The Rays announced Friday that they’ve claimed first baseman/outfielder Bligh Madris off waivers from the Pirates. He’s been optioned to Triple-A Durham. In order to open a spot on the 40-man roster, Tampa Bay transferred right-hander Ryan Thompson to the 60-day injured list due to triceps inflammation.
Madris, 26, made his big league debut with Pittsburgh earlier this season, appearing in 39 games but stumbling to a .177/.244/.265 batting line through his first 123 Major League plate appearances. The lefty-swinging Madris, however, has been far better in Triple-A Indianapolis, where he’s posted a .294/.366/.482 batting line in 2022 (124 wRC+). Because he was just selected to the 40-man roster this season, Madris has two option years remaining beyond the current campaign.
Beyond veteran David Peralta, the Rays’ outfield mix is primarily right-handed at the moment. Each of Jose Siri, Manuel Margot and Randy Arozarena swing from the right side of the dish. Tampa Bay has given left-handed-hitting infielder Jonathan Aranda a handful of looks in left field at the minor league level this season, but he’s yet to play the outfield in the Majors. Madris won’t be dropped directly into that mix just yet, but he’s posted a decent .261/.336/.449 against righties this season, so perhaps he’ll get a look as a platoon option at some point before season’s end. He won’t be eligible for any postseason consideration, however, as he wasn’t in the organization prior to Sept. 1.
As for Thompson, he only went on the injured list in late August, so today’s move to the 60-day IL formally ends his season. A Rule 5 pick out of the Astros organization back in 2018, Thompson has risen to be an important member of the Rays’ bullpen. He’s tossed 42 2/3 innings of 3.80 ERA ball this year and, dating back to 2021, carries an overall 3.17 ERA with a 24.1% strikeout rate 6.3% walk rate and 50% ground-ball rate in 76 2/3 innings of relief work. He’s picked up 21 holds and three saves in that time, drawing high-leverage work with increasing frequency.
Thompson will be arbitration-eligible for the first time this winter. The Rays can control him through the 2025 season, but he can now be officially ruled out for the remainder of the current season and for any postseason games Tampa Bay might play.
Congratulations to Idiot_Wind for predicting the Rays would claim Madris! Now for the full prediction to be correct, Madris MUST bat 4th in the Rays lineup
He’s going to turn into Mike Trout now
You mean like Wang did?
You mean like Chang did?
Yu Wang lmao
You Wong
That is borderline racist sounding you might want to delete it.
So how exactly do the Rays have a 62 man roster when the rest of MLB operates with just a 40-man?
They look at all the other rosters as a baseball player buffet. Hmmmm…..this looks good, lemme try. Naaa….lemme try THIS….
That’s what happens when you have 97 players on the IL
Someone predicted this can’t remember who
Wow…..Christmas came early for Madris. To go from a 100 loss team to the playoff bound Rays.
I’m sure he’ll have a great time playing for the playoff-bound Durham Bulls.
Crash Davis did.
Yeah, but Susan Sarandon is a lot older now. Probably not as great.
Susan Sarandon is an American treasure, I’m sure she aged just fine.
@chupa- he must have had a great time as he was the MVP of the AAA championship for Durham
We’ve seen year 1 of the Pirates youth movement here. Lots of potential but sorry, no reason to get excited yet. They got rid of literally all castoffs save for Gamel and Heinemann. I applaud that
Not that I was a big fan of Madris —he had some real difficulty in the majors to be sure— but too early to give up on young players, especially when there really hasn’t been anyone in a corner OF spot or at 1st who looks like the real deal
Correction
Year 2 of the perpetual rebuild mode that included numerous prospects
Cruz is 23
Suwinsky is 22
Hayes is 25
There’s not one player under 22, hardly considered “ youth”
You don’t consider under 27 “youth”
Dude prospects don’t reach majors till 23 24 range typically. Rarely do you get 20 21 22.
They are youthful and going to progress ..you can’t be judged in 200 at bats. The man 3 is just a grump
On the contrary, I think that like many of us, The Man 3 threw away his rose colored glasses a long time ago
Look, I hope you’re right. I hope the promise seem in these kids comes to fruition
But some of us go back eons
This is an organization that has a rich history in developing players dating back decades but more recently, in guys like Bonds, Cutch, Walker, Marte
Sorry. Don’t see any of those types here yet
I’m 67…I date back to 1965. You can’t judge these guys after a half season ..200 at bats. There are very low batting averages this year among big names ..if these youngsters struggle next year, then you can complain ..as of now I see potential in most of the young guys. Look at Keller, he’s turned it around. Patience is a virtue
I agree, patience is a virtue. Cruz is a stud and his hitting will get better. My big concern is leaving him at shortstop. Lots of errors, missed communications, turns the wrong way at times, etc. Remember, pitching and defense wins championships. Superb defense up the middle is a must.
Bubba- You are a veritable young man compared to some of us.I think that what really concerns me is the number of strikeouts that these guys make.They take too many fastballs right down the middle of the plate and start walking to the dugout before the umpire calls the strike.They swing at the same type of low sliders that they are not going to hit anyway but should let go even if some of them will be strikes.I doubt that guys like Cruz and Castro are disciplined enough to ever learn,and have little or no confidence that they are being coached properly.They keep on getting away with the same type of mental errors.They should have been coached better in the minors but I had hoped that that failing had left with NH but I am not confident that it has.
On the other hand I do see some talent there and some of these guys do have potential to become fairly good hitters.
Long time Pirate fans have heard this too many times before though.
I will say though that several of the pitchers have made strides and may be able to blossom next year in time to be traded for,you guessed it,more prospects.
Know-I do think that they are going to let Cruz do what he wants to do as he is getting so much hype with so many strikeouts it is pathetic.
As much as a problem as the hitting has been their defense has not been any better and Cruz and Castro make too many errors.
I just hope that they both become disciplined and smart hitters as they both have the physical potential to become very good ML hitters.
I’m a little taken aback by Buuba’s thoughts here and see both sides of the coin. Granted, there aren’t a lot of guys like Bonds or Cutch who arrive at the major league level and have an immediate presence. Sure. But since this is a franchise with a storied history of players developing in their minor league system and arriving ready to contribute—and yeah, I go back to the Forbes Field era, as well—maybe we are a bit spoiled in terms of just what “mlb-ready” means
This particular group of players have been continually touted as a group of kids who will have the Pirates once again contending by ‘24 or ‘25.
In watching this team game in and game out, that’s hard to envision. Now you’re advising to wait a while before “complaining”
Ok. Let’s hope there is some hitting coach here that will help with plate discipline, with approach, with understanding of the count and pitcher strategy, with spin pitch recognition
Let’s hope there’s a pitching coach that can preach all corners of the strike zone and waste pitches when up in the count. Someone who understands that continually pounding dead red at this level will spell doom
You see, I’m not sure there is anyone actually “teaching “ when it’s the same story, game in and game out
The point about Keller is amusing. He’s looking a lot like the prototypical Pirates pitcher. That is, he will go to another team, get a good pitching coach, and become a big winner
But yes, patience. More patience. Right.
a grump that doesn’t buy the lies this team’s upper management sells to their gullible fans
Tired- I think that the Pirates have to hype their prospects because they may or may not actually turn out to be good.And we all have to be aware of what it means for them to be competitive.Look at the last three WS winning Pirate teams.They each had maybe three superstars each.They needed them all to win the WS.Is it fair to expect that these guys will become superstars two to three years after coming up so that the team has a three year window of contention?
I think that the problem with Nutting has been that he has not signed enough mid level free agents to augment the team to keep it from being horrid.He also has dumped players like Marte and Bell for pennies on the dollar because they would not be in contention and they wanted to save money.
With all due respect the storied history of producing good players was mostly when you and I were young men.
I think that all small market teams have to be content with having winning teams and contending for the playoffs.That is the ceiling.I think that with this team they will have the capacity to be good within two years.
But by that they will win 85 games.And being horrid for three and a half years will not have been worth it.
Right on target, @MendozaLine. You have the right take. But I think @mariocrosby nailed it (below) with his line. “The Pirates are perpetually two years away from being two years away”. For long suffering fans, that’s a hard truth if there ever was one
Tired-It really depends on what “away” means.If it means from having a winning a record,then it may very well be true.The plan under NH was to sign young players to contracts to extend control or trade soon to be free agents for near ready or young ML players.They basically achieved mediocrity through this plan except for the one three year long period.
Small market teams have an extremely small chance of winning a WS,but they potentially can at least win the pennant as the Guardians( née Indians),Rays,and Royals have done.Other small market teams have been successful in having winning seasons,but they cannot buy WS wins like the large market teams do.
BC was supposed to have an eye for talent,and supposedly built a good teaching system.But the lack of fundamentals of some of these players lead me to be concerned about that.
I think that we have to be satisfied with reaching an 85 win season within a few years and have three good healthy starters and hope for the best.
You had me until that last line
“Youth movement” essentially meant, bringing the minor league prospects up to play
That said, my point was that I don’t think Madris has looked any worse than the kids who’ve made it here. But apparently, the purveyors of player development saw no upside with him.
My cousin Vinny considers them a very yuteful team.
Madris is 26 and wasn’t a prospect at this point
Tired-Madris was fine for the first ten games then went downhill then cratered at 0-26.I thought that he looked fairly good though although the results did not indicate it and the ML pitchers did get to him but he deserved other chances like Mitchell and Suwinski have gotten.I do not think that one time up is enough to prove that they are bad although his overall results were horrid.I personally think that Hoy Park should have been the next one to get released.
Garr!
This is going to be as tragic as that time the Pirates let John Nogowski get away.
Or Yoshi or Chang
Rays could find something from him maybe. All he knows is bucco stench so far
I’m guessing the Rays think he can play another position? The dude’s minor slash looks like a solid 2b, no chance that plays in RF or 1B.
Unless the crazy jump in slugging this year is legit. Which I will declares right now, is not.
The Pirates are perpetually two years away from being two years away. But Nutting has a lot of history to work with to sell gullible fans who buy in to his carnival act.
Nice. Now Bligh will be able to have a career.
The Bucs will regret letting Madris go. He was hitting the ball pretty well against right handers, but always right into the shift for outs. He will be a good platoon bat when the shift is limited next year.
OBP-Good point.It is always a potential problem with releasing young players too soon.Maybe you were smarter than BC in pointing this out.There will be a roster crunch,and he will probably have to make some tough decisions.There is really not much left to this season,but the more experience that the young players get the more information BC will have in making those decisions.
the team last night broke the franchise record for strikeouts, Cruz whiffing on 4 consecutive ABs
Haines and Shelton must be proud
And again, Wilson decides to throw a dead red fastball after working around Vogelbach for a 3-run homer
Is there any learning happening here at all?
Escobar historically creamates Pirates pitching, something the coaching staff might have reminded Wilson of. And up to that pitch, Wilson had already given up 18 home runs in 96 innings
Failed pitching coach, hitting coach and manager
Stout should have been DFAed not Peters