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 »

Mason Auer made some of the biggest strides in the Tampa Bay Rays system in 2022. Unranked going into his first full professional season, the 21-year-old Joplin, Missouri native not only slashed .290/.372/.487 with 15 home runs between Low-A Charleston and High-A Bowling Green, he legged out 12 triples and swiped 48 bases. Moreover, he impressed on defense. A fifth-round pick in 2021 out of San Jacinto College, Auer is rated the best defensive outfielder, and as having the best outfield arm, among Rays prospects.

Auer discussed his path to pro ball and the skill set that has allowed him to emerge as a promising prospect at the end of last season.

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David Laurila: You were a late-round pick out of high school in 2019 but opted to attend a junior college rather than sign with the Chicago Cubs. What went into that decision?

Mason Auer: “There were talks earlier in the draft, but it wasn’t the money I wanted. Then they picked me in the 39th round. They called and said that there was maybe going to be some more money opening up if they didn’t get a few guys signed, so there was some serious talk about me signing, but that didn’t happen. I mean, it was still a hard decision. Ultimately, I knew that I wanted to keep working hard and go higher in [an upcoming] draft.” Read the rest of this entry »

Tyler Black could follow in his father’s footsteps, but that’s not the path he’s pursuing. What the 22-year-old Toronto native wants to do is to play in the big leagues — a goal that is very much within his reach. Drafted 33rd overall in 2019 out of Wright State University, Black is an on-base machine who ranks No. 12 on our recently-released Milwaukee Brewers Top Prospects list.

The road not being taken is related to the youngster’s dream. His father is former TSN and CTV broadcaster Rod Black, whose three-plus decades behind the microphone had him calling games in a variety of sports, including baseball (one of his on-air partners was World Series hero Joe Carter). I asked the infielder/outfielder if he ever envisions himself describing the action on a diamond, court, or even a sheet of ice.

“Maybe when I’m done playing,” Black told me during his stint in the Arizona Fall League. “I’ve never really thought about it seriously, but I can say that it was definitely great growing up around sports. My dad used to announce Blue Jays games, Toronto Raptors games — pretty much everything — so I was always around ballparks, and around athletes. That kind of put me into the game.”

Legendary Blue Jays broadcaster Jerry Howarth, who was alongside Tom Cheek when the latter emoted “Touch ’Em All Joe!” — a moment that will forever live in Canadian baseball lore — is among those who reached out after Rod Black’s son was drafted by the Brewers. Read the rest of this entry »

J.P. Feyereisen did not have to wait in DFA limbo for very long.

Just one day after being designated for assignment in order to make way for Zach Eflin on Tampa Bay’s 40-man roster, Feyereisen was traded to the Dodgers. The return is a 25-year-old left-hander named Jeff Belge, who is separated from Greg Holland by Zeeland and North Brabant. (While waiting for Eric Longenhagen’s précis on Belge, I amused myself by thinking of other former Dodgers players whose names are well-suited to puns about Belgium: Brussels Martin, Wallonia Moon, Charleroi Hough, and so on. Jim Ghentile made his major league debut with the Dodgers before being traded to Baltimore.)

Belge stands 6-foot-5, which fits the Rays’ affinity for tall pitchers. (Tampa Bay’s World Series-bound pitching staff in 2020 was taller, on average, than that year’s Houston Rockets.) Longenhagen also pointed out that Belge’s fastball, which sits 93 to 94 mph, has the natural cut/rise action that Tampa Bay tends to seek out. And over the past two seasons, he’s struck out 113 in 75 1/3 minor league innings. Read the rest of this entry »

Gabe Kapler was asked about next season’s more-balanced schedule when he met with the media during the Winter Meetings. More specifically, he was asked about not having to play as many games against powerhouse division rivals like the Dodgers and Padres. His response began with an unexpected nod to the team that finished in fourth place with a record of 74-88.

“The Diamondbacks were really tough on us this year,” said the Giants manager, whose club went 9-10 versus Arizona. “They’re a really challenging team. I think about the Diamondbacks a lot, because they’re so gifted and athletic, and they’re all so young. Torey [Lovullo] does a great job, and Mike Hazen… their whole front office is a good group.”

Arizona’s young talent on the position player side includes Corbin Carroll, Alek Thomas, Jake McCarthy, and Geraldo Perdomo, with more reinforcements on the way. Carroll, who debuted at the end of August, is No. 4 on our Top 100 — a list that includes five D-Backs — and the farm system that Hazen oversees as Arizona’s GM ranks sixth-best among the 30 organizations.

How does this group compare to the young talent Lovullo worked with as Boston’s bench coach from 2013-2016, and before that as the team’s Triple-A manager? Read the rest of this entry »