With the trade deadline just days away, The Tampa Bay Rays are in the mood to wheel and deal. Chris Archer, Adeiny Hechavarria, are certain to be gone come July 31.
Carlos Gomez, Wilson Ramos, Sergio Romo, and Nathan Eovaldi are other players on this Rays roster that could be dealt as well. Eovaldi has been real impressive this season walking 8 and striking out 54 with a 4.22 ERA. The case of trading Wilson Ramos is an interesting one. He would certainly have been traded to either Washington or Houston, but that hamstring injury right before the all-star game left the interested teams a bit wary of trading for damaged goods.
Any veteran on this Rays team can be had if the price is right. Any team that has good young prospects at the Class A or AA level could be a trade partner with the Rays. The Rays are not looking for players on the MLB roster, they are looking for good young prospects that will help this team 2-3 years down the road.
Right now there is no timetable for the return of Ramos. The only thing we know for sure is that Kevin Cash said he could be out for a substantial period of time. The Rays have called up career minor leaguer Adam Moore to back-up Jesus Sucre. Moore has seen MLB duty with San Diego, Cleveland and the Cubs. His career batting average is .194. Sucre will handle the majority of the catching duties with two days catching and then one day off.
The Rays youth movement continued last night as they called up outfielder Justin Williams from Durham. Williams made his debut in a pinch hitting role last night against the Marlins, but was immediately sent back to Durham as Willy Adames was recalled. Adames was called up for the third time yesterday and hopefully will stick around for good this time.
The long range goal is to have a good young team ready to contend and be a contender when the Rays are ready to move into the new stadium in 2023. In other words stockpile as many young prospects as possible.
The youth movement would be a lot further along right now but some major injuries to the young arms of Brent Honeywell, Jose De Leon and Anthony Banda set that process back at least this season. The injuries to Jacob Faria and Yonny Chrinos have also hurt the Rays ability to put together a solid 5 man rotation.
The Rays are not going anywhere this year. Lets’s let the kids and prospects get some MLB experience, learn from that experience and then next year they will be a much better player for having given through the process of learning how to be a MLB player this year.
