January 3: Matt Cronin, who did a good job for us in the bullpen late in the year and during the playoffs, signed a 3/14.8 deal with the San Antonio Alamos while another former Ray, Shane McClanahan, signed a 1-year contract with the Dodgers for $3.7M, his fourth team in four years.
January 7: Seattle's star OF Julio Rodriguez won't be going anywhere as he signed a 7/178 extension with the club.
January 8: 36-year-old SS Xander Bogaerts went to Milwaukee on a 3/51 deal.
January 10: The Hall of Fame voting is in, and so is just one player:
Congrats to Mad Max Scherzer while Robinson Cano and Zack Greinke remain agonizingly close. Meanwhile Ichiro and Mauer don't seem to be gaining much traction.
January 12: A couple of more former Rays find new homes as Drew Rasmussen joins Texas on a minor league deal and Reid Detmers becomes an Astro for the low price of $780K.
January 17: Longtime Cleveland ace Shane Bieber is taking his talents to San Francisco on a 4/78 deal. He's struggled with ERAs of 4.78 and 4.70 the last two years but still gets the whiffs and eats the innings. And the Giants weren't done improving their rotation there either as they inked Houston's former ace Jose Alberto Rivera to a 6/108 contract.
January 21: In what must be an experiment to see just how many homers a pitcher can allow, longtime Rays rotation fixture Joe Ryan has signed a 3/30.9 deal with Colorado. He was homer-prone in the Trop, just imagine Coors Field. Also AJ Minter, who was with us late in the season and didn't contribute much, signed a 1/2.9 contract with the Mets.
January 24: Activated OF Jose Aguilar from the 60-day IL, waived and designated OF Brayden Jobert for assignment.
Aguilar was originally supposed to be out until almost mid-season with a broken bone in his elbow but it healed much quicker than anticipated and he was ready to return. I had kind of written him off in my 2029 thinking but now that he's back we need to make room for him on the active roster since he's out of options. He's a potential impact bat who hit well when he played last year but isn't a good defensive outfielder. Jobert meanwhile hit a somewhat freakish .346 in about 100 AB for us last year but should clear waivers as he's just a 2-star guy.
January 31: Trade time again:
So long to Alex Kirilloff and his contract. Kirilloff had his best year in Rays colors last year with 3.1 WAR and .292-23-102 but he was terrible in the field (-7.8 ZR) and isn't getting any younger. Jimenez is a quality young prospect, a July 2 signing by the Mets in 2027:
This will open up RF for
Joshua Baez, who may not hit as well as Kirilloff but will play above-average D and still hit for power.
February 15: Some interesting OFs signed with new clubs: Austin Hays to St. Louis (2/21.8), Eloy Jimenez to Cleveland (2/18) and Ramon Laureano to San Antonio (2/21).
February 24: Let's keep trading:
It's no secret I've been looking to upgrade the team's abysmal defense and instead of playing
Andy Kelley somewhat out of position in center, I've traded for Gutierrez, one of the best defensive CFs in the league. The second-year-man is rated 70 in CF and had a whopping 14.1 ZR at the position. He's not going to hit a lot (246/279/357 last season) but despite those paltry numbers he still earned 2.6 WAR. He can probably hit a little better than that and has good gap power (34 2B) and speed (21 SB). Kelley will now shift to RF where he's good defensively too, and
Joshua Baez will go to the bench or Durham. The price was Sponheim, a good prospect who was our #1 pick in 2027. He held his own in full-season ball last year (.260 with 13 HR) but we have a lot of prospects at 1B so he was tradable.
March 3: One of the bigger trades of the offseason went down with Houston dealing superstar SS Francisco Lindor to Minnesota for IF/OF Ian Happ and a really good CF prospect. Lindor is now 35 and did slip last year with the bat but still earned 3.5 WAR.
March 6: Some former Rays found new teams: Taylor Walls signed for $1.6 on a 1-year deal with Memphis while Brendan Rodgers signed a minor league deal with Houston and Ryan McKenna did likewise with Miami.
March 11: Fading superstar Christian Yelich signed a 1/6 deal with Baltimore after all those years in Milwaukee. He hit .236-25-73 with the Brewers last year, good for only 1.2 WAR. Meanwhile JP Crawford, who served as our backup MI last year, signed a minor league deal with San Antonio.
March 18: Some big-name veterans still looking for jobs found them today: Kyle Lewis 1/5 to the Cubs, Jeff McNeil 1/13.6 to Texas and Javier Baez 1/980K to St. Louis.
March 22: We signed some vets to minor league contracts: IFs Michael Chavis and Jorge Polanco, and P Nate Pearson. Pearson has a torn rotator cuff and won't be back until August.
March 24: We got an injury scare with
James Hays as he had to leave his spring training start but it was just a dead arm. Still it'll keep him out for a couple of weeks and he'll miss his scheduled Opening Day start. Elsewhere Joey Gallo signed a minor league deal with Boston.