The Rays announced they’ve selected the contract of left-hander Jacob Lopez. It’s the first major league call for the 25-year-old southpaw. Tampa Bay had openings on the active and 40-man rosters after placing Wander Franco on the restricted list.
A 26th round pick by the Giants in 2018, Lopez spent just one year in the San Francisco system. At the 2019 deadline, the Giants shipped Lopez to the Rays for outfielder Joe McCarthy, who was in Triple-A at the time. The 6’4″ hurler has never gotten much attention in perennially deep Rays’ systems, but he has quietly put together a strong minor league resume. Lopez posted a 2.51 ERA in 15 appearances between High-A and Double-A two seasons ago.
2022 proved a lost season, as Lopez spent the whole year rehabbing from Tommy John surgery. He went unselected in last winter’s Rule 5 draft. Assigned back to Double-A to begin this season, Lopez picked up where he left off. He posted a 2.57 ERA through 28 innings to earn a bump to Triple-A Durham towards the end of May. Over 13 starts for the Bulls, he has allowed 2.72 earned runs per nine in spite of a hitter-friendly Triple-A environment.
Between the two affiliates, Lopez carries a 2.67 ERA across 84 1/3 frames. Working almost exclusively as a starter, he has fanned an excellent 32% of opposing hitters. His 12% walk rate is high, though it’s not uncommon to see pitchers struggle with command in the immediate aftermath of a Tommy John rehab. Lopez had walked just 7.4% of batters faced two seasons ago.
It’s unclear whether Tampa Bay will deploy him as a starter or break him into the big leagues out of the bullpen. He’ll offer a multi-inning option for skipper Kevin Cash in some respect. The Rays are in the seventh of nine straight game days, though they’ll have an off day on Thursday after their upcoming three-game set (ironically, against the Giants’ organization which originally drafted Lopez).
Franco selects Jose Baez…
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If what’s been alleged is proven true in the MLB investigation, does Franco’s contract get voided? The only body I can see as opposed to that would be the MLBPA, and what would be their angle in defending him?
Wouldn’t the MLBPA be contractually obligated to defend him if things progressed and he made a claim of Not Guilty?
I genuinely don’t know Union contract laws well enough to say. I am curious though.
I’m sure there is specific language in the contract that says whether or not the contract can be voided because of personal behavior. I think this is a huge moment for baseball though. It could completely reverse the trend of teams wanting to make huge, long-term commitments to players at such a young age.
“It could completely reverse the trend of teams wanting to make huge, long-term commitments to players at such a young age.”
I personally doubt it will have that much of an effect. For one thing, something like this could happen at any age. Felipe Vasquez, for instance, was 26 when he committed related crimes. Additionally, given the relative infrequency of something of this nature transpiring, I don’t think the potential risk would be enough to mitigate the benefit of these sorts of early contracts.
Might compel the owners to put clauses in those contracts saying they are automatically voided if you are convicted (not just accused) of such things.
@DonOsbourne If there was then Jose Reyes, Hector Olivera, Odubel Herrera, Trevor Bauer and Felipe Vazquez’s contracts would have been voiced.
Bauers still got paid, so who knows in this case.
What did Bauer was between two consenting adults….this is way different.
What Bauer did was part of a contract, it is why he isn’t a criminal.
If what Franco is doing is true, it is illegal, let’s get some facts straight.
I’m sure that depends on how long of a sentence in prison he gets.
Finally. This guy has been on fire all season. He had a sub 2 era for most of the season.
There is the Trevor Bauer precedent. Get paid from Tampa, to play ball in Japan ? Baseball has some problems, that probably won’t be appeased by putting women on it’s T.V shows. Getting involved into players lives where there is no legal basis could prove to have been a bad idea in the Bauer case. Could this be Tampa’s first misstep signing ? Stay tuned.
Pat Burell was a HUGE mistake….
By the sounds of it, it sounds like MLB is overstepping it’s bounds again. Twitter sleuths have determined that the female is over 18 now. And, the relationship they had years ago was with parental consent, allegedly when he was 17 or 18. There are no charges pending in the Dominican and no mention of even an investigation. Straight blackmail is what it sounds like.
Rays pull yesterday’s replacement for Wander from his minor league game on Saturday night. Wander attends Sunday’s game and sits in the dugout. The Rays go forward with the Wander giveaway. But if it’s just a scheduled off day, why is someone called up from the minors. If they are too shorthanded with UTL IF that they must call someone up in order to give Wander a single day off, then surely they’d also want to replace Wander’s now open spot on the 26- and 40-man with another IF and not a LHP. Starting to think it wasnt just a scheduled day off…
Truthfully what was Wander really thinking? A very frightening situation.
People aren’t reading into the full story. If absolutely 100% true the original post from in Spanish stated that Wander was involved with the girl under the presumption that she was 18. Both the Mother and Girl fooled him in an attempt extortion attempt. Wander supposedly bought the girls mom a car but was unwilling to pay her 200k and buy her a car. Which is a little fishy because sure you don’t want them to think they can extort you for the rest of your life but 200k and car doesn’t seem like a lot when 182 mill is on the line. But if true Wander did something sick but was an idiot not necessarily a predator
this was also not yesterday, he wasn’t 21 let alone 18 at this point from stories I’ve read. one story said the stopped seeing her when he turned 18 and told her he wouldn’t see her till she also turned 18
How funny that he gets called up while the Giants shuffle their outfield depth yet again. They gave up on McCarthy pretty fast after that trade. Now, Lopez is making that trade look doubly dumb.
People keep talking about “morals clauses” but I’ve never seen them invoked to void a player’s contract. And it hasn’t been because of a lack of opportunity.
Why do we have the ability to comment on this one but not reply to previous comments?
Strike that. It works now.