The Tampa Bay Rays farm system has been consistently robust over the past half dozen seasons, and while it is no longer ranked first or second, it remains top notch. Currently populated with the likes of Junior Caminero, Carson Williams, Curtis Mead, and Xavier Isaac, it contains a number of high-ceiling players projected to contribute at the big league level, some as soon as this year. That is especially the case for some of the position players, especially Caminero, who debuted in the big leagues last September and is one of baseball’s best prospects.

Blake Butera is as well versed on Tampa Bay’s pipeline as anyone. Promoted to Senior Director Player Development at the conclusion of the 2023 campaign, he has worked in the system as a minor league coach, manager, and field coordinator since 2017. In each of his prior positions, he’s had a hands-on role with the development of the players he now oversees.

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David Laurila: I asked you about Junior Caminero when we spoke in December 2022. Outside of gaining more experience, what has changed with him since that time?

Blake Butera: “Honestly, not much. If I had to pick one thing, I would say it’s his defense. He’s made a concerted effort to get better at third base, and also shortstop, which gives him the opportunity to play shortstop if needed. Which it could be. He’s still learning the third base position. He hasn’t played a ton there; he played more shortstop when he was younger, and then we put him at third base predominantly last year. He’s really focused on his defense — first-step quickness, reading the hops at third, getting used to the different angles.

“Offensively, it’s more so just being a little bit more patient at the plate and going to get pitches that he can drive versus trying to hit everything. To be honest, he can hit everything, which is why he’s been swinging at a lot of different pitches.” Read the rest of this entry »

Jordan Wicks is one of the most promising young pitchers in the Chicago Cubs organization. Drafted 21st overall in 2021 by the North Side club out of Kansas State University, the 24-year-old southpaw is coming off of a season that saw him win four of five decisions and log a 4.41 ERA over his first seven big league starts. Moreover, his minor-league ledger included a 7-0 record and a 3.55 ERA between Double-A Tennessee and Triple-A Iowa. Assigned a 50 FV by our own Eric Longenhagen, Wicks is projected to slot comfortably into new Chicago manager Craig Counsell’s rotation in the coming campaign.

The big lefty — he’s listed at 6-foot-3, 220-pounds — has a diverse arsenal, but one offering stands out above the rest. His changeup, which he began throwing as a Little Leaguer in Conway, Arkansas, is not only the best in the system, it could prove to be one of the best in the National League. As he explained at the tail end of last season, the pitch is his “bread-and-butter, and it has been for awhile.”

Asked for more history on his go-to, Wicks told me that it was his “premium off-speed” growing up, and that he “didn’t really throw a curveball or a slider when [he] was younger.” His repertoire now includes both, as well as a cutter and both two- and four-seam fastballs. Pitchability is another of his assets, and he gets high marks for his competitiveness, but again, it’s the diving circle that earned him his first-round pedigree and has him poised to contribute to a big-league rotation. Read the rest of this entry »

You’ve seen this movie a million times. The Rays make some innocuous transaction, adding a reliever you’ve heard of but perhaps forgotten about in trade or free agency. You remember that guy – but now? Him? Surely they can’t be serious. But of course, they are serious, and it ends up working out better than anyone expected, and next thing you know that guy is getting key outs against great hitters.

You might think the team’s most recent reliever transaction fits both parts of this trope: an obscure(ish) pitcher who will no doubt become good. But you’d only be half right about Phil Maton, who has reportedly agreed to a one-year deal for $6.5 million, with a $7.5 million team option for 2025, per Mark Feinsand and Robert Murray. A physical is still pending, and the contract isn’t expected to become official until next week, per Marc Topkin. Will Maton lock down key innings for Tampa Bay this year? I’d bet on it. But where you’d go wrong is in thinking that Maton came to the Rays to get better. While you weren’t looking, he’s already become a great reliever, and the Rays are in fact engaging in another of their favorite offseason pastimes: seeing a great performance before the rest of the league and capitalizing.

I can hear your skepticism, and that’s perfectly okay. Phil Maton is a great reliever? How come our Depth Charts project him for a 4.10 ERA next year? How come his best season produced a 3.00 ERA and peripherals on either side of four? How come he signed this deal in February? Am I thinking, perhaps, of a different Phil Maton? Read the rest of this entry »

Carson Williams is a high-profile prospect in a fertile Tampa Bay Rays farm system. Drafted 28th overall in 2021 out of San Diego’s Torrey Pines High School, the 20-year-old shortstop is No. 20 in MLB Pipeline’s recently-released Top 100, and he will also rank prominently when our own list comes out next month. His 2023 production provided ample evidence of his plus tools. Playing primarily at High-A Bowling Green, and with cups of coffee at the Double-A and Triple-A levels, Williams walloped 23 home runs while putting up a 130 wRC+.

Erik Neander was effusive in his praise when giving a synopsis of the young infielder during November’s GM Meetings.

“Incredible physical potential in all aspects of the game, both sides of the ball,” Tampa Bay’s President of Baseball Operations told me. “And someone who is made to do this, mentally and emotionally. He handles it well. It’s pretty close to a total package in terms of his potential and the ingredients you like to see at such a young age.”

Fittingly, Williams came off as both humble and self-aware when I spoke to him late in the Arizona Fall League season. Asked where he is in his development, he replied that he was “right in the middle of it,” adding that “the minor leagues are a tough road” and he is “going through all of the normal things that a kid out of high school has to.” One of them, as he readily admits, is the challenge of competing against professional pitchers who possess bat-missing repertoires. If a red flag exists within his prospect profile, it would be the 31.4% strikeout rate on last year’s ledger. Read the rest of this entry »

The following article is part of Jay Jaffe’s ongoing look at the candidates on the BBWAA 2024 Hall of Fame ballot. For a detailed introduction to this year’s ballot, and other candidates in the series, use the tool above; an introduction to JAWS can be found here. For a tentative schedule, see here. All WAR figures refer to the Baseball-Reference version unless otherwise indicated.

For a seven-season period from 2010–16, nobody in baseball hit more home runs than José Bautista. The Blue Jays slugger led the American League in dingers in back-to-back seasons, with 54 in 2010 and 43 a year later, and with those soaring totals began a streak of six straight All-Star selections. Remarkably that run didn’t begin until Bautista was in his age-29 season, after he spent most of the first six years of his major league career (2004–09) barely hanging on to a roster spot while passing through the hands of five different teams. He turned the page on that difficult stretch of his career thanks to a swing change, one that prefigured the launch angle revolution that would come into vogue a few year later. With it, “Joey Bats” helped drive the Blue Jays back to relevance, an effort capped by one of the most memorable postseason home runs of the era.

José Antonio Bautista was born on October 19, 1980 in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic. His father, Americo Bautista, was an agricultural engineer who ran a poultry farm while his mother, Sandra Bautista, was an accountant and financial officer. Both had graduate degrees, and so theirs was a middle-class family that could afford to send José and his younger brother Luis to a private Catholic school. A good student, José excelled at math and science, and took extra classes to learn English beginning when he was eight years old. In the evenings, he played baseball with friends, and though undersized — he was nicknamed “The Rat” because he was small and had big ears — he excelled. Read the rest of this entry »

The Mariners and Rays had a busy Friday last week, combining to make three trades involving seven players. Seattle got things started with a three-player swap with the San Francisco Giants, shipping Robbie Ray to the Bay Area in exchange for Mitch Haniger, Anthony DeSclafani, and cash considerations. Then the M’s and the Rays exchanged José Caballero and Luke Raley, before Tampa Bay finished off the day by sending Andrew Kittredge to St. Louis for Richie Palacios. Both the Mariners and Rays dealt from areas of strength to address areas of need, giving both teams greater roster clarity as the offseason moves towards spring training.

Just two years ago, the three players involved in the first trade of the day would have garnered much bigger headlines. In 2021, Ray, Haniger, and DeSclafani combined to accumulate 9.4 WAR, with Ray winning the American League Cy Young award. In the two seasons since then, however, the trio has combined for just 3.3 WAR, largely thanks to a litany of injuries. Ray was completely healthy in 2022, but he wasn’t able to replicate his award-winning performance in his first season in Seattle and then made just a single start in 2023 before needing Tommy John surgery. Haniger has never been a model of health — he’s played just two full seasons in his seven-year career — and missed time with ankle, back, oblique, and forearm injuries the past two seasons. DeSclafani managed just five starts in 2022 thanks to a recurring ankle injury, then wore down towards the end of last year with shoulder fatigue and forearm inflammation. Read the rest of this entry »

In January 2011, the Rays traded a good young starting pitcher who was about to get into his expensive pre-free agency years. They received a five-player package that included another good young starting pitcher, who himself went on to pitch well for the Rays for several years. In 2018, they traded that pitcher for a package that included another young starting pitcher, who gave the Rays several good seasons of service. And last week, they traded him for a package that included another promising young pitcher.

It’ll probably be a minute before 26-year-old Ryan Pepiot is ready to buy a house. Interest rates being what they are, even the major league minimum salary doesn’t go as far as it used to anymore. It’s just as well, because he should rent until sometime in late 2026, I suspect.

See, this started as a joke about how the Rays always trade their good young players before they hit free agency. Turns out the Rays are so systematic about this sort of thing that they defy parody. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the weekend, the Dodgers hit the motherlode, signing Shohei Ohtani to a landmark 10-year contract. Turns out, though, MLB didn’t award them the 2024 World Series just for doing that. There’s still baseball to be played, and while the Dodgers certainly aren’t short on tremendous hitters, they do need some serious help on the pitching side. Enter the Rays:

BREAKING: The Los Angeles Dodgers and Tampa Bay Rays are in agreement on a trade to send RHP Tyler Glasnow and OF Manuel Margot to the Dodgers for RHP Ryan Pepiot and OF Jonny Deluca — contingent on Glasnow signing an extension with L.A., which is expected, sources tell ESPN.

— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) December 15, 2023

I’m not sure that I’m making a strong enough statement. The Dodgers need help on the pitching side, and they need it badly. Before this trade, their depth chart looked like this:

That’s dire. It’s a mixture of injury risk, light workloads, unproven arms, and pitchers who check multiple of those boxes at once. Ohtani obviously won’t pitch next year. Walker Buehler hasn’t pitched since June 2022, looked bad in that 2022 season, and is their nominal ace. Bobby Miller is the only other guy the team seems to trust, and they’ll need plenty of volume from him, but he made 26 starts last year to get to his 138.2 innings, so it’s not like there’s a ton more in the tank. If the Dodgers’ lineup is Boardwalk and Park Place, their rotation looks more like Mediterranean and Baltic Avenues. Read the rest of this entry »

As the leading lights of the baseball world sit around Nashville, Tennessee, waiting for Shohei Ohtani to choose his forever home, the reliever market finally sputtered to life on Day 2 of the Winter Meetings, with two veteran right-handers signing contracts for 2024. Kirby Yates, late of the Braves, is bound for Texas on a one-year, $4.5 million deal. Chris Devenski, meanwhile, re-signed with the Rays on a one-year deal with a team option; the first year will pay him $1 million, after which the team holds a $2 million option with a $100,000 buyout.

As much as a balky bullpen can derail an otherwise championship-caliber team, the 2023 Rangers were the kind of club that makes you think the whole thing just isn’t worth worrying about. Texas won the World Series with a relief corps that did not fit its implacable offense, posting the worst strikeout rate of any playoff bullpen. The only team whose relievers fared worse on an ERA basis was Miami, and the Marlins lasted all of two games against a Phillies lineup that thrashed them around like a hungry cat tormenting a lizard. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, we looked at a few single-inning relievers who changed hands in the recent flurry of transactions. We’ll wrap up this series with another small reliever signing, as well as looking at two swingman/starter-types who could have a larger role on their new teams in the upcoming season.

Rockies acquire Cal Quantrill from Guardians in trade

With Quantrill coming off a career-worst year and with a looming arbitration salary estimated at $6.6 million, the Guardians decided to part ways with the 28-year-old righty, designating him for assignment to clear up 40-man roster space. The Rockies opted to cut the waiver line, acquiring him in exchange for low-minors catcher Kody Huff. Read the rest of this entry »