After a few thrifty swaps and a quiet winter meetings. The Rays may finally be ready to move some of their “valuable” commodities.
With young starting pitchers being highly coveted these days, the Rays find themselves sitting on a gold mine of young arms. With Blake Snell waiting in the wings and the revitalization of Erasmo Ramirez, it would seem that the Rays have a logjam and should seek to upgrade their offense which in recent years has been inept. Especially with runners in scoring position.
The Chicago Cubs seem to be the team most likely to strike a deal with the Rays. The Cubs are looking for another starter and a left handed arm out of the pen. With only 2 years remaining on Alex Cobb and Jake McGee’s contract, moving one or both of them makes sense. Jake Odorizzi’s had also been linked to trade rumors involving the Cubs and Dodgers prior to the signing of John Lackey and Scott Kazmir.
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Among the names mentioned the Cubs would move to acquire one of our young arms are; versatile outfielder Chris Coghlan, INF Javier Baez, OF Jorge Soler, C/DH Wilson Contreras, slugging C/OF Kyle Schawrber and #2 prospect Billy McKinney. Any one of these players could provide a boost to an offense that desperately needs run production.
The main question for the Rays is how much would they be willing to give up in exchange for one of the aforementioned young sluggers?
Any trade involving Schwarber or Soler could involve rotation anchor and all-star Chris Archer. Would they Rays be willing to trade their top commodity for a chance at landing Schwarber or Soler? Probably not but either way both teams would benefit from doing business with each other especially with Joe Maddon’s connection to the Rays organization. McGee, Odorizzi and Cobb would be the likely candidates if a move were to take place.
According to an interview with Matt Silverman on Sirius XM MLB Network Radio. “I wouldn’t be surprised if something lined up over the next couple of years, just given the constitution of the clubs, but i don’t want to oversell anything”.
Either way there’s no denying the trade compatibility of these two teams. As spring training approaches, we’ll just have to wait and see as both teams look to improve moving into the ’16 season.