Rays seize chance to add pitching prospects

This story was excerpted from Adam Berry’s Rays Beat e-newsletter. To learn the total e-newsletter, click on right here. And subscribe to get it repeatedly in your inbox.

ST. PETERSBURG — The Rays addressed one among their wants on the huge league stage by buying starter Zach Eflin, they usually nonetheless need to improve their lineup earlier than the offseason ends. But as a group all the time conscious of each the current and future, it’s price a take a look at how Tampa Bay has constantly added pitching prospect depth at practically each flip thus far this winter.

Last month, the Rays picked up right-hander Jack Hartman for Ji-Man Choi and righty Alfredo Zarraga for Miles Mastrobuoni. They dealt a giant league reliever, JT Chargois, and a high middle-infield prospect, Xavier Edwards, for 2 extra younger pitchers: right-handers Marcus Johnson and Santiago Suarez.

Then the Rays added two extra pitching prospects on the Winter Meetings, buying lefty Keyshawn Askew from the Mets in a one-for-one deal for lefty reliever Brooks Raley, then reliever Kevin Kelly in a Rule 5 Draft commerce.

Johnson, now their No. 27 prospect, is the principally extremely regarded of the brand new arms. But Askew had just lately been among the many Mets’ Top 30 prospects, and Kelly will compete for a giant league bullpen job in Spring Training.

Speaking on the final day of the Winter Meetings, Rays common supervisor Peter Bendix famous that the group’s run of buying pitching prospects has been partially happenstance but additionally considerably by design.

“You can by no means have sufficient pitching, and I believe our pitching within the Minor Leagues, simply the depth of pitching, might be just a little bit behind the depth of place gamers,” Bendix stated. “So all else equal, when we’ve had the chance to acquire younger players this offseason, we’ve put a little bit more emphasis on pitching.”

Even a fast take a look at MLB Pipeline’s listing of the Rays’ Top 30 Prospects, which shall be up to date early subsequent yr, exhibits the disparity. Here’s the breakdown:

Right-handed pitchers: 7
Left-handed pitchers: 2
Catchers: 1
Infielders: 14
Outfielders: 6

Tampa Bay has traded away some intriguing younger arms just lately to make the massive league group higher (Matthew Liberatore for Randy Arozarena, Joe Ryan for Nelson Cruz, Seth Johnson for Jose Siri, for instance), whereas two of their most extremely regarded prospects (Brent Honeywell Jr. and Brendan McKay) have been held again by years of accidents.

Granted, the Rays have a bunch of controllable beginning/bulk-inning pitchers on their roster in Tyler Glasnow (prolonged via 2024), Eflin (quickly to be formally signed via 2025), Shane McClanahan, Drew Rasmussen, Jeffrey Springs, Josh Fleming, Luis Patiño, Yonny Chirinos and Shane Baz (coming back from Tommy John surgical procedure in 2024). And no person doubts their potential to search out helpful bullpen arms.

But they need to be capable to produce pitching from inside, particularly contemplating what number of arms they’ve wanted to get via the previous few seasons, and protecting the system stocked is vital to that.

Here’s what Bendix stated about Askew: “He’s got really good stuff. There’s ingredients there. Certainly no guarantee that he’s going to work, but you need that pipeline of starting pitching prospects. We’ve seen what it can do for our success, and to be able to acquire somebody that we think is a pretty good starter prospect and help balance our bullpen a little bit, that was kind of the impetus for this.”

And right here’s Bendix on Kelly: “He’s somebody that from the right side has ingredients to get both righties and lefties out. … That’s how we’re able to utilize our bullpen, and [manager Kevin Cash] is phenomenal at putting guys in the right position to succeed. We think Kelly has the chance to be a really strong reliever.”