Three Up, Three Down: Off-Season Edition
Now that the Super Bowl is over (congrats, Chiefs), let’s talk baseball! During the regular season, I will be highlighting three positives and three negatives from the previous week of Tampa Bay Rays baseball. I’m kicking the column off, though, with the three biggest off-season acquisitions and the three biggest off-season losses.
Three Up
1. Hunter Renfroe – The 28-year-old outfielder is coming off a career-high 33 HR while playing in pitcher-friendly Petco Park. The Trop isn’t much better, but part of that can be attributed to the Rays pitching staff, who Renfroe won’t have to face. He’ll fill the outfield spot opened up by the person he was traded for, Tommy Pham.
2. Jose Martinez – The former St. Louis Cardinal finished his third full season in the majors batting under .300 for the first time in his career. The Rays have a pretty good track record for getting players like this on the cheap (in this case for minor leaguers Matthew Liberatore and Edgardo Rodriguez) while also getting their trade partner to throw in some extra pieces (St. Louis included Randy Arozarena and a supplemental first-round draft pick). Martinez is expected to provide a right-handed bat in the middle of the lineup, likely as the DH.
3. Yoshitomo Tsutsugo – The Rays used their usual outside-the-box thinking to add more pop to their lineup, bringing in Japanese slugger Tsutsugo from Yokohama. At $12 million over two years, Yoshitomo is the kind of inexpensive gamble that the Rays have always had success with.
Three Down
1. Tommy Pham – The Las Vegas native was a midseason acquisition from the St. Louis Cardinals in 2018 and quickly filled a position the Rays have always had problems with – a right-handed power bat. He hit 21 HR and stole 25 bases last year, one of nine players to do so in 2019 and joined BJ Upton as the only player in Rays history to do so. However, the 32-year-old was one of only two players over the age of 30 on the Rays Opening Day roster in 2019 (along with Charlie Morton) and the Rays like to stay in a perpetual “youth movement.” They shipped Pham (and minor leaguer Jake Cronenworth) to San Diego for Hunter Renfroe, Xavier Edwards, and a player to be named later.
2. Travis d’Arnaud – One of last year’s big acquisitions for the Rays was catcher Mike Zunino, but he and fellow catcher Michael Perez were both placed on the DL in May. Enter Travis d’Arnaud, a 30-year-old journeyman who had once been one of the top prospects in baseball. In 92 games with Tampa Bay, Lil D tied or set career highs in Runs, HR, and RBI. But with Zunino still under contract, the Rays decided to let d’Arnaud become a free agent, eventually signing with the Atlanta Braves for two years at $16 million.
3. Avisail Garcia – The former Chicago White Sox outfielder was an example of one of those inexpensive gambles that I mentioned earlier. The Rays signed Avi as a free agent before the 2019 season for only $3.5 million. Garcia responded by reaching career highs in HR and SB while improving his batting average by 45 points over the 2018 season. Having done his job in helping the team get into the postseason, Avi was granted free agency and signed a two-year deal with Milwaukee for $18 million, with a $12 million club option for 2022.
What do you think was the biggest off-season move for the Rays? Let me know in the comment section below.
