Chapter 1: What trades did the Rays make and why?
Yeah, there should be some passion. This doesn't have to be boring.
I'm walking down the street on a Saturday night And I said, is there anyone I could possibly think of that I would want to talk to for the podcast more than Sam Dykstra? And the answer came to me from above. There's absolutely no one I'd rather talk to than Sam Dykstra of MLB Pipeline.
Thanks for thinking of me in that way, Rob. Like on your nightly stroll, just like, oh yeah, I wonder what Sam's doing. And I'm at home awaiting your text as always.
I didn't mean it that way. I didn't mean it like, oh, he's sitting at home not doing anything. I was trying to paint a holiday picture, like a very, you know, I looked up at the sky and I saw the answers and there it was. It just so happens that you were available, which I appreciate.
Yeah, the angels from It's a Wonderful Life were communicating and making sure we were all in the right places to make this work.
See, that's a much better way to put it. In other words, in synopsis, there's nobody in the planet I'd rather talk to than Sam Dijkstra. All right, so we got to get down to this because you make us all smarter when we desperately need to be smart. And I feel like in this time... We always need to be smarter. You always make us smarter.
But when so many prospects are getting thrown around in one day in a trade, that we have to know, like, actually how good these guys are. And also, the quote from Eric Neander... Like, this is like, to me, this is the ultimate, we got to figure out exactly how smart we are and who these guys are.
When Eric Neander says, let's see if I, he said, so Friday's deals, I think we're more about losing a bit in 26 to gain a lot as we look into the future. Holy mackerel. Good thing they're putting the roof back on Tropicana Field. If we're going to power rank the franchises that if anybody said that would be like, oh, yikes. Anyway. I mean, for you, I know it's the Rays.
I guess it is what it is, right? People won't take that. The Rays fans aren't going to get all worked up over that, right?
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Chapter 2: How are the prospects acquired by the Rays evaluated?
But right now, I think for the Rays, when they were looking at their center field options, I don't think they found who they believe can stick in center field, and I think they're getting Melton at a good time with everything the way it's sticking up.
They can still affect his development a little bit more because he doesn't have that huge sample size at the major league level, but between the defense, the speed, the power, there's some really exciting tools there for him.
All right, so how much do you think he's going to impact? What do you envision him for 2026? Because, again, I'll come back to that quote. There's going to be some of these guys at some point, or even guys who aren't on the list, young Rays players who are going to impact. We saw this in the past year. It happens. They say, oh, the Rays are this, and then they become something else.
Um, so for Melton, what, what do you look at for 2026?
I think he should be going into spring as the competitor to win the center field job. I know they signed Cedric Mullins before this trade and you're kind of hoping Mullins can be a reclamation project. Maybe if the rays aren't in it, they trade him at the deadline, kind of do what the Orioles did last year.
You pick up a few prospects in that way too, but I think Melton right now should be major league ready and should very much be in that conversation. to take over the center field job, especially with Jake Mangum out of the way. Chandler Simpson, as much as I love the guy's speed, he's going to be a left fielder in the major leagues moving forward if he doesn't move positions again.
We'll see how that goes. But I think Melton should be in the conversation in spring, and even if he doesn't win the job in spring, could have it by May, June. The ceiling is certainly there for him to be at least an average everyday player.
We're the big winner because we get to watch him in Port Charlotte. It's good. Like you said, much like Chandler Simpson. Every time we get a chance to watch him, it's awesome.
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Chapter 3: What does Eric Neander's quote reveal about the Rays' strategy?
All right. Before we get to the guys, the other guys in the Orioles trade, let's talk about Anderson Brito, the other guy in the three-team trade. Tell me a little bit about him.
Yeah, Anderson Brito, what stood out to me most about him is that I got to see him in the Arizona Fall League, and we talked about this a few months ago when Luis Perales came up in that discussion. Thanks for sharing that the other day after that trade, going back to that clip.
But this is why this stuff is important because whether it's with the team that they're on or whether they go to the team, you don't think the Washington Nationals people are like super excited about this guy or super more, a lot more knowledgeable because of you. Your brand has never been harder in Washington, D.C. right now.
Well, we'll see about that. But I'm sure we're going to be talking a lot about the Nats farm system in the coming months and the changes that are going on there. That's a story for another day. Anderson Brito in the Arizona Fall League. It was a really pitching-starved league this year. So anybody who could shove was going to stand out. And he certainly did that.
And, you know, the fastballs in the mid 90s, he's got a really good sweeping slider. He's got a really good curveball on top of that. So he's got some breaking pitches to work with. I think if he was somebody who at this stage right now, he hasn't thrown more than 55 innings in a season.
If that cap was at 80 innings, we're probably talking about swapping him and melt because I think there's real mid rotation upside here for him. Maybe even a number two if he can get a decent change up in there and the control can be a little bit better. But in that Arizona folly, he faced 47 batters, struck out 22 of them.
So he was just on everybody's mind this fall, obviously was on the Tampa Bay Rays mind going to get him. He was somebody actually wrote about this the other day. We're trying to predict the number one prospect in each system for this time next year. I saw the healthy 2026 Anderson Brito could have been that guy for the Astros. we'll see what happens with the raise.
And now all these guys that they've added to their system and they're going to have the number two overall pick next year. So I'm not going to say burrito is going to be number one, but you can very well be a top 100 guy pretty quickly into the year. So long as he stays healthy.
It's a pretty good hall, man. You're going to be excited for the gut, what they got back, but really the, listen, anytime you do a three team trade, it's interesting, but the Shane boss trade is really interesting, really interesting. Um, Because as we said, you got four guys plus the traffic. And Shane Boz is, it's funny because I can absolutely see what the Orioles saw.
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Chapter 4: Who are the key players involved in the Rays' trades?
He's another somebody who's dealt with injuries last year. I think he had a back injury, but there's a lot of things to like about Michael Frett, given what we know about pitching now.
What? So because this has been top of mind for me ever since we had Justin Willard on a couple weeks ago, and we talked about that dynamic, about the number of pitches. And I thought that he put it in a really digestible way, which is you have your best pitch, but you have to have your other pitches to get back to your best pitch. Um, and so the question I have is what is his best pitch?
Like what is, is I'm going to pound the zone with this. This is the best pitch or does he have one? Maybe it's lumped in with the other three or four.
Yeah. I mean, for me right now, when I was going through his grades yesterday, I was going to like, it's a 55 four seamer and, uh, and sinker. So that that's above average. I think the sliders can be above average. I I'm intrigued by the death ball. I'm intrigued how he can make that work.
How can you not be, by the way?
I know, with that name, right? And I think there's a reason why a lot of pitchers don't pick it up because it is difficult to make it work. And if you're going to throw it, you might as well throw a curveball. So I might highlight that as the one I'm most intrigued by.
But the fact that he's made the kick change work as well, there's a lot that are kind of right along the same quality for me, which is to his credit. That is not easy to do.
All right. The other guys, I don't want to take too much of your time. The other guys, obviously, DeBron is ranked higher. He's number six, highest ranked guy on this list. But that doesn't necessarily mean that he excites you the most. So what's your thoughts on the other guys?
Yeah, so the way I slotted these guys in on the raise list right now, we have Ferret at number seven, DeBrun at number eight. So I flipped those around because we did the Orioles rankings, obviously, in early August. And, you know, since then, Ferret's continued to pitch really well. So I swapped those guys. So... Ferent is at seven. DeBruin is at eight. Bodine is at 13.
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