The Rays are adding top left-handed pitching prospect Shane McClanahan to their postseason roster, tweets Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. They’ll need to make a 40-man roster move to formally select the 2018 first-rounder’s contract.
McClanahan, 23, was selected with the No. 31 overall pick out of the University of South Florida. He split the 2019 season across three levels — Class-A, Class-A Advanced and Double-A — while pitching to a combined 3.36 ERA with 11.5 K/9, 3.4 BB/9 and 0.52 HR/9. He currently ranks 79th on Baseball America’s end-of-season Top 100 prospect rankings and 99th at MLB.com. FanGraphs isn’t quite as bullish, listing him 10th within his own organization.
Armed with an upper-90s heater, a plus breaking ball and a potentially average changeup, McClanahan has the potential to eventually slot into the Rays’ rotation. That almost certainly won’t be his role this postseason, as he’ll likely instead give Kevin Cash a hard-throwing lefty with whom opposing advance scouts may not be especially familiar. MLB.com’s report on McClanahan gives him the upside of a No. 3 starter or better while noting that the effort in his delivery gives some scouts pause in projecting him as a starter. Even if the ’pen is his home in the long run, McClanahan’s power fastball and plus curve give him the tools to serve as a formidable relief weapon with Tampa Bay.
McClanahan won’t gain any big league service time for the days spent on the Rays’ postseason roster, but he’ll be added to the 40-man roster sooner than was necessary to protect him from the Rule 5 Draft and now firmly put himself in position for a big league opportunity early in the 2021 campaign. The Rays may still want to see McClanahan get some work in Triple-A next season, but a strong showing during a deep postseason run could also force the organization’s hand.
I know this is off topic but I’m surprised there’s no mention of Jay Johnstone’s passing. The NY Post did a great article about it.
Jay Johnstone was the first autograph I got – 1976 when he was on the Phillies. He took my scorecard and signed it in a very large looping signature right in the middle where you keep score. I guess you can say I had the honor of being pranked by him. Mom laughed when she saw it and gave me a couple dimes to buy another scorecard.
Thanks for mentioning, I hadn’t heard, great article.
“Johnstone once replaced the celebrity photos in the office of Dodgers manager Tom Lasorda with pictures of himself, Jerry Reuss and Don Stanhouse. He locked Lasorda in his office during spring training.”
McClanahan really caught Cash’s eye during Spring/Camp, and that he was added to the 40 a year ahead of time is significant, especially for the Rays. Snell’s due a lot of money next year; Yarborough is Arbitration eligible. The Rays have a gazillion arbitration cases coming this winter, so……
I see some people getting sent off quickly after the season ends
This year, the annual cries of “poor mouth” are legit. No fannies in the seats, and likely very little, if any, Revenue Sharing. The big boys can eat the bullet and get even later. The small guys can’t.
Zunnino, Renfroe (and others) are no-brainers. They’ll beg somebody to take KK, and likely listen very seriously on Snell, especially considering the late season emergence of Flemming.
I expect them to go very deep in the playoffs; how deep? Who knows, at some point it becomes a dice roll. But between finances and some 40-man issues, they’ll have a busy winter.
You can add Ji-man, Oliver drake and probably Chaz Roe to the list of non tenders.
Ya. Nate Lowe will give you what Choi does (minus the comedy), and bullpen arms are , for the Rays, what they are…Kyle Snyder turns BIG SEXY into a closer.
Margot’s a real option; Arozorena is at least the same guy, probably better. And Wendle’s any baseball purist favorite player, but small market teams can’t afford what amounts to be a high priced (in Rays currencies) backup.
Of course some of those guys are trade-able, so they’ll try to go that route. And it wouldn’t shock me to see them pair Snell with KK and send them to some team that can afford them; Giant fans, are you listening?
MMM…Joey Bart, for a team that really doesn’t have a catcher…..And because of KK’s bloated salary, the return won’t be much more.
LOL. the rays are gonna trade a TOR arm on 10m aav yeah right, highest paid player getting moved is Kiermaier and thats it. Put that in your pipe and smoke it
WANDER FRANCO IS NEXT!!!!