The Rays are, not surprisingly, taking a pretty thoughtful approach to the current market. I actually don’t think they are trying to tank to get higher draft picks or absolutely minimize payroll. They are looking to stock up the farm by looking for opportunities to trade a piece they have for a similar piece plus a prospect. They ditched Souza, brought back 2 prospects and then signed Carlos Gomez at 1yr/4m. They got rid of Dickerson at 6m, brought back a setup guy at 4m (net of 1m subsidy from PIT) plus a prospect and added Cron at 4m (who apparently hit the weight room hard, focused on elevating and is hitting jaw dropping moonshots in spring training BP). I suspect they’ll also be picking up a Morrison/Duda type guy on a 1 yr deal to help replace Dickerson’s and Longo’s bats. The payroll will be low, as always, but not rock bottom. Current market inefficiency is pretty decent free agents out there to be had on one year deals. Lots of flexibility if you have a number of those guys. Stock up on young ML ready arms, add a bunch of high ceiling lower level field player prospects for the future, fill in for the present with free agents on one year deals. If young arms pan out this year, the 2018 team may actually flirt with respectability.
Sucks that it’s sounding like TJ for Honeywell.