The Tampa Bay Rays will wait until Monday to make their option decision on reliever Joel Peralta, the Tampa Bay Times’ Marc Topkin tweeted. They’ll also be making other 40-man decisions, since Matt Moore and Jerry Sands need to be reinstated from the 60-day disabled list, and their roster is currently full. If the Rays choose to exercise Peralta’s $2.5M option, they’ll have options at the same price for 2016 and 2017 as well. Peralta is coming off a season in which he posted a 4.41 ERA, and the Rays could decide to let him go to save a bit of money and clear a roster spot for a younger player. What follows are a handful of links from this week past.*
- Per Marc Topkin, in an interview with Matt Silverman on 620 WDAE, it was confirmed that Dave Martinez is one of “a number” of managerial candidates in the position left in Joe Maddon’s wake, though there are “no preconceived notions” of who will get the job.
- On Friday, the Rays chose to pick up Ben Zobrist’s $7.5M option.
- The Cubs announced their intention to hire former Rays manager Joe Maddon.
- Per Mark Polishuk of MLB Trade Rumors, Alan Nero, Joe Maddon’s agent, discussed how his client left the Rays for the Cubs in an interview with Jim Bowden and Jim Duquette (audio link) on MLB Network Radio on SiriusXM. Nero negotiated with the Rays for five or six days before Maddon opted out of his contract, a decision Maddon reached since Tampa didn’t want to make him one of baseball’s five highest-paid managers. Maddon was willing to take below-market value to stay but the Rays’ offer was “so far from reality that it just didn’t make sense” for Maddon to accept, according to Nero. Theo Epstein wouldn’t speak to Maddon until he had written proof of the opt-out and permission from the Commissioner’s office, and Nero considers it “a bit insulting” that the Rays would suspect tampering took place.
- We wrote about the preliminary case for Dave Martinez.
- Don’t forget to get out and vote Tuesday. On the docket is a referendum that I personally feel very strongly about, Greenlight Pinellas. As I alluded to previously, a vote for Greenlight Pinellas is a vote for the future of the Rays.
- Lots of inane boogeymanning surrounding the Stadium Saga came to light this weekend…too much to mention in one brief sentence. Become well versed by way of Noah Pransky’s Shadow of the Stadium blog.
*Okay, maybe I fudged on the time scale just a touch.