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Rays Win Arbitration Cases Against Colin Poche, Ryan Thompson

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The Rays have won their arbitration cases against Colin Poche and Ryan Thompson, according to Mark Feinsand of MLB.com (Twitter links here and here). Poche will be paid $1.175MM rather than the $1.3MM he filed for, while Thompson will take home $1MM in 2023 instead of $1.2MM.

Poche, 29, put up a 3.99 ERA in 58 2/3 innings for Tampa Bay last season, his first major league action since the 2019 campaign. It’s worth noting here that his ERA was sitting a lot better at 3.39 prior to a four earned run in a third of an inning outing for the Rays towards the backend of the season, an outing which saw him suffer an oblique strain that ended his season. The left-hander’s 26.1% strikeout rate in 2022 was well done from the 34.8% mark he posted in 2019.

This is Poche’s first trip through arbitration, so the Rays will also control him through the 2024-25 seasons as well.

Thompson, 30, wound up with a 3.80 ERA over 42 2/3 frames of work for the Rays last year. That was a bit of a step back from the 2.80 ERA mark he posted in 2021, and Thompson saw his strikeout rate dip by six percentage points between 2021-22. In any case, he’s established himself as a dependable member of the Rays bullpen after being taken from the Astros in the Rule 5 Draft back in 2018.

He dealt with triceps inflammation in August last year, and wound up on the injured list for the remainder of the season. This is also Thompson’s first trip through arbitration, so he’ll reach free agency in advance of the 2026 season.

Both Poche and Thompson figure to again be valuable members of the Rays’ bullpen in 2023. Poche gives them a third left handed option alongside Jalen Beeks and Garrett Cleavinger, while Thompson’s drawn an increasing amount of high-leverage work in recent seasons, and will again given them a dependable option late in games.

Requested Salary Figures For 33 Players Who Didn’t Reach Agreements By Arbitration-Filing Deadline

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January 13 was the deadline for teams and arbitration-eligible players to exchange salary figures in advance of possible hearings, and as usual, the large majority of players worked out one-year agreements (or extensions) for their 2023 salaries.  MLBTR’s Arbitration Tracker detailed these agreements, though there is still quite a bit of unfinished business, as 33 players still don’t have their deals settled, and thus their 2023 salaries could be determined by an arbiter.

Typically, arb hearings take place in February or March, yet there isn’t anything officially preventing a team from still reaching an agreement with a player up until the moment an arbiter makes their ruling.  However, most clubs employ the “file and trial” strategy as a way of putting more pressure on players to accept agreements prior to the figure-exchange deadline.  In short, once the deadline passes, teams head to hearings with no more negotiation about a one-year salary, though clubs are typically still willing to discuss multi-year extensions.

Here are the 33 players who have yet to reach an agreement on their 2023 salaries, as well as the players’ requested salary and the team’s counter-offer.  As always, clubs (and the league as a whole) pay very close attention to arbitration salaries, since any outlier of a number can serve as a precedent in the future, thus raising the bar for both one particular players and perhaps players as a whole.  This is why teams are generally adamant about the “file and trial” tactic and taking the risk of a sometimes-awkward arb hearing, even in cases where there is a relatively small gap between the club’s figure and the player’s figure.

[RELATED: Arbitration projections from MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz]

Nineteen of the 30 teams have at least one unsettled case remaining, with the Rays (by far) leading the way with seven players on pace to reach hearings.  Given that Tampa Bay entered the offseason with an enormous 19-player arbitration class, it perhaps isn’t surprising that the Rays still have a lot of work to do, even after trimming that initial class size with non-tenders and trades.  Teoscar Hernandez’s $16MM is the largest figure submitted by any of the 33 players, while Kyle Tucker and Bo Bichette have the largest gap between submitted figures, each with a $2.5MM difference between their hoped-for salaries and the numbers respectively submitted by the Astros and Blue Jays.

The total list (which will be updated as settlements are reached and hearing results become known)….

Rays Claim Bligh Madris

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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.

Rays Activate Shane McClanahan

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Sept. 15: McClanahan has formally been activated from the injured list. Fellow lefty Josh Fleming was optioned to Triple-A Durham to open a roster spot.

Sept. 14: The Rays are going to reinstate left-hander Shane McClanahan from the injured list to start tomorrow’s game against the Blue Jays, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.

McClanahan, 25, had his Cy Young-caliber season interrupted a couple of weeks ago. He was set to start against the Marlins on August 30 but felt something during his pre-game warmup and never actually made it into the game. He was placed on the 15-day injured list the next day with his injury listed as a shoulder impingement. At that time, manager Kevin Cash expressed confidence that an extended absence wouldn’t be necessary, with that assessment proving to be true as McClanahan is returning after a minimum stint.

McClanahan debuted last year with an excellent 3.43 ERA over 123 1/3 innings, though took his game to another level here in 2022, prior to the injury. He’s currently sporting an ERA of 2.20 through 147 1/3 innings this year, along with incredible strikeout, walk and groundball rates of 32.5%, 5.4% and 52.3%, respectively. He and Verlander seemed to be the frontrunners in the AL Cy Young race, though both of them went on the IL around the same time. Verlander seems poised to return this week as well, allowing that competition to continue, though the injuries have allowed others to gain ground.

If McClanahan is able to avoid any lingering effects of the injury and pick up where he left off, it will be a huge boost for the Rays. They face long odds of repeating as AL East champions since they are currently 6.5 games behind the Yankees with just three weeks left on the schedule. However, they are in the midst of a three-team melee for the Wild Card, with the Jays currently on top but only half a game ahead of the Rays and Mariners. The nearest non-playoff team, the Orioles, are five games back, making it likely that the three teams currently in playoff position will hold on. However, the final positioning will also matter, since the top seed will have home field advantage for all three games (if necessary) in the first round of the playoffs.

McClanahan will jump into the rotation next to Corey Kluber, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs, with Ryan Yarbrough likely also picking up some bulk work behind an opener. McClanahan would likely be the club’s preferred choice to take the ball in game one of a postseason series, though they will first have to worry about clinching a spot.

Elsewhere on the roster, the news on Ryan Thompson isn’t as good. Topkin relays that the right-hander is done for the season after being diagnosed with a stress reaction in his right elbow. Thompson has already been on the 15-day IL since late August but will likely be transferred to the 60-day IL once the club needs to open a roster spot. He finishes the year with a 3.80 ERA over 42 2/3 innings, along with a 21.5% strikeout rate, 6.1% walk rate and 51.2% ground ball rate.

Rays Reinstate Brooks Raley, Ryan Thompson, Transfer J.P. Feyereisen To 60-Day IL

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The Rays made a flurry of moves this afternoon following a weekend series in Toronto, reinstating left-hander Brooks Raley and right-hander Ryan Thompson from the restricted list and returning righties Phoenix Sanders and Javy Guerra to Triple-A Durham. Raley and Thompson were not allowed to enter Canada due to their vaccination status but will rejoin the team for tonight’s opener of a three-game series in Boston.

The team also recalled left-hander Josh Fleming and optioned right-hander Cristofer Ogando to clear a spot on the active roster. To make room on the 40-man roster for the recently selected Ogando, the Rays transferred J.P. Feyereisen to the 60-day IL. The move pushes the return of the high-leverage righty — who’d logged 24 1/3 innings without allowing an earned run before hitting the IL in early June —  to early August at soonest.

The return of Raley and Thompson will come as something of a relief to a bullpen that covered 17 innings over the course of winning three of four in Toronto, including three innings by Sanders, one by Guerra, and two by Ogando (per Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, manager Kevin Cash even joked that Raley and Thompson might go a combined 9 innings in their return). While Thompson has struggled to a 5.33 ERA (4.62 FIP) across 25 1/3 innings so far this season, the 34-year-old Raley has been something of a revelation in 2022, posting a sparkling 2.22 ERA (2.09 FIP) behind an elevated strikeout rate (31.7% against 27.2% for his career) and improved walk rate (7.9% against 8.6%).

Rays Announce Several Roster Moves

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The Rays have selected the contract of right-hander Javy Guerra and recalled righty Phoenix Sanders from Triple-A Durham, per a team announcement. They’ll take the roster spots of left-hander Brooks Raley and righty Ryan Thompson, who have been placed on the restricted list in advance of the Rays’ road series in Toronto.

Tampa Bay also announced that left-hander Jeffrey Springs, who had been slated to start tonight’s game in Toronto, has been scratched and placed on the family medical emergency list. Matt Wisler is instead serving as an opener tonight, and lefty Ryan Yarbrough has been recalled from Triple-A in his place. He’ll be an option to work the bulk of tonight’s innings behind Wisler.

This will be the second stint of the season for Guerra with the Rays. Once a top shortstop prospect with Boston, Guerra moved to the mound during his time in the Padres’ minor league system and has since had brief big league stints as a reliever with Friars and Rays. He pitched 7 1/3 innings for Tampa Bay earlier this season but was rocked for nine runs on 11 hits and four walks with four strikeouts during that brief spell.

Guerra, however, has been lights-out in Triple-A, where he owns a 1.29 ERA with a huge 32.1% strikeout rate against an 8.3% walk rate in 21 innings this season. Half the balls put in play against him have been grounders, and although Guerra served up three long balls in the Majors earlier this season, he’s yet to yield a round-tripper with Durham. While he’s being selected to the roster out of necessity at the moment, it’s hard to argue that he hasn’t earned another look anyhow with that standout performance.

The 27-year-old Sanders made his MLB debut with the Rays earlier this year and has pitched well both in the big leagues (1.80 ERA in 10 frames) and in Durham (3.38 ERA in 18 2/3 innings). The Rays’ 2017 tenth-round pick, Sanders only had his contract selected to the Majors this season, so he’s in the first of what can be three minor league option years for Tampa Bay.

Yarbrough, 30, was the Rays’ innings leader from 2019-21 but has seen his results trend in the wrong direction dating back to the 2021 season. He was optioned for the first time in three years earlier this season and has since pitched 19 innings of 4.74 ERA ball in Durham. He won’t have an easy task, returning to face a righty-heavy Blue Jays lineup at the hitter-friendly Rogers Centre, but an impressive showing could help him to pitch his way back into the big league plans.

Rays’ Ryan Thompson To Undergo Thoracic Outlet Surgery

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Rays reliever Ryan Thompson will undergo surgery to address thoracic outlet syndrome, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). That’ll officially end his 2021 season, although the team expects he’ll be ready for Opening Day 2022.

Thompson hasn’t made a big league appearance since June 27, when he landed on the injured list with what the team initially termed shoulder inflammation. He embarked upon a minor league rehab assignment in mid-August but apparently continued to deal with issues that’ll require surgical repair. He’s already on the 60-day injured list, so today’s development won’t affect the Rays’ roster situation.

Thoracic outlet syndrome has become increasingly commonplace in recent years, although the track record of pitchers recovering from the procedure remains mixed. A few hurlers (most prominently Matt Harvey and Thompson’s teammate Chris Archer) continued to deal with injuries and/or ineffectiveness upon returning from TOS surgery. That’s not a universal fate, though. Diamondbacks right-hander Merrill Kelly, for instance, underwent thoracic outlet surgery last September but returned to open this season in the Arizona rotation. Aside from a battle with COVID-19, Kelly has remained healthy all season and has settled back in at his general level of 2019-20 performance.

Thompson’s not a household name to many fans around the league, but he’s been part of an under-the-radar yet highly productive Rays’ relief corps. The sidearming righty made his big league debut last season and quickly emerged as one of Tampa Bay’s higher-leverage bullpen options. He owns a 3.28 ERA over 60 1/3 MLB innings with average or better strikeout (24.2%), walk (6.9%) and ground-ball (53.6%) numbers.

Rays To Recall David Robertson

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The Rays are planning to recall veteran reliever David Robertson to the big league roster before tomorrow evening’s game against the Red Sox, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times (Twitter link). Active rosters expand from 26 to 28 players tomorrow, so no corresponding move is necessary.

It’ll be Robertson’s first big league action since April 2019. The veteran righty suffered a UCL tear that spring, eventually requiring a Tommy John surgery that wiped out both the rest of that season and his entire 2020 campaign. Robertson tossed a couple showcases over the offseason but ultimately didn’t sign over the winter.

Instead, Robertson was among the handful of longtime big leaguers to join the U.S. National team for this year’s Summer Olympics. He showed well enough there to land a major league contract with Tampa Bay, although he agreed to a temporary assignment to Triple-A Durham to build up arm strength. Robertson has been stellar with the Bulls, tossing six scoreless innings with twelve strikeouts and a lone walk issued.

While it has been almost three years since Robertson was healthy, he was one of the league’s most durable and productive relievers for much of his tenures with the Yankees and White Sox. The 36-year-old owns a 2.90 ERA over 663 2/3 big league innings, and he tossed 60+ innings with a sub-4.00 ERA in every season from 2010-18.

Anything resembling that level of production would be key for a Rays’ bullpen that has dealt with myriad health issues this season.  While Robertson will step in as an option for manager Kevin Cash, it seems Tampa Bay can’t count on immediate contributions from either Ryan Thompson or Oliver Drake.

Thompson, who has been out since June 30 with shoulder inflammation, continues to feel soreness and isn’t expected to begin throwing any time soon, manager Kevin Cash told Topkin. Drake, meanwhile, isn’t expected to pitch this season, according to Cash. Drake has been plagued by a flexor strain since last October; he was expected to begin a rehab assignment in July but apparently suffered some form of setback. Both players are already on the 60-day injured list.

Rays Select Dietrich Enns

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The Rays announced they’ve selected the contract of left-hander Dietrich Enns. Righty Chris Mazza was optioned to Triple-A Durham to open active roster space, while fellow righty Ryan Thompson was transferred from the 10-day to the 60-day injured list to clear a 40-man roster spot.

Tampa Bay signed Enns out of independent ball last August, and he’s now in line to make his team debut a little less than a year later. The 30-year-old has two career big league appearances under his belt, both of them with the 2017 Twins. He bounced between a couple affiliated organizations and independent teams before landing with the Rays.

Assigned to Triple-A Durham, Enns pitched his way back to the big leagues for the first time in four years with a very strong season. He’s made fourteen appearances (ten starts), totaling 59 innings of 2.44 ERA ball. Enns’ peripherals back up the elite run prevention, as he’s punched out a whopping 32.3% of batters faced against a tiny 6.5% walk rate. Those numbers are even more impressive when considered against the league’s hitter-friendly environment. Enns ranks 3rd in ERA, fourth in strikeout rate, and third in strikeout/walk rate differential among the 49 Triple-A East pitchers with 50+ innings pitched this season.

Thompson landed on the IL with right shoulder inflammation on June 30. He’ll miss at least sixty days from the date of that original placement, meaning he can’t return to the majors until the end of this month. The sidearming reliever has quietly worked to a 2.38 ERA/3.17 SIERA across 34 innings this season.

Rays Place Ryan Thompson On 10-Day Injured List, Recall Ryan Sherriff

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The Rays announced a pair of corresponding roster moves, with Ryan Thompson heading for the 10-day injured list because of right shoulder inflammation and Ryan Sherriff returning from Triple-A.

Thompson’s IL placement is retroactive to June 28th, the day after his last appearance. That outing was Thompson’s first in 36 appearances this year in which he allowed multiple earned runs. On the whole, the 29-year-old right-hander has been stellar with a 2.38 ERA/3.09 FIP in 34 innings.

The Rays are very familiar with Sherriff, who has been up and down the past two seasons, though with limited mound work. Including his four outings this season, Sherriff has 14 appearances covering 13 innings for Tampa since 2020. He allowed just one earned run on 11 hits and three walks while striking out five. Though he’s typically been unhittable against lefties, same-handed hitters have gone 3-for-6 with a walk against him this season.

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