The biggest question remains: Is Tampa Bay ready to deal a solid starter to a team in their own division?
According to a report by Jon Heyman at Knuckleball, the Red Sox have been scouting the Rays’ Jake Odorizzi “pretty heavily,” although they are supposedly waiting to land an even bigger fish, which turned out to be lefty Drew Pomeranz, who they acquired from the Padres for a prospect Thursday afternoon.
Does that mean Boston is finished dealing? Not at all. While they gave up Class A minor league pitcher Anderson Espinoza in the deal, the Sox still have a number of other prospects to dangle in order to add a right arm too.
While the 26-year old would be a nice fit in Boston, there could be two issues that could stop a potential deal in its tracks.
Odorizzi is just 3-5 with a 4.47 ERA in a team best 19 starts and his contract with Tampa Bay is very team friendly for the cost conscience club. He is pulling down a reported $521,000 this season and could get a sizeable raise via arbitration over the winter, however, that number still fits into the Rays budget.
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Odorizzi is not free agent eligible until 2020 and if the stadium situation suddenly changes in Tampa Bay, the Rays would not be averse to paying him a relatively small number through then.
Odorizzi is an attractive target, to be sure, but the Rays also have another problem with dealing their right-hander. Unless the Red Sox throw a huge package their way, unloading a talented pitcher inside the division is something the club would rather not do.
In 104.2 innings this year, Odorizzi has struck out 98 and has averaged nearly a punchout an inning since his first full season in 2014 when he had 174 over 168 frames. His age and big league résumé has the earmarks of a pitcher ready to break out and the Rays could be tempted to offload lefty Matt Moore before entertaining an Odorizzi in any trade.
Tampa Bay would be sure to ask for second-baseman Yoan Moncada, the talented No. 5 preseason prospect in the MLB Pipeline, just for openers. He would slide very nicely into the infield next season even though he is just at Double-A right now. The Rays have to make a decision at the end of the year on Logan Forsythe who is due a bump of nearly $5M if they keep him around in 2017. All decisions with the team are talent and money driven.
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