Rays & Reds
Submitted by: ShaquilleOatmeal
Rays
| Name | Age | Level | P1 | P2 | Availability | Years | AFV | Salary | Surplus | Low | Median | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Will Benson | 27 | Majors | OF | Medium | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| Matt McLain | 25 | Majors | 2B | 4 | 29.4 | 19.3 | 10.2 | 8.1 | 10.2 | 12.2 |
Total Value:
10.2
Reds
| Name | Age | Level | P1 | P2 | Availability | Years | AFV | Salary | Surplus | Low | Median | High |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yandy Diaz | 33 | Majors | 1B | Medium | 2 | 30.7 | 26 | 4.7 | 3.8 | 4.7 | 5.7 | |
| Josh Lowe | 27 | Majors | OF | Low | 3 | 13.3 | 9.1 | 4.2 | 3.4 | 4.2 | 5 |
Total Value:
8.9
Comments
8
Josh Lowe is getting traded or non-tendered. This is a bit of a challenge trade for both sides. Lowe has more longterm upside than Benson, but I believe Benson to be the better player next year. Benson has very loud tools, but poor skills. The Rays would deploy McClain at SS, 2b, and CF.
Ugh…. I really don’t know what to think about the Rays upcoming offseason. Try to make the playoffs next year (ROFL) or go all in on a rebuild (probably the smart thing to do but hard to see happening with new owners). Lowe has had 2 bad years. Do the Rays sell low (or would this be selling “high”)? McLain doesn’t excite me all that much. DRS hates his defense and I hate no-bat all defense players where the defensive stats aren’t in agreement on. Benson isn’t even valued by BTV, which probably means they expect a nontender. Rays have enough 4th/5th/6th outfielders. Not sure I want another (actually I don’t). So at the end of the day, I guess I’m ok with moving on from Lowe but this return doesn’t work for me (for the Rays), particularly with Yandy part of the trade.
Fair points. I think Josh Lowe is a non-tender. His career is in jeopardy. He went from building block to bounce back candidate to really bad at everything in a 3 year span. Had a .583 OPS after the break. Doesn't even have bat speed to fall back on anymore. https://i.ibb.co/4ns6szjL/Lowe-comparison.png
There's a link at the end of that. Open it and you will see why I believe JLowe should be nontendered. That's a clear progression.
NEWSLETTER? SURE, SIGN ME UP!
Benson has elite speed, and has metrics similar to Morel when the Rays acquired him. Morel has been a fuckin disaster, but we aren't giving up 4 years of an all-star to get Benson. Benson's xwOBA ranked 46th in all of baseball with a minimum of 250 PA (Benson .363 xwOBA, Yandy .364 xwOBA, Caminero .356 xwOBA). Benson's average exit velocity is 25th in baseball at 92.4 MPH avg exit velo (tied with Caminero). His hard hit % is 53.6 %, ranked 15th in all of baseball, slightly below Aranda and slightly above Yandy. He just keeps popping up as elite in all the predictive metrics. He's even got a great arm. I would trade Yandy and JLowe straight up for him. McLain is a major buy Lowe candidate in what I predict will be a tear down and rebuild year. I'm hoping he was still suffering from missing all of 2024 with injury. If he rebounds, we get an above average util for 4 years. If he doesn't rebound, there's always a market for SS when Carson is ready. Like you, I have a lot of thoughts on next season. I'm ready to sell all vets, because our minors are a dumpster fire, and our MLB team fizzled at the end of 2023, we ran it back in 2024 and fizzled much of the year, and then ran it back again with the same team in 2025. Now we're stuck with a top 10 pick. If we're picking top 10 again in 2026, we better not do it with like 20 arb eligible guys and a half dozen 30 year olds..
Ok, you have convinced me to take a run at Benson. We aren’t getting him for zero though, and I don’t want to spend much to get him. After all, the underlying stats don’t always result in good topline stats. Morel is the perfect example there. As for the Rays, I will admit that I am genuinely concerned by their recent failures (ie: it’s more than “everyone has a bad trade or draft”). I want to believe that they deviated from their normal Rays Way methods because Stu wanted the best product on the field while he negotiated for a stadium and then again when he realized he was going to be forced to sell the team. However, that doesn’t explain the bad draft classes, trading Paredes, or some really bad returns for players I expected to see traded (e.g., Caballero). Giving Neander a top 10 draft pick has me all sorts of worried, knowing he drafted Gillen over Benge, B.Taylor over H.Waldrep, and perpetually wastes the 2nd draft pick each year on some no-bat defense first throw-away player. This year’s draft class earned praise (and I didn’t fall in love with anyone during the pre-draft process), so maybe things are improving on the draft front, but I’m still worried…. It sure seems like the perennial poaching of RFO members by other teams has finally caught up to the Rays.
Does this remind you of BLowe, just bigger and with 70 grade speed? Far from a sure thing, but just the type we should target in 2026. 3 years of cheap arb if he works out. https://baseballsavant.mlb.com/sporty-videos?playId=a85c1378-6b96-3dff-83cf-34e2ef051a0a
Agree about management. We have the runts making the decisions, because the picks of the litter are gone. I have lost a lot of faith in the Rays management and coaching. The amount of poor decisions in recent years is starting to pile up. In September, I was near certain Kevin Cash's contract would be sold/traded to the Braves as part of a mutual breakup. Still think it might be. The organization is flaccid, top to bottom. Failed prospects at all levels, at frequencies that are hard to believe. Poor returns on trades again and again. Departed players that get better with their new team. Good players who arrive and immediately regress to completely fucking worthless like Jax/Morel/Civale/Baker while four 2024 Rays become all stars on their new 2025 team. There will be some very lean years coming our way, and I think we'd be fools to run it back a 3rd time with the same team that keeps progressively getting worse.