The last few years, I’ve had a pre-Opening Day tradition of making five bold predictions about the upcoming season. It’s a good way to talk through some of the players and teams where my opinions are different from the crowd. But bold predictions are a boom industry – the entire FanGraphs staff will be making some tomorrow, and I already drafted 10 of my own on Effectively Wild. So Meg and I came up with a great substitute: five big questions about the season. These aren’t the only big questions I have. They aren’t even necessarily the biggest questions in baseball. But they’re five storylines that I think are unresolved, and their answers will have a lot to say about how the 2025 season goes.

1. Are the Rays still the Rays?
The Rays have been doing the same player-swapping roster construction trick for more than a decade now. They operate on a shoestring budget, they consistently find ways to trade their surplus for great value, and their pitching development is some of the best in the game. They’re constantly churning out top prospects, and even after graduating Junior Caminero, they boast one of the best farm systems in baseball.

That prospect pipeline keeps on delivering, but in 2024, the wins didn’t follow. The team finished below .500 for the first time since 2017, and got outscored by 59 runs in the process. The Rays didn’t do much this winter – trading Jeffrey Springs, and signing Danny Jansen and Ha-Seong Kim were their big moves. We’re projecting them to finish last in the AL East – albeit still above .500. What happened to the 90-win perpetual juggernaut? Read the rest of this entry »

If the winter is a time for dreams, the spring is a time for solutions. Your team may have been going after Juan Soto or Aaron Judge or Shohei Ohtani, depending on the offseason, but short of something going weird in free agency (like the unsigned Boras clients last year), if you don’t have them under contract at this point, they’ll be improving someone else’s club. However, that doesn’t mean that spring training is only about ramping up for the daily grind. Teams have real needs to address, and while they’re no doubt workshopping their own solutions – or possibly convincing themselves that the problem doesn’t exist, like when I wonder why my acid reflux is awful after some spicy food – that doesn’t mean that we can’t cook up some ideas in the FanGraphs test kitchen.

This is the first piece in a three-part series in which I’ll propose one way for each team to fill a roster hole or improve for future seasons. Some of my solutions are more likely to happen than others, but I tried to say away from the completely implausible ones. We’ll leave the hypothetical trades for Bobby Witt Jr. and Paul Skenes to WFAN callers. Also, I will not recommend the same fix for different teams; in real life, for example, David Robertson can help only one club’s bullpen. Today, we’ll cover the 10 teams in the East divisions, beginning with the five in the AL East before moving on to their counterparts in the NL East. Each division is sorted by the current Depth Charts projected win totals. 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 our own observations. This is the fifth 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 we 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 »

Back in the days before Junior Caminero — even in the days before Wander Franco — there was Brandon Lowe, a 5-foot-10 second baseman who anchored the Tampa Bay Rays’ lineup during its most fecund period. As the Rays made the playoffs five years in a row from 2019 to 2023, and won the pennant in 2020, Lowe was at the center of it. He posted a 151 wRC+ in 2020, and a year later he hit 39 home runs.

That’s tied for the second-most homers in a season in Rays history, up among a bunch of guys (Carlos Pena, Logan Morrison, Jose Canseco) who are so big they could fit Lowe in their jacket pocket.

Now, as Caminero is bashing his way into the everyday lineup, Lowe is at an inflection point in his career. He’s struggled to stay healthy the past three years, and he turns 31 in July. And because everything the Rays touch has to be viewed through this lens: Lowe is in the final guaranteed season of his seven-year contract. His 2026 club option is quite affordable, even for Tampa Bay ($11.5 million), but there’s only one option year. Read the rest of this entry »

Xavier Isaac’s game is built around damage. No. 98 on our recently-released Top 100, the 21-year-old, left-handed-hitting Tampa Bay Rays prospect has, according to our lead prospect analyst Eric Longenhagen, “some of the most exciting power in pro baseball.” Getting to it consistently will be his biggest challenge going forward. As Longenhagen also wrote in his report, “By the end of the season, [Isaac] had a sub-60% contact rate, which is not viable at the big league level… [but] if “he can get back to being a nearly 70% contact hitter, he’s going to be a monster.”

While Isaac’s 143 wRC+ between High-A Bowling Green and Double-A Montgomery was impressive, his 33.3% strikeout rate was another story. The built-to-bash first baseman knows that cutting down on his Ks will go a long way toward his living up to his lofty potential. At the same time, he’s wary of straying too far from his strengths.

“I’ve tuned up my power, and now I need to get my contact up a little bit more,” Isaac told me during the Arizona Fall League season. “It’s like a tradeoff, kind of. I’m going to strike out, but I’m also going to hit the ball a little harder. I have a lot of power, so some of it is about going up there and taking a risk. I obviously don’t want to strike out — I‘m trying to put it in play — but I also don’t want to be making soft contact.”

That’s seldom a problem when he squares up a baseball. Not only does his bat produce high exit velocities, he knows what it feels like to propel a pitch 450-plus feet. He doesn’t shy way from the power-hitter label. Asked if that’s what he is, his response was, “For sure.”

That Isaac’s bombs often go to the gaps, particularly to right-center, is by design. Read the rest of this entry »

Hunter Bigge’s baseball career was in limbo when he graduated from Harvard University in 2021 with a degree in physics. Drafted in the 12th round by the Chicago Cubs two years earlier, the 26-year-old right-hander had scuffled in High-A and was unsure if he should continue to pursue his boyhood dream or move on to a career outside of baseball. Returning to the Ivy League institution to complete his studies following that difficult season gave him options, but he still loved the game.

Fast forward to 2024, and Bigge was thriving in the big leagues.

Bigge debuted with the Cubs on July 9, then a few weeks later was dealt to the Tampa Bay Rays along with Ty Johnson and Christopher Morel in exchange for Isaac Paredes. He excelled in both uniforms. With 15 of his 19 appearances coming after the trade, Bigge worked 17 1/2 total frames, fanning 24 batters while allowing 17 hits and just five free passes. Moreover, he posted a 2.60 ERA, a 2.76 FIP, and a 32.9% strikeout rate. His heater played a huge role in his success. At 97.5 mph, it ranked in the 94th percentile among his contemporaries.

Bigge discussed his path to the big leagues, and his approach on the mound, during the final weekend of the 2024 season.

———

David Laurila: Let’s start with one of my favorite icebeaker questions: Do you approach pitching as more of an art, or as more of a science?

Hunter Bigge: “I approach it more as an art. I’m pretty analytical, but I don’t think the analytical part of my brain is the one that allows me to play the best. I try to come at it with a little more flexibility. I let the science inform the high-level decisions, but when I’m out there, I’m thinking of it more like a dance with the hitter.” Read the rest of this entry »

Derrick Edington is hoping to join select company. MLB history includes fewer than a dozen players born in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the most accomplished being Mike Bordick (Marquette) and George Brunet (Houghton). Also notable are Kevin Tapani, who was born in Iowa but grew up in the U.P. (Escanaba), and John Michaelson, whose family moved to a small town in the Copper Country when he was five years old so that his father could work in the mines. Michaelson, who got a cup of coffee with the Chicago White Sox in 1921, is the only big-leaguer to have been born in Finland.

Edington is from the village of Pickford, which is located roughly 40 miles north of the Mackinac Bridge, which separates the state’s two peninsulas. The 6-foot-8, 230-pound right-hander’s journey from rural Michigan to affiliated baseball spanned several years at baseball’s lower runs, and included a helpful boost from a former All-Star closer.

Signed out of an independent league by the Tampa Bay Rays last May, Edington has gone from throwing “maybe 82 [mph]’ as a high school senior — basketball was his better sport — to sitting 95-96, and occasionally reaching triple digits. Raw but nonetheless promising, he made 20 relief appearances between the Florida Complex League and Arizona Fall League, logging high ERAs but also fanning 39 batters in 32 innings.

I asked the erstwhile Pickford Panther about his atypical path to pro ball. Read the rest of this entry »

Ben Lindbergh and Meg Rowley banter about the Mets re-signing Pete Alonso, the Twins signing Harrison Bader, and the compressed standings in the newly released FanGraphs and Baseball Prospectus playoff odds. Then they preview the 2025 Tampa Bay Rays (31:35) with MLB.com’s Adam Berry, and the 2025 Milwaukee Brewers (1:09:55) with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel’s Curt Hogg.

Audio intro: Moon Hound, “Effectively Wild Theme”
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Audio interstitial 2: The Gagnés, “Effectively Wild Theme”
Audio outro: Beatwriter, “Effectively Wild Theme”

Link to FG post on Alonso
Link to 2021 Boras study
Link to FG post on Bader
Link to Byrd wiki
Link to FG playoff odds post
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Link to BP playoff odds
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Link to Rays offseason tracker
Link to Adam’s author archive
Link to Franco update 1
Link to Franco update 2
Link to Brewers depth chart
Link to Brewers offseason tracker
Link to Episode 2262
Link to Episode 2263
Link to MLBTR on Contreras
Link to Trueblood on Contreras
Link to Curt’s author archive
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Well, I did not see that one coming. After four years with the Padres, shortstop Ha-Seong Kim is headed to the Rays.

On Wednesday afternoon, ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported that Kim and Tampa Bay have agreed to a two-year, $29 million deal with an opt out after the first year (because opting out after the second year would just be silly). Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times followed with more details: Kim will make $13 million in 2025 (with an additional $2 million in incentives), then $16 million in 2026 if he doesn’t opt out. And because it’s paramount that we spread the scoops around as generously as possible, The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal quickly chimed in with his own news that Kim is expected to return in May from the shoulder injury that cut his 2024 season short. Let’s start with my own personal ignominy, and then we can dive into the details.

So last week I wrote something like 2,000 words about where Kim might end up. I didn’t even give Tampa Bay a full sentence. In one breath, in passing, I dismissed the Rays, Pirates, and White Sox as unlikely to spend that kind of money. That’s my bad, but also it begs a question. Why is Kim set to spend at least one season at exotic George Steinbrenner Field? For starters, the money isn’t quite what we expected. This is a pillow contract, and a discounted one at that. If Kim plays well, he’ll opt out again and go hunting for the dollars he deserves. If things go wrong, 2026 will be his platform year. For those twin security blankets, he accepted an average annual value that’s significantly below not just our $18.5 million crowdsourced estimate, but the $20 million that Ben Clemens predicted for him. (To be fair, Ben did nail the possibility of a two-year contract with an opt-out.) Read the rest of this entry »

The Tampa Bay Rays have a reputation of getting the best out of previously undervalued pitchers, and Garrett Cleavinger is a prime example. Acquired from the Los Angeles Dodgers in August 2022 in exchange for German Tapia, the 30-year-old southpaw was subsequently limited to 12 games in 2023 due to a knee injury, but a breakout was right around the corner. Cleavinger made a career-high 68 appearances last year, logging a 3.75 ERA and a 26.7 strikeout rate over 60 relief innings. His ledger included seven wins and six saves.

A high-octane heater was one of his best weapons; at 96.3 mph, Cleavinger’s four-seamer ranked in the 84th percentile for velocity. With that in mind, I asked the Lawrence, Kansas native if he identifies as a power pitcher.

“It’s a part of my game,” Cleavinger told me at the close of the 2024 campaign. “I’m definitely not a pinpoint command guy like some pitchers are — I wish I was a little bit better in that aspect — but power stuff coming out of the pen does kind of fit the description for me.”

Possessor of a varied arsenal is another accurate description. The erstwhile University of Oregon closer now features five-pitches, only one of which he threw less than 10 percent of the time. Per Baseball Savant, the breakdown was: cutter 26.3%, four-seamer 24.8%, slider 22.0%, sweeper 17.4%, and two-seamer 9.5%. Two of those were recent additions. Read the rest of this entry »