Five Things the Rays Need To Do To Become Contenders Again

After winning 99 games in 2023, the expectation for the Tampa Bay Rays was reaching the postseason once again, even if they entered the season with some major injuries.

The Rays have consistently seemed to find a way to defy the odds and make it to the postseason in recent years.

However, in 2024, the odds proved to be stacked against them. For the first time since 2018, Tampa Bay found itself on the outside looking in come October, finishing the season with an 80-82 record, the team’s first sub-.500 season since 2017.

But despite the disappointing record and dealing some marketable talent at the deadline, the Rays are in a good spot to compete for October once again in 2025.

With the right additions this winter and smart overall decision-making from Erik Neander and the rest of the front office, the Tampa Bay Rays should be far more competitive in 2025 and the years following.

With that being said, here are five key things the Rays need to do this winter to gain back that competitive persona we’re all familiar with:

1. Figure Out a Plan for the Odd Men Out in the Rotation

After a season in which their starting rotation was plagued by injuries, the Rays finally project to be back at full strength on that front in 2025.

Their ace Shane McClanahan will return after a year missed to Tommy John, Jeffrey Springs looks to play his first full season since 2022 and Shane Baz will be back on the bump to attempt his first season with 100+ innings in his career.

With those three names returning alongside two promising young arms in Taj Bradley and Ryan Pepiot, the Rays will look to recapture the form of their 2023 rotation, which sat top five in MLB in ERA, FIP, WHIP, AVG against and fWAR, according to FanGraphs.

But with the starting staff getting back to full health, there will inevitably be names dropped from the starting five. In this case, the two main names likely to be affected are Drew Rasmussen and Zack Littell.

So, this winter the Rays will need to figure out their plan for the arms that they deem superfluous to the starting rotation.

In terms of Rasmussen, who’s missed considerable time over the past two seasons due to injury, he and the Rays seemingly found a role for him that will prove to be beneficial to both parties.

After returning from injury in early August, he made 16 appearances, only four of which were starts, and none of which went beyond two innings.

This means Rasmussen can handle being deployed as an opener or, given his excellent pitch mix, velocity and strikeout ability, a high-leverage multi-inning reliever, similar to the type of role Cade Smith had with the Cleveland Guardians this past season.

This would preserve Rasmussen’s arm given his past ailments, but it would also provide preservation to a rotation coming off injuries.

The Rays haven’t been afraid to deploy a bullpen day in the past, and Rasmussen would be perfect to anchor that scenario, should Tampa want to field a pseudo six-man rotation.

Littell, on the other hand, has a little more ambiguity surrounding him when it comes to his role in 2025.

He made 29 starts last season, accumulating 156.1 innings in the process. In that time he pitched to the tune of an impressive 3.63 ERA and 94th-percentile walk rate, as per Baseball Savant.

But now that his stock has never been higher, on the back of his first full season as a starter, it seems as good a time as ever to cash in on Littell via the trade market.

Despite his successful campaign with the Rays in 2024, Littell was not the greatest when it came to limiting solid contact or inducing strikeouts. His WHIP and AVG against were less than ideal, and his expected metrics point to him over-performing this past season.

But expected metrics aside, we cannot discount the numbers Littell posted in 2024, meaning he still holds value for teams in need of help near the bottom of the rotation.

And given that Tampa Bay has not been shy about trading away valued pieces in the past, Littell seems like the logical next piece to move out.

2. Add a Better Offensive Catcher to the Lineup

Since making their way back to the postseason in 2019, the Rays’ best option at catcher has been Mike Zunino, and even he certainly had his flaws at the plate.

After missing the postseason in 2024, with the bulk of innings at the catching position coming from Ben Rortvedt and Alex Jackson, the Rays could stand to upgrade behind the plate.

Rortvedt, whose offensive projections make him look more like a defense-first backup, could still play a role but struggled at the plate in 2024 after hitting .228 with a .621 OPS.

There’s no real catcher on the open market who is an undeniable out-and-out starter, but there are certainly options who would put the Rays in a better position at the plate than the .194 AVG, .563 OPS and 67 wRC+ their catchers posted this past year.

One potential target could be Danny Jansen. While he is coming off a poor season in 2024 in which he slashed .206/.308/.348, Jansen provides decent pop. In the three seasons prior to 2024, he hit double-digit homers and posted SLG rates higher than .470 each year.

And with wRC+ totals of 105 or higher in those three seasons, he’s proved he is a capable hitter. Coming off a down year, he could be had at quite the discount for the Rays.

Another option is Kyle Higashioka, the respected veteran backstop who is coming off his best year at the plate after hitting .220 with a .739 OPS and 17 homers in 263 plate appearances.

His mix of power paired with Rordvedt’s defensive abilities behind the dish could give the Rays a well-rounded platoon at the position.

And then there’s veteran Jacob Stallings. The 34-year-old has traditionally been a glove-first catcher throughout his career but has seen a regression in his defense since capturing his 2021 Gold Glove.

But in 2024 he made up for his defensive inefficiencies by posting a 72-point improvement in AVG, a 245-point improvement in OPS and his first above-average wRC+ since 2017.

While there may not be that top catching option available to the Rays, they don’t necessarily need a guy to come in and be a long-term solution. Dominic Keegan, a top-five prospect in their organization, will be waiting in the wings after spending his first season in the upper minors in 2024.

Still, the fact remains that the Rays have a position that seemed like an automatic out last year. So after missing the postseason, this is a clear place to upgrade after going back to the drawing board this winter to reevaluate the shortcomings of the year that was.

3. Consider Moving On From Pete Fairbanks

As I mentioned earlier when discussing the option to trade Zack Littell, Tampa Bay has never been afraid to move on from guys to recoup considerable value in return.

And after they traded Randy Arozarena, Isaac Paredes and Zach Eflin at last year’s trade deadline, Pete Fairbanks may very well be the next key contributor to be dealt by the Rays.

In 2020, Fairbanks played his first full season in Tampa Bay after being dealt to them from the Texas Rangers in July of 2019.

And since 2020, Fairbanks has been a huge addition to the Rays bullpen, eventually working his way into the closer’s role in the process.

But 2024 was arguably Fairbanks’s worst season since his breakout during the COVID-shortened 2020 season.

He posted a mid-3.00s ERA, his highest FIP in five seasons, a 50-point spike in AVG against from the year prior, along with a 16-point jump in WHIP and a nearly five K/9 drop.

From an expected metrics standpoint, Fairbanks seemingly overperformed his 4.08 xERA and .256 xBA in 2024, indicating a possible continuance in regression.

With the way the Rays have been able to identify relief value in seemingly unknown entities, paired with the rise of some of those recent entities in Edwin Uceta and Hunter Bigge, it only adds to the fact that now might be the best time to move on from Fairbanks.

Considering he has two years of control left, due to a club option for 2026, Fairbanks will be that much more intriguing for a team looking for a real impact piece in the back end of the bullpen, because even though there are some signs that point to regression, he still undoubtedly holds very good value.

4. Don’t Give Carson Williams the Junior Caminero Treatment

The 2024 season seemed like a real “will they, won’t they” situation when it came to the matter of when top prospect Junior Caminero would be called up to the big league roster for good after making a brief seven-game cameo at the major league level in 2023.

But Caminero eventually made his way back to the MLB level on August 13 this past season and has now accumulated enough service time to shed his rookie status, meaning there’s nothing holding him back from the Opening Day roster in 2025.

Now the prospect focus in Tampa shifts to the No. 5 prospect in baseball according to our rankings, Carson Williams, who was excellent in the upper minors this past season posting an .821 OPS and a 141 wRC+.

The Rays current middle infield duo is Brandon Lowe at second and José Caballero at short.

Lowe was productive in 2024, posting 21 HR, a .783 OPS and a 123 wRC+ in 107 games, but he’s never been able to really come close to his monster 2021 season. That year he posted 33 HR and 99 RBI with a .247/.340/.523 slashline and a 151 wRC+ in 149 games.

Not only have the stats fallen short every year since then, but he hasn’t been able to string more than 109 games together in a season, due to injuries.

Caballero is a defense-first shortstop who was largely unproductive from the plate in 2024, with a .630 OPS and an 83 wRC+.

When Williams is ready to come up, he could immediately provide an upgrade over either of them. Despite what our prospect expert Aram Leighton calls a “fringy hit tool” with a 35 FV grading, Williams’s 60 FV on his power tool and 70 FV on his fielding tool make him an all-around force to be reckoned with.

Now that their potential franchise cornerstone in Caminero is up in the bigs, it makes sense for the Rays to establish that familiarity and chemistry in the infield with another key piece of their future.

And with Xavier Isaac expected to knock on the door in the near future, the quicker the Rays can get their young potential stars up and established, the closer they will come to being the type of contender they were between 2020 and 2023.

5. Keep Selling the Project to Big Name Players

When the offseason began, so did the rumor mill, and one of the more surprising reports churned out of it was that the Rays were expected to contact the top free agent on the market this winter, Juan Soto.

For a team that sported the third lowest payroll in baseball in 2024 according to Spotrac, the likelihood of them landing a free agent at the level of Soto is pretty slim, especially considering he’s likely to sign for north of $40 million per year this offseason.

But this isn’t the first time the Rays have made contact with marquee UFAs. In 2021, when 2020 NL MVP Freddie Freeman hit free agency, Tampa Bay made a push to sign the superstar first baseman, before he eventually signed with the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Even if it might look like a longshot, since Rays ownership can’t necessarily compete with the likes of the deep-pocketed Dodgers, Mets and Yankees, this rumor suggests a willingness to compete that can pass its way down the line to potential players interested in joining a contending-focused squad.

And with the aforementioned Caminero, Williams and Isaac all set to be potential young stars, Tampa Bay will definitely garner some competitive intrigue around the league.

Let me remind you, this was a team that made the World Series just five seasons ago and held some of the best records in the league from 2020 to 2023. From that standpoint, it’s not hard to fathom that some big names could be interested in the on-field project the Rays possess.

It only takes one decent free agent to get on board with the project. And as NHL legend Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.”

So the fact that Tampa Bay is presenting itself as a viable option for any name, rather than simply outright shying away from even thinking about spending significant money, is certainly very positive.

The Colorado Rockies made the shock move to ink former NL MVP Kris Bryant to a seven-year, big-money deal ahead of the 2022 season. Who’s to say the Rays can’t make a shock move of their own one day and acquire a major talent?

The Postseason Is in the Cards for the Rays in 2025 and Beyond

After missing out on the postseason in 2024, it’s very realistic that Tampa Bay will be able to regain its past form and make a real push for the postseason once again.

They project to have a fully healthy and uber-talented rotation that has stacked up to some of the league’s best in the recent past and certainly has the make-up to do so again.

They also always seem to have success with their relief reclamation projects, which results in some of the league’s best bullpen numbers, as well as with their prospect system, which still grades well and features some top names slated to make their debuts in the coming seasons.

With the right course of action from the front office over the offseason and throughout the 2025 campaign, the Rays could very well return to the 90+ win team they were just two seasons ago for the foreseeable future.