Tampa Bay Rays

Catcher Jose Trevino is on his way to the Cincinnati Reds. In exchange for the 32-year-old, the Yankees received right-handed pitcher Fernando Cruz and catcher Alex Jackson, the team announced Friday. The catcher swap slots Jackson in a backup role behind starter Austin Wells, who appeared in 115 game for the Yankees in 2024. Jackson appeared in 58 games with the Tampa Bay Rays in 2024, ...

Hamilton Marx was promoted to vice president of baseball operations and strategy in the Rays' first wave of offseason front-office moves. Marx has been with the team for 10 seasons, the last four as director of baseball operations. In his new role, he also will “lead efforts to consolidate, stress-test and structure organizational pro player information,” according to a team news release on Friday. Marx joined the team as an intern in 2015 after earning a bachelor's degree in business administration from Notre Dame, working for four years as a CPA at PricewaterhouseCoopers and obtaining his MBA from Duke.

What appeared to be a done deal now appears to be in jeopardy. A new stadium for the Tampa Bay Rays continues to be surrounded by questions despite Florida officials voting to approve funding for a $1.3 billion ballpark. Earlier this week, county commissioners in Florida approved issuing more than $300 million in bonds to fund their share of the project. Under the agreement, the city and county would put up about half the cost, with the Rays covering the rest, including any cost overruns.

With the calendar year of 2024 winding down, it's time to take a look back at some of the biggest accomplishments of the year. For the Tampa Bay Rays, one of the biggest organizational accomplishments was the pure dominance of top prospect Chandler Simpson. The No. 70 overall pick in the 2022 Draft became the first Minor Leaguer to eclipse the century mark in steals since 2012 with his performance at High-A Bowling Green and Double-A Montgomery. Unlike in 2023, when Simpson tied his friend Victor Scott II atop the MiLB leaderboard with 94 each, no one was all that close to him this year.

The journey toward a forever home for the Rays began three years ago when Mayor Ken Welch took office. Or, maybe, it was 19 years ago when Wall Street investor Stuart Sternberg succeeded Vince Naimoli as the team's managing general partner. Or, if you're into origins, it might have been 38 years ago when six starry-eyed politicians voted to build a cut-rate, domed stadium in St. Pete despite having no team, no ownership group and no guarantees from Major League Baseball.

ST. PETERSBURG — Rays staff have known of Joe Boyle for a while. They scouted him during high school in Kentucky, college at Notre Dame and in the minors after the Reds made him a fifth-round pick in 2020, then traded him to the Athletics at the July 2023 deadline. But it was the six shutout innings Boyle threw against the Rays on Aug. 19 that really got them talking. “He was overpowering in ...

While the MLB is in the midst of its offseason, some New York Mets players are still seeing regular action on the field this winter. One of these players is Jose Siri, who the Mets acquired from the Tampa Bay Rays in exchange for minor league pitcher Eric Orze on November 19. Siri is currently playing games in the Dominican Republic Professional Baseball League (LIDOM), which is often referred to as the Winter League.

According to Tampa Bay Rays President of Baseball Operations Erik Neander, the team expects ace lefty Shane McClanahan to throw somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 innings this season as he returns from Tommy John surgery. When healthy, the 27-year-old is one of the best pitchers in the sport and his return should do wonders for the Rays, who finished fourth in the American League East this past season. A three-year veteran, McClanahan is already a two-time All-Star. Despite getting injured at the end of 2023, he still finished sixth in the American League Cy Young voting.

The Tampa Bay Rays signed left-handed pitcher Jake Brentz to a minor league contract on Dec. 7, according to the team's official transaction log. Brentz, 30, hasn't appeared in an MLB game since 2022. Tommy John surgery ended his season prematurely that year, while a left lat strain knocked him out down the stretch in 2023. The Rays have presumably invited Brentz to major league Spring Training camp as part of his new deal.

The Athletics continue to make moves this offseason, already bringing in Luis Severino to be the ace of the pitching staff after signing him to the richest deal in A's franchise history at three years and $67 million. This weekend they also made a deal with the Tampa Bay Rays to acquire left-hander Jeffrey Springs, giving the A's a nice one-two punch at the top of their rotation. GM David Forst spoke with the media following the deal, and said that this trade is one that the two teams have been toying with since the middle of October, but that it really gained steam over the past couple of days.

ST. PETERSBURG — Humor me, and put blame aside for a moment. For the sake of this argument, it doesn’t matter if you point the finger at the Pinellas County Commission for mucking up the stadium deal or whether you believe the Rays have been sabotaging the plan for their own purposes. The outcome is more important than the backstory, and that means there is one overriding question yet to be ...

Danny Jansen, who turns 30 in April, hit .205 with nine homers and 24 RBIs last season for Toronto and Boston, which acquired him from the Blue Jays in a July 27 trade.

Buster Posey and San Francisco officials heard over and over that the organization would benefit from Willy Adames. But one endorsement carried more weight than the rest.

The Boston Red Sox acquired catcher Carlos Narváez from the New York Yankees in exchange for minor league pitcher Elmer Rodriguez-Cruz and international signing bonus pool money.

DALLAS — The Rays added two potential big-league pitchers and lost one in Wednesday’s Rule 5 draft. They selected lefty reliever Nate Lavender from the Mets, then acquired right-handed starter Mike Vasil from the Mets in a deal facilitated by the Phillies (for cash or a player to be named later). And righty reliever Evan Reifert went to the Nationals with the No. 5 pick. Lavender, 24, is ...

The Mets lost a pair of pitching prospects -- righty Mike Vasil and lefty Nate Lavender -- in the 2024 Rule 5 Draft.

Tickets for the Tampa Bay Rays' spring training season are going on sale.

The Tampa Bay Rays saw their Tropicana Field home get ravaged by Hurricane Milton. Now a political storm threatens to derail their plans for a new ballpark too.

ELMIRA, N.Y. (WETM) – Horseheads’ Austin Teets is moving up in professiobal baseball. Teets has learned that he will be a conditioning coach for the Tampa Bay Rays Class AAA affiliate this upcoming season. Austin will report to the Durham Bulls in North Carolina and aims to bring his knowledge and expertise to a higher […]

Rather than play home games in summer humidity and rain, MLB has heavily back-loaded the Rays' schedule with road games.

If only Pat Williams were still alive. We need him now more than ever. The beloved Orlando dreamer, the sports visionary who co-founded the Magic four decades ago, told us this was going to happen years before he passed away in July. He told us that if we’d just get off our butts and get to work, we could lure the Tampa Bay Rays to Orlando. “The Rays have been trying to get a new stadium in ...