Despite significant injuries on the pitching front, the Rays spent much of the season’s first half in or on the periphery of the Wild Card chase. The front office took advantage of a seller’s market at the deadline even though the club was hovering around .500, bolstering the farm, reducing payroll and setting the stage for what could be a quick turnaround.
Guaranteed Contracts
- Jeffrey Springs, LHP: $21.75MM through 2026 (includes $750K buyout of $15MM club option for 2027)
- Yandy Diaz, 1B: $10MM through 2025 (contract contains $12MM club option for 2026, with no buyout)
- Pete Fairbanks, RHP: $4.667MM through 2025 (includes $1MM buyout of $7MM club option for 2026)
- Shane McClanahan, LHP: $3.6MM through 2026 (McClanahan is arb-eligible for two more years thereafter)
2025 financial commitment: $27.766MM
Total long-term financial commitments: $40MM
Other Financial Obligations
- Wander Franco owed $172MM through 2032; Rays unlikely to pay remainder of contract due to abhorrent allegations against Franco and subsequent legal proceedings in Dominican Republic
- $2MM to Twins for buyout of Manuel Margot‘s 2025 club option
Option Decisions
- Brandon Lowe, 2B/OF: $10.5MM club option with $1MM buyout (contract also contains $11.5MM club option for 2026 with $500K buyout)
Arbitration-Eligible Players (service time in parentheses; projected salaries via MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz)
Free Agents
As we began this year’s Offseason Outlook series, the top focus for the Rays was understandably on the team’s roster and reshaping an offense that lacked balance, struggled against righties and was far too whiff-prone. While the series was being written, however, a far broader-reaching issue arose. The awful damage stemming from Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene has wrought incalculable, heartbreaking levels of damage on the country’s southeast region. The big-picture focus, of course, is on helping those impacted and rebuilding those ravaged communities. In the grand scheme of things, the logistical challenges a natural disaster of this magnitude presents to a baseball team are trivial, at best.
Nonetheless, for the Rays themselves, Hurricane Milton created an unexpected and undeniable challenge the team will have to address. The roof of Tropicana Field was shredded, exposing a stadium interior that does not have a drainage system. It’s not yet clear when the facility could return to a serviceable state, but the Rays aren’t likely to have their home field available to them to begin the 2025 season. They’ll spend as much time and energy this offseason determining where they’ll play their home games as they will augmenting their roster. We at MLBTR extend our deepest and most heartfelt condolences to all affected by the tragedy in the southeast.
Turning to the baseball operations side of the offseason, the Rays have a clear picture of what went wrong. Tampa Bay entered the 2024 campaign with an injury-ravaged rotation. Starters Shane McClanahan (Tommy John surgery), Drew Rasmussen (flexor tendon surgery) and Jeffrey Springs (Tommy John surgery) were set to miss some or all of the 2024 season while recovering from surgery. Former top pitching prospect Shane Baz was finishing off recovery from his own Tommy John procedure, performed late in the 2022 season.
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