The Chris Archer Trade Tree Will Not Stop Getting Crazier

The Rays had a busy Friday on the trade market.

Along with acquiring Jacob Melton while parting ways with Brandon Lowe, Mason Montgomery, and Jake Mangum in a 3-team trade with Houston and Pittsburgh, they dealt Shane Baz to the Orioles for a decent haul.

Along with a competitive balance draft pick, they got…

Catcher Caden Bodine: 2025 first-round pick out of Coastal Carolina, he is a catcher with great contact skills who is very strong behind the plate.

Outfielder Slater De Brun: 2025 first-round pick out of high school, he is a great athlete.

Pitcher Michael Forret: 1.58 ERA over 74 minor league innings this past year with an 11 K/9

Outfielder Austin Overn: 64 stolen bases in 114 minor league games in 2025

But while there are many ways to break down this trade, I wanted to focus on something else.

Which is that the three players the Rays got from the Chris Archer trade all the way back in 2018 are officially out of the system, but how did this all transpire?

The Trade Tree

Delmon Young was the 1st overall pick by the Rays in the 2003 Draft.

He was later traded to Minnesota in a package that included Matt Garza, and Garza was later dealt to the Cubs in a deal that featured Chris Archer, who had two All-Star seasons and a 3.71 ERA with Tampa.

But in 2018, the Pirates decided to push their chips in by trading for Archer. Snagging him by sending Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows, and a player to be named later, which turned out to be Shane Baz, to the Rays.

Archer never quite worked for the Pittsburgh Pirates, having a 4.92 ERA over 172 innings, but the Rays went 3-for-3 in this deal.

Tyler Glasnow almost immediately made a positive impact and was a force for Tampa, whenever he was actually on the mound, having a 3.20 ERA over just 74 starts.

Austin Meadows hit 33 bombs and got MVP votes in 2019 before popping 27 more in 2021. 

Shane Baz had risen to be a top-10 prospect in MLB by 2022. But consistent MLB success hasn’t quite followed, largely due to injuries and a home run problem, having a 4.25 ERA and 1.4 HR/9.

Although his velocity has crept back up to pre-Tommy John surgery marks (97 AVG MPH), and his plus secondaries clearly have Baltimore excited. 

But considering he was a player to be named later and just got them a notable package, he’s definitely a win for the Rays.

However, what makes this trade even better for the Rays is that the subsequent moves also worked.

In 2022, the Rays dealt Meadows to the Tigers for Isaac Paredes and a Comp B pick, which they used on Ryan Cermak, a selection after Chandler Simpson. 

Meadows sadly dealt with many physical ailments, but also mental health issues, and never found his footing in Detroit, actually having zero home runs with them.

While Paredes became the pull fly-ball god we all know and love. Capped off by 31 bombs in 2023 with the shortest average home run distance in a 30-HR season ever tracked at 381 feet.

Pushing us to 2024, when two more consequential trade deals happened. 

Before the year, the Rays sent Tyler Glasnow to the Dodgers in exchange for Jonny DeLuca and Ryan Pepiot.

Pepoit and Glasnow have been somewhat similar in production-wise in the two seasons since, but Pepoit is cheaper, younger, and more available. 

While the Rays sent Paredes to the Cubs at the deadline for Hunter Bigge, Ty Johnson, and Christopher Morel.

Johnson is a 24-year-old 6-foot-6-inch arm with swing-and-miss stuff, having a 2.61 ERA and 12.2 K/9 in 2025.

While Bigge, if it wasn’t for a freak injury in 2025, could have broken out as a reliever with electric stuff.

But to give you an overview, the Rays turned Chris Archer into…

-Tyler Glasnow

-Austin Meadows

-Shane Baz

-Isaac Paredes

-Ryan Pepiot

-Jonny DeLuca

-Ty Johnson

-Hunter Bigge

-Christopher Morel

-Caden Bodine

-Slater De Brun

-Michael Foret

-Austin Overn

-2022 Comp B Pick

-2026 Comp A Pick

If you were curious, Fangraphs had Archer at 1.5 fWAR for the Pirates, while the Archer Tree provided the Rays with 33.1 fWAR.

So basically, the Rays have turned Chris Archer into many years of organizational building blocks, and there is still a future chapter to write in this story. Especially if these Ketel Marte rumors have smoke.