fun. I asked the effervescent outfielder how he is balancing that trait alongside being hyper-focused in his quest to earn a big-league job. Read the rest of this entry »

Injuries to pitchers are nothing new, given that pitchers are baseball’s version of a priceless vase balanced precariously on the edge of a table with a cat sitting next to it. But two bits of Tuesday news hit two contending teams hard, as the Rays and Padres both lost their arguable aces, Tyler Glasnow and Joe Musgrove, respectively, to injuries that could affect the regular season.

Glasnow’s injury is the more significant of the two: an oblique injury suffered while throwing a bullpen session on Monday. An MRI on Tuesday revealed a Grade 2 strain that will result in him missing an estimated six to eight weeks of the season. That practically guarantees that Glasnow will be sidelined for at least a month of the 2023 season, another setback for a pitcher who has known more than his fair share. Since being acquired by the Rays with Austin Meadows in return for Chris Archer, he has a 3.08 ERA and a 3.18 FIP for the Rays but only 268 innings over four-and-a-half years; he’s never thrown 100 innings in a single season in Tampa Bay. Glasnow is also still relatively fresh off his most recent injury, an August 2021 Tommy John surgery that cost him the end of that campaign and most of last year; as a result, the Rays have rightfully been extremely careful with him. I don’t expect them to rush him back given his history — the last thing you want is Glasnow changing his delivery due to lingering abdominal pain and risk a new arm injury — so I think that it’s unlikely we see much of him until June. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays are infamous for running a tight ship payroll-wise, and because arbitration salaries are usually higher than rookie ones, they tend to trade arbitration-eligible players for younger, more cost-controlled talent. Then those new contributors develop into solid major leaguers, who become arbitration-eligible and therefore trade-eligible… and the cycle continues.

Yet the Rays have been good despite this. A major flaw in the described rinse-and-repeat style of roster management is that it depends on a regular influx of talent; without legitimate prospects in the farm system, you’d simply be making the big league squad worse, one trade at a time. Of course, the Rays are also known for their scouting and player development acumen, churning out viable big leaguers at a rate that, compared to other organizations, seems supersonic. But this too isn’t foolproof: Even if you run a supposedly smart front office, there’s a good chance that you’ll be wrong about a prospect or a trade acquisition more often than you’re right. That’s just how baseball works; you find yourself fighting to minimize risk, not to maximize return.

So really, the best option might be to avoid this conundrum in the first place. A good way to do that is to lock up your fresh-faced stars to contract extensions, à la the Braves of recent years. I don’t know if the Rays are following in Alex Anthopoulous’ footsteps, but they do seem to have become more open to the idea of making multiple multi-year commitments. As our Chris Gilligan covered, they recently signed Jeffrey Springs to a four-year contract extension with a club option for a fifth year. But the Rays weren’t done, as Jeff Passan reported last Friday:

Reliever Pete Fairbanks and the Tampa Bay Rays are in agreement on a three-year, $12 million contract extension, sources tell ESPN. Deal includes a fourth-year club option and comes off a year in which Fairbanks finished with 22 scoreless IP.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) January 27, 2023

Read the rest of this entry »

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot. Rounding out the 2023 projections? The Tampa Bay Rays.

Batters

The Rays lineup presents a tale of two offenses. On the good side is a team with one of the best 2B/3B/SS combinations in the majors. Yandy Díaz had a monster 2022 season, basically as offensively amazing as it’s possible for a corner infielder with below-average power to be. ZiPS is low on Díaz relative to Steamer and The Bat, and his projection here is still excellent. It’s a real shame that he’s somehow still underrated in the eyes of fans, even in an age when most people realize on-base percentage is a thing. Díaz isn’t quite Eddie Yost or Eddie Joost in terms of pure walk rate, but he’s a mold-breaker along similar lines. With Isaac Paredes needing at-bats of his own and Curtis Mead aggressively pushing his way up from the minors, the Rays will almost certainly continue to use Díaz at multiple positions. I’d be happy with any of those three as my starting third baseman.

Brandon Lowe had a disappointing, injury-filled season, but it would take some severe recency bias to forgot that he was an elite second baseman in 2021, which wasn’t exactly an eon ago. Wanderkind Franco had his own injury problems in 2022, but he’s still very young, certainly young enough that you shouldn’t fret about it too much (yet). With some luck in terms of health, the Rays will have one of baseball’s best infields even if they get very little out of first base. Unfortunately, the computer doesn’t expect the Rays to get much out of first base. ZiPS has never been in on Jonathan Aranda, even after his most promising minor league season yet. Given the offensive explosion in the minors, ZiPS doesn’t translate his .318/.394/.521, 18-homer season for Durham as well as you might think, only having him at a .276/.341/.420, 12-homer season. Combine that with a poor debut and you can see why ZiPS really hopes that Aranda’s future is at second, not first. The player ZiPS does like is Kyle Manzardo, who gets a translation of .267/.346/.456 for his age-21 season, his first full pro campaign. Manzardo has a very good chance to be the top first baseman on the ZiPS Top 100 Prospects list next month. Read the rest of this entry »

Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Tampa Bay Rays. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as my own observations. This is the third year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but I use that as a rule of thumb.

A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.

All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here. Read the rest of this entry »

The Rays front office has more than earned the benefit of the doubt in terms of talent evaluation, particularly when it comes to pitching. At this point, they have a long history of player development and evaluation success, from homegrown prospects to reclamation projects to the trade market. With that reputation preceding them, Wednesday’s agreement with reliever-turned-starter Jeffrey Springs to a four-year, $31 million contract extension feels more like an assertion of his future than a bet on it.

Still, to negotiate an extension with a 30-year-old player who had yet to reach 50 innings in a major league season entering 2022, the Rays have to feel pretty good that his season was a sign of more good things to come. The agreement has some uncertainty built in; while the Rays guaranteed him $31 million over four years, it includes a $15 million club option for a fifth year and a series of incentives tied to innings and Cy Young Award voting placement that could more than double the deal’s total value by the end of its course. For the Rays, it’s a relatively modest investment on the low end; on the other end, having to dole out the full $65.75 million would in all likelihood be a good problem to have. For Springs, it’s nothing short of hard to believe. Read the rest of this entry »