Light exchanges catcher as the brewery adds depth behind the plate

The Rays have caught up with their catcher a few days before the trade deadline, first sending their starter Danny Jansen to the brewery with some cash in exchange for infielder Jadher Areinamo. Tampa Bay then followed for a second exchange, this time Nick Fortes, who brought outfielder Matthew Etzel from the Marlins.

Although Jansen’s Bats fell a lot from his 2021-2023 season, he released 120 WRC+ cricket matches in 6.0 War’s 754 sets, he’s still enough to catch up with the tandem and offer the occasional round runner. He cuts with 11 home runs and 98 WRC+.204/.314/.389. His frame count has also been greatly reduced over the past few years, enough to defeat each season’s wars compared to his overall value. Considering that Rays are almost certain to pay Jansen’s $500,000 buyout instead of picking up the $12 million co-option, it looks like they can get when they get Hershey.

Areinamo’s swing is fascinating, and my colleague Eric Longenhagen discusses this in his ray prospects. To me, he Game of Thrones Battlefield scenes and super masculine man punched in the original Mike Tyson! For Nintendo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aa3ug-gfko8

He is an enterprising slap batsman who occasionally spots a home run and has gained a lot of time in three non-first base infield positions. Milwaukee has been very slow to improve and has sent him back to senior despite having a very solid offensive line in 2024. He is not an impressive defender, but the Rays have a good track record of finding ways to use these inappropriate toy player islands.

Areinamo is actually a very small Jose Altuve. 2 Statistically speaking, but there are also many players who are far inferior to Altuve – Tommy Helms, Miguel Cairo and Luis Rivas are probably the best in the remaining 20 in the top 20.

Meanwhile, the winemakers led Jansen to strengthen their catch depth this season. This is important considering that starting player William Contreras saw his bat disappear during his 27-year-old season, which is likely in large part because he plays with his broken fingers throughout the year. Despite the pain, he still leads all the catchers in the defensive situation. At this point, there is no reason to believe that Contreras will stop playing because of that kind of finger. Even so, Jansen made a major upgrade to the current backup Eric Haase, and whenever Milwaukee decides to give Contreras a break, it should be a good inning behind the plate. Jansen didn’t directly help the winemakers fight the Cubs, but he’s a very low-risk player and worth a visit.

The rays remained in the AL field race and they did not waste time picking up the four giants from the marlins. His value is similar to Jansen’s, but a little different: Fortes offers much less offense but more defense.

Crucially, since these are rays, he also has a lighter salary and three years of club control before hitting free agents. Tampa Bay may use him and Matt Thaiss on a relatively even timeshare vacation, which is unlikely to take on the starting job. I also suspect that no catcher will be on the lineup next year. Instead, I think it’s very likely that the organization will seriously consider Dominic Keegan in 2026, at least as the head of capturing tandem. Keegan has no elite prospects, but he looks like he will stick with the catcher, even if he may not charge any Gold Glove Awards. He has been bumping anywhere on him since the 2022 round 4 selection, and this year he played for Triple-a Durham’s WRC+ 118 WRC+ in 140 sets. The problem is that he also missed most of the first two months of the season due to an elbow injury. With that in mind, the development time of taking a full-time role among minors this year makes more sense than calling him to become a professional part-time player. The Fortes is not an inspiring catcher, but the Rays knows what they will get from him and he is the type of player they need because they have a long-term successful competition in the short term.

The Marlins don’t like spending money, especially when they’re in the early stages of rebuilding, Fortes is increasingly like the weird guy, and this fall may be a possible non-standby candidate. Miami has a lot of problems, but grabbing is not one of them. With the Marlins nowhere to go this season, they are rightly interested in getting the batting Agustín Ramírez to have as many opportunities as possible behind the plate to see if he can catch it at the MLB level. Joe Mack is behind Ramírez, no doubt he Can handle the defensive requirements for the position. Behind Mack is Ryan Ignoffo in Double-A, who looks like a highly competent defensive player whose offense has not yet hits the wall when minors are promoted.

Avant-garde Etzel is the 2023 Orioles draft pick, at least on the one-year deadline and two other prospects traded to Zach Eflin’s Light, he is the 2023 draft pick. Etzel is a bit far away as a full-time starter because his strength hasn’t really developed, and his contacts are pretty mediocre for players who rely on average hitting averages. But he did exaggerate the above average speed, if not his strong point, at least plays reliably in the center field. He may be on the Marlins game in a few years and play time as a reserve outfielder.