Rays roster purge begins
With the trade of Jake Ordorizzi to the Minnesota Twins on Saturday night and the DFA’ of Corey Dickerson its official, the Rays Roster purge has officially begun.
With these two moves the Rays will save close to $10 million dollars. We’ve been predicting all winter the Rays would move Ordorizzi and the Rays basically gave him away for nothing as the team receives class A SS prospect Jermaine Palacios. Palacios is not even rated as one of the top 30 prospects in the Twins organization, so the Rays essentially gave Ordorizzi to the Twins for nothing.
The Rays also DFA’d All-star outfielder Corey Dickerson. The Rays will now have 10 days to trade him to another team or release him. Just a day or two ago as the players reported to Port Charlotte for spring training, Dickerson thought he was safe as his name was brought up in trade talks all winter long with nothing happening. Then the day before then entire roster was to report for physicals, Dickerson gets the news he is not in the plans for the Rays in 2018. My haunch is that the Rays will release him and be on the hook for $1 million dollars of his 5.8 million dollar salary as the trade market is just not there for Dickerson.
The Rays also made a minor trade on Saturday picking up DH/1B CJ Cron from the Angels for the infamous player to be named later.
With the Trade of Ordorizz, that will free up a roster spot for one of the talented Rays pitching rospects that is in the pipeline To make their mark in Tampa. Although not one of the Young guns coming thru the Rays pipeline, Nathan Eovaldi is the favorite to now win a spot in the rotation out of training camp. Eovaldi is 38-46 in his big league career with a 4.21 ERA. Eovaldi will join Chris Archer, Blake Snell, Jacob Faria, and Matt Andreisse to round out the Rays rotation. That is if the Rays go with five starters. With the bullpen needing an overhaul, Matt Andriese may end up in the pen. The Rays could then use a four man roataion into late May or June, but will eventually need that 5th starter. Eovaldi last pitched in 2016 and spent 2017 recuperating from arm surgery.
Brent Honeywell and Jose DeLeon are just two of the Rays prospects who barring an injury will see time in Tampa.
CJ Cron coming in from the Angels will see sometime at 1B with Brad Miller and will also DH at times. Cron hit a carrer high .248 this past season with 13 HR’s and 67 RBI’s.
The Rays payroll now sits at around $80 million and the front office will need to trim another 5-10 million to meet Stuart Sternbergs expectation for payroll this season. Alex Colome the All-Star closer could be the next Rays pitcher to be traded. Colome was in rumour after rumour all off-season with St. Louis being a leading candidate. With the Cardinals signing of Luke Gregerson from the Astros, the Rays will have to find another taker for Colome.
The Rays are not done with the salary purge by any measure. If the Rays are out of contention by the All-star break, there will be a fire sale. Wilson Ramos and his 10 million dollar contfact will be gobe, followed by Adeny Hechavarria.
it is shaping up to be a. long long summer in Tampa if you’re a Rays fan.
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