Tampa Bay Rays Dynasty Sleepers, Breakouts, and Busts
Discover sleepers and breakouts from the Tampa Bay Rays for dynasty fantasy baseball both on the MLB and prospect side.
Every year, it feels like the Rays find guys out of nowhere who make an impact in either their rotation or lineup. The Rays consistently lean into their strengths and put a contender on the field without having a large payroll. Injuries have piled up for their pitching and they have made several trades this offseason that shake up their rotation and lineup. Who will break out and will bust?
Let’s dive into the Tampa Bay Rays sleepers, breakouts, and busts.
Tampa Bay Rays Dynasty Sleepers, Breakouts, and Busts
MLB Sleeper: Shane Baz, SP
Alright, save it. I don’t want to start this article quibbling about what the definition of a sleeper is. Baz is not unknown, nor is he flying under many radars, if any, but he is ostensibly going to take the mound this year for the first time since undergoing Tommy John surgery in July of 2022.
Baz showed off a double-plus heater throughout his minor league career and unleashed it on MLBers in 40.1 innings across 2021 and 2022. It didn’t garner the results you’d expect, at least in his injury-shortened season, and we’ll have to wait to see how it plays upon his return, which appears to be scheduled for mid-summer. He compliments it with a tidy little slider in the upper 80’s he deploys down-and-away to righties and down-and-in on lefties to great effect. His seldom-used curveball featured four inches of vertical break above average (more downward movement) and was similarly effective.
Recent news that Baz won’t be ready until July has depressed his price. His ADP in NFBC drafts has already fallen nearly a full round in 12 team formats. He looked like a potential top-of-the-rotation arm, and right now is the best time to buy since the off-season started.
MLB Breakout: Jonathan Aranda, UTIL
Aranda has exhausted prospect eligibility with 190 big league plate appearances but has yet to carve out more than a part-time role despite being one of the more productive minor leaguers in affiliated baseball in 2021 and 2022. That’s the product of two distinct dynamics: (1) the Rays have a glut of corner infield options that limit his opportunities to crack the lineup, and (2) he hasn’t exactly blown the door off its hinges in his short MLB stints.
Aranda is a patient hitter willing to work a walk and has enough thump to justify a strong-side platoon role at the DH position. He was 65% better than the average Triple-A bat in his 434 plate appearances at the level in 2023. With Luke Raley departing via trade and plenty of time for players like Harold Ramirez and Isaac Paredes to find themselves as members of another organization, Aranda could be the primary beneficiary. He’s very low-priced given his MLB track record with upside for a larger-than-part-time role.
Different playing time projection sites prognosticate different roles for him early in 2024. Fangraphs’ Roster Resource currently pencils him in as the primary DH, while Mike Kurland’s MLB Playing Time has him as a bench piece.
MLB Bust: Isaac Paredes, 3B
Paredes is a fun player because of how he produces. He’s a master of the pulled fly ball which allows him to maximize his damage on contact. He put 31 baseballs over the outfield boundary in 2023 despite significantly trailing the MLB average in average exit velocity, hard-hit rate, and barrel rate. Take a gander at his Baseball Savant spray chart, and you’ll come away with a firm understanding of the magic that is the pulled fly ball.
My concern is that it’s a tightrope act. He’s suspended over a canyon with nothing but a cable to balance on and a baton in hand. If his primary skill is maximizing damage on contact, and it’s entirely dependent on hitting the baseball out front at good angles, how sustainable is it? His xStats certainly aren’t buying it. He slugged a full .119 points more than his expected figure, which is to say that the moment he fails to continuously produce optimal launch and spray angles, the house of cards may come crashing down.
That’s not to say that he doesn’t have other skills that raise his floor outcome. He does not whiff – especially not in the zone – and he doesn’t chase pitches outside of the zone much more than league average. I’m rooting for Paredes because being unique makes a player inherently interesting, but it isn’t necessarily a recipe for sustained success.
Prospect Sleeper: Trevor Harrison, SP
We’re in deep sleeper territory. Harrison is a prep righty from Port Richey, Florida, who stands six-foot-four and 225 lbs. He was the Rays’ 5th round selection in 2023. They signed him for $847,500, well over the slot value and equivalent to third-round money.
He’s got a burgeoning fastball that lived in the low-90’s and touched 94 mph prior to the draft when he was just 17 years old, and he pairs it with a slider and changeup. Those three offerings ostensibly give him enough ammunition to dispel batters of both-handedness, but you’re really betting on projectability. Prep right-handers, especially those that have a limited showcase track record, don’t often get huge signing bonuses, especially not from the Rays. In an environment where pop-up pitching prospects are more prevalent than ever, Harrison may be worth a gamble in very deep leagues.
Prospect Breakout: Santiago Suarez, SP
Originally signed by Miami in 2022, Suarez made his way across the state to Tampa later the same year in a deal that sent Xavier Edwards and JT Chargois to the Marlins. He’d been excellent over the summer, pitching to a 2.31 ERA with 38 strikeouts and just six walks across 39 DSL innings.
His 2023 was a repeat. He had the lowest ERA of any pitcher who made an appearance as a starter in the FCL (third overall behind a pair of arms who threw fewer than 30 innings combined) while, again, striking out 38 in 39.2 innings of work and walking just eight batters. He jumped to the Low-A Carolina league in August, where he surrendered just five earned runs in 19.2 innings.
It isn’t necessarily blow-away stuff for Suarez because it hasn’t translated to big punch-out totals yet, but he has a pair of above-average pitches at present. His fastball sits 93-95 mph with solid carry, and he uses it to fill up the zone. It landed for strikes 75% of the time, which is a figure that far outstrips the average strike rate, particularly for that level. His curveball is his go-to whiff offering, and it plays well at the bottom of the zone, which allows for a lot of north-south attacking opportunities against hitters when paired with his fastball.
At some point, the hoi polloi catch on simply because of the results. He’s been elite at run prevention thus far, and Suarez could find himself as a top-100 prospect in the eyes of the public in 2024, should it continue. He has decent stuff for a late-bloomer, and I’d like to see it translate into strikeouts, but for now, the Rays are awfully pleased with his projection as a future big-league rotation arm.