The Rays have acquired right-hander Ty Cummings from the Mariners as the player to be named later in the July trade that send outfielder Randy Arozarena to Seattle, per announcements from both clubs. The righty wasn’t on Seattle’s 40-man roster and won’t need to be added to Tampa’s.
The Mariners were leading the American League West for much of the first half of 2024 but were fading in the summer as their offense disappeared. They attempted to revive their lineup at the deadline by acquiring Justin Turner from the Blue Jays and Arozarena from the Rays. In the deal with Tampa, the M’s parted with prospects Aidan Smith, Brody Hopkins and a player to be named later, who has now been revealed as Cummings.
Both Turner and Arozarena hit well for the M’s but the club still fell shy of the postseason. They still have a chance to recoup some value on the Arozarena deal going forward as he can be retained for two more seasons. He made $8.1MM in 2024 and will be due two more raises in the forthcoming campaigns. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects him for a salary of $11.7MM in 2025.
Cummings, 23 next month, was selected by the Mariners in the seventh round of the 2023 draft. Taken out of Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina, he signed for a $225K bonus. He made his professional debut this year, making 25 starts for High-A Everett. In his 116 2/3 innings for the AquaSox, he allowed 4.17 earned runs per nine. He struck out 24.7% of batters faced, walked 9.2% of them and got opponents to hit the ball on the ground at a 50.3% clip.
Back in July, Eric Longenhagen of FanGraphs published his list of the top 34 prospects in the Mariners’ system. Cummings wasn’t one of those 34 but got an honorable mention as Longenhagen described him as a potential depth starter.
I really felt like he was gonna be that TBD guy. He’s a good prospect and the Rays will continue his development
Was really hoping my O’s could buy low on him…
I really thought it was gonna be that other guy.
This is a great trade for Tampa-coming from an M’s fan. Aidan Smith will be a Top 75 prospect by next year and Cummings and Hopkins have solid mid rotation potential.
At the time this trade looked horrible but it has aged quite well in the small sample size. Randy struggled and Aidan Smith has shown serious top 100 potential since coming over.
The trade is only 2 months old… anyone who was paying attention knew it wasn’t horrible
Rays always gonna ray, its crazy
The worlds foremost baseball expert said this at the time.
“B for Tampa. About as good as they could do. I got Smith at 50 and plus. Want to move him to 55 so bad but need to see a bit more. 5 tool player. Good chance to stick in center and at worse is plus plus in a corner. Hopkins I have at 45 plus. All comes down to control. If he finds it he is a easy 50. Plenty of time to develop. Does have reliever risk but again lots of time. Good trade to reload the farm up.”
Well, you can’t blame us for wanting established players in exchange for the current face of our franchise. And until at least one of these prospects turns out well, it will be a bad trade because Arozarena brought fans and excitement to the team. As much as he struggled at the plate this year, he single handedly got us to the WS in 2020. If we trade someone like him we want someone who can actually impact the immediate team and not someone 3 years away. And let’s be honest, how many of these Rays highly touted prospect not named Wander actually performed at a high level in the bigs? There is a problem within the system that excels guys at lower levels and then can’t hit anything in the MLB. So until any of these guys ends up being very productive, I think it’s pretty awful. But if one or all of these guys end up hitting .275 or throwing an ERA around 3.00 then I’ll eat my words.
Arozarena didn’t struggle. He had a 118 wRC+ over the two months with Seattle.
Arozarena hit about .223 in the 2 months with Seattle with 4 hrs and less than .400 slugging. Not my definition of a good trade.
He’s a consistent 3 WAR player. This year he had an ice cold April/May which put him at nearly a negative 1 WAR. However, from June on he bounced back and accumulated 3 WAR. If he can be a 3 WAR player again next year he’s a value at $11.5M and then his last year of arb at around $15M. Jorge Soler, who is a worse hitter, fielder and base runner, got an AAV of $14M last year on a three year deal. In other words, Arozarena is very unlikely to be a non-tender candidate.
@alwaysgo4two- Then you’re failing to contextualize those numbers. Offense is down across the board. His numbers with Seattle were well above-average offensively, both by OPS+ and wRC+. That says less about Arozarena and more about the state of baseball.
@Travis- Small sample size–and not saying it’ll continue–but he’s actually played decent D since coming over. I’m not saying he’s a good defender, but the fact that he had a higher WAR in 54 games in Seattle than 100 games in Tampa this season wasn’t a mirage, both offensively and defensively.
@alwaysgo4two. And he was HBP 11 times in Seattle the same as when he was with the Rays but in like 1/2 the plate appearances. That did some heavy lifting getting that OBP high. He was not very good in Seattle. People shouldn’t try convince themselves, and just hope he rebounds in 2025.
Has the WAR theorem ever been tested? Do teams with the highest cumulative WAR win the most games?
A 2009 study found that a team’s projected record based on fWAR had a strong correlation to their actual record. blogs.fangraphs.com/war-it-works/
Not an exact science, but a good indicator
Thank you Wark! I tried a couple of wordings to search it and didn’t find what I was looking for.
Might be worthwhile for someone else to do another take on this WAR analysis, given that Cameron was once a blogger and now works for the Mariners in pro player acquistion to decide which players to get… like Arozarena.
Arozarena’s (career wRC+ of 124) best comparison is Teoscar Hernandez (career wRC+ 120) who just was on $23M last year…. Jorge Soler, as a worse defender and bat, got a 3yr/$42M deal. Arozarena at $15M for his last arbitration year is beyond reasonable. Now do I want to be the team that gives a 4yr/$80M when he hits free agency, probably not, but that’s not a concern for two years (in the mean time a $11.5M year and a $15M year will be very valuable years).
Randy is a streaky hitter. He is going to flourish with Mottola not influencing his swing, and the pitchers the Rays got will just end up getting Tommy John from creating too much spin rate. All because $ternberg won’t pay players what they deserve. Sell the team!!!
I doubt there were many blue chip offers for a player whose performance was sliding downwards and was getting paid a lot through arbitration. I’m assuming they sold low because they were having an off year and the GM was instructed to offload the salary.
Rumors were that it was going to be Johnny Farmelo as the PTBNL, which would have been a huge get for the Rays. Glad the M’s held onto him as they can probably use him to get another decent bat this winter.
No way that was the TBD guy at any point
People way overestimate who the PTBNL will be. They are practically NEVER top 30 prospects, let alone top 10 prospects. Farmelo likely wouldn’t have been traded 1-for-1 let alone at the PTBNL.
There were no rumors of Farmelo, just fans speculating here, in the comment section.
I feel the Rays will have gotten fleeced in this one in a few years. They trade a power/speed guy who yeah, might be a streaky hitter, but is the face of the franchise and a 30/30 potential guy every year, and they can’t even get Hancock or Woo for him?!!
They normally DO the fleecing
I feel with some of the recent top front office guys leaving and pitchers blowing their arms out cause of overreliance on spin rate that the days of winning 75% of the trades are coming back to earth. Spend some money $ternberg!!!!
@oldpaso. They normally do plus they always flip for younger alternatives. Can’t believe the guy was suggesting woo or Hancock for someone that had a bad year and hit .219
Come back next year when Randy goes .275 Average, 35 HRs, 35 SBS, and wins MVP and both of the knuckleheads that TB got for him blow out their arms trying to impress Kevin Cash and Kyle Snyder with their spin rates. Woo or Hancock may seem a bit low right now, but Randy is going to have a bounce back year.
@karensjer just going off the rays track record they normally don’t miss on trades. I’ll eat crow if randy has that type of year. Just say if dipoto traded woo he would’ve been fired
We’ve gotta stop acting like the Rays are infallible. They lose trades more than people will admit. They lost on the Pham/Cronenworth trade BIG TIME. That was one of those most lopsided trades in recent history. Then they kept Xavier Edwards around from that trade and finally moved him and he breaks out majorly in Miami. They also got Zilch out of the Snell and Longoria trades.
Woo? He would be worth way more than Arozarena
I’m surprised they didn’t squeeze a little more out of the Mariners, but not Hancock or Woo. Hancock would have been selling really low, there’s still a reasonable chance he’s a solid cost controlled #4 going forward despite his struggles to date and they were not going to trade Woo who has been an above average starter and is still pre-arbitration for a couple more years.
Hancock has less than a reasonable chance of becoming a #4 starter. But hey, he is cost controlled!
You can’t get fleeced when you aquire good young talent for a aging, getting more expensive, nearing free agency, good not great player in a year you aren’t contending. Prospects are a numbers game. They could sign someone close enough in talent. They won’t because they don’t want to spend $ but arbitration cost $ as well. Randy isn’t anything special. Even if he was they tried to extend him and he wasn’t interested at their price. Extend or trade.
Aging???Arozarena age is typical for most players hitting their prime, but OK.
30 and 31 year seasons is hitting their prime?
For most hitters, yes it is.
This guy should have the number one selling jersey in MLB
I wrote his name in a comment and got automatically flagged for it…LOL
Same. That’s why I had to write this guy.
Good K and BB rates, tons of ground balls, and now in the pitching factory in Tampa Bay.
Yep. We all know the Mariners don’t develop pitching….
Good call.
Mariners and Guardians are also pitching labs.
I should’ve said I can see why TB likes this kid.
This trade for the Rays will likely come down to if Aiden Smith continues his development. I had him as right around 10th for the M’s and an emerging top 100 prospect, so the Rays definitely got a real piece. The M’s just have Julio set in CF and Farmelo and Montes as their main OF prospects which made Smith a bit more expendable to help the team now and over the next two years.
Cummings will be enjoy his time in Tampa’s AAA when he gets there. His hometown of Clayton is less than an hour from Durham…
Why is this comment awaiting moderation? What the heck? Is it his last name? Lol…
Normally you have to go to thailand for that
Ty is Commings to America
One man’s Commings is another man’s Goings
Mets would have to win the world series for this to happen. What if the Mariners traded Randy Arozarena to the Mets and the Mariners get Winker back plus cash for Soto.
Mets would basically be saying “Show me that smile again.”