Below is an analysis of the prospects in the farm system of the Tampa Bay Rays. Scouting reports were compiled with information provided by industry sources as well as our own observations. This is the fifth year we’re delineating between two anticipated relief roles, the abbreviations for which you’ll see in the “position” column below: MIRP for multi-inning relief pitchers, and SIRP for single-inning relief pitchers. The ETAs listed generally correspond to the year a player has to be added to the 40-man roster to avoid being made eligible for the Rule 5 draft. Manual adjustments are made where they seem appropriate, but we use that as a rule of thumb.
A quick overview of what FV (Future Value) means can be found here. A much deeper overview can be found here.
All of the ranked prospects below also appear on The Board, a resource the site offers featuring sortable scouting information for every organization. It has more details (and updated TrackMan data from various sources) than this article and integrates every team’s list so readers can compare prospects across farm systems. It can be found here.
Other Prospects of Note
Grouped by type and listed in order of preference within each category.
Strikeout-Heavy Bats
Ryan Cermak, CF
Brock Jones, CF
Angel Mateo, RF
Jones and Cermak were the 65th and 71st overall picks in the 2022 draft, two college outfielders with big power and questionable hit tools. Both are striking out a ton as pros. Mateo, 20, is a power-hitting Dominican outfielder with ridiculous hand speed. He takes a ton of off-balance hacks.
Depth Arms with Relief Profiles
Alfredo Zarraga, RHP
Adam Boucher, RHP
Gerlin Rosario, RHP
Keyshawn Askew, LHP
Garrett Acton, RHP
Haden Erbe, RHP
Derrick Edington, RHP
Andy Rodriguez, RHP
Acquired from the Cubs for Miles Mastrobuoni, Zarraga is a powerful little reliever with upper-90s arm strength. He spent most of 2024 at Double-A Montgomery and finished in Durham, combining for a 30.4% K% and 12.8% BB% across 57 innings. Though he hasn’t been throwing quite as hard during 2025 Cactus League play, Zarraga sat 95-96 last year and was regularly touching 97. He needs that velocity to return. Boucher, a recent 10th rounder out of Duke, peppers the top of the strike zone with mid-90s fastballs and cutters. He’s cut his walks since college, albeit it mostly against Low-A hitters in 2024. Rosario is a 23-year-old long reliever who spent most of last year at Low-A. He has a magic trick splitter and an average slider, which he might be able to pitch backwards with in relief to take pressure off his 91-mph fastball. He’s in that Devin Sweet-y, fringe 40-man area. Askew is a sidearm lefty reliever with an average sinker/slider combo and below-average control. Acton is a former A’s prospect who debuted and then was released in 2023. He was on the full season injured list all of 2024 and is back this spring. At his best, he has a rise/run mid-90s fastball that plays up thanks to his violent, deceptive delivery. Erbe is a hulking 6-foot-3 righty with mid-90s heat, an occasionally good slider, and 30-grade control. He served in a late-inning relief capacity at Double-A last year. The 6-foot-8, 25-year-old Edington has mid-90s velocity and struck out 10.16/9 IP in 2024. A more consistent slider will give him more comfortable big league projection. David Laurila talked with him about his unique journey here. Rodriguez is a lightning-armed righty with mid-90s heat and a good slider. His fastball’s movement causes it to play down, and Rodriguez’s size and max-effort delivery create risk that he won’t sustain it as he climbs the minors
Catching Depth
Ricardo Genovés, C
Raudelis Martinez, C
Tatem Levins, C
J.D. Gonzalez, C
Genovés, 25, is a physical catcher with a great arm and a slow bat. He will pop sub-1.9 fairly often but struggles some with ball-blocking, and while Genovés’ swing is geared for lift, his bat speed is way below big league standards. He’s a nice depth option because of his hose. Martinez is a slender, athletic catcher with advanced bat-to-ball feel and an above-average arm. He’s approaching age 23 and has struggled to add relevant weight and strength. Levins, 25, is a lefty-hitting catcher whose swing has lovely natural lift. He’s had some A-ball success, but is less physical than the typical big league catcher. Gonzalez was a projectable Puerto Rican high school catcher with a good looking swing who the Padres gave $550,000 to in the 2023 draft before trading him to Tampa Bay in the Jason Adam deal. He’s striking out too much to have prospect value at the moment.
Early-Year Movers?
Alex Cook, RHP
Mason Auer, RHP
Jeremy Pilon, LHP
Cook looked like an “arrow up” relief prospect early in 2024, as he was having success as a starter on the back of a fastball-heavy approach. He got hurt and missed the rest of the season with injury, and is currently a camp NRI who hasn’t thrown in a big league game yet. Auer was a two-way high school prospect (up to 97 at Area Codes) who entered pro ball as an outfielder and had low-level success before struggling at the upper levels. Now 23, he’s moved back to the mound and is again humming in the mid-90s. Pilon, 19, is a deceptive French Canadian southpaw who threw nearly 70% fastballs in 2024 and struck out more than a batter per inning in Charleston. He struggled with walks and is generally unpolished, but there’s definitely something going on with his fastball that makes it more playable than a 91-mph pitch.
Depth Starters and Outfielders
Duncan Davitt, RHP
Cole Wilcox, RHP
Ty Cummings, RHP
Tristan Peters, OF
Matthew Etzel, OF
Davitt was a funky low-slot guy at Iowa who has successfully been turned into a backend starter prospect in pro ball. His arm slot has been raised some, and he’s throwing strikes with a rise/run fastball and sweeper; both play as average thanks to Davitt’s ability to hide the ball. He’ll have a sneaky 40-man case nine months from now if he can find a third viable pitch. Wilcox hasn’t been able to reclaim his peak upper-90s velocity and pitched like a slider-heavy depth starter option in 2024, working 143.2 innings combined between Double- and Triple-A while striking out just 18.3% of opponents. Cummings was supposedly acquired from Seattle as the PTBNL in the Randy Arozarena deal, but his MiLB player page hasn’t been updated to reflect that. He’s a skinny low-slot righty starter with a low-90s fastball and average slider, a Davitt starter kit who looks like a potential no. 6-9 starter. Peters and Etzel are smaller, contact-oriented corner outfielders at the upper levels without meaningful power.
Rays Specials
Narciso Polanco, 3B
Nicandro Aybar, 3B
Jose Monzon, SS
Jose Tovar, C
The Rays tend toward lots of smaller, contact-oriented hitting prospects, and here are some more. Polanco is a 20-year-old Dominican third baseman who had a 100 wRC+ at Low-A last year. Aybar, 20, and Monzon, 19, had bat-to-ball success on the complex. Tovar is a smaller lefty-hitting catcher who, in his second DSL season, was among the org leaders in contact rate, and also stings the ball well for his size.
System Overview
This is among the best handful of farm systems in baseball, and it might be the most fun. There are players ranked 15th or so on this list who could feasibly rank inside the top five in lesser systems (a friendly reminder that the grades are more illustrative than the ordinal rankings), and several of these prospects are unique players. There just aren’t many Chandler Simpsons, or Brayden Taylors, or Ian Seymours, or Xavier Isaacsizz… we could go on. The Rays have seemingly leaned into their long-held organizational modus operandi of Voltron’ing together component parts to create a greater big league whole, and it’s now reflected in their farm system. There are incomplete players on the roster who have one or two elite, standout tools, and Tampa Bay’s team construction allows them to be deployed in such a way that those tools are the ones that impact the game. Chandler Simpson is going to be a big deal, and probably soon. Brayden Taylor’s aggro launch hitting style and defense are going to be fun to watch, even if he strikes out a ton. Gary Gill Hill and Santiago Suarez are pitchability maestros, while Jackson Baumeister and Ty Johnson are pitch design science projects. Again, it’s a fun group.
Part of the reason the system is so deep is because of the Rays’ approach to the trade market. They are always getting back two or three players for every one they trade, and this snowballs talent, helps combat injury attrition, and diversifies their risk of going totally bust on any given deal. This was especially true in 2024, as the big league team wasn’t competitive for the first time in a while and the Rays made several seller-style trades. Twenty of the players on this list were originally with other orgs, and there are even more recent graduates (like Hunter Bigge, Jonny DeLuca, Joe Boyle, etc.) from the last 12 months of deals.
Internationally, the Rays have alternated a depth-driven approach (like they did in 2025) with an eggs-in-one-basket approach (like with Brailer Guerrero and Carlos Colmenarez). Really only Yoniel Curet can be touted as a near-ready big league contributor from the Latin American market. Brailer Guerrero is talented, but he’s still more of a “we’ll see” prospect due to injury.
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We’d also like to take the opportunity to welcome James Fegan, who will be joining FanGraphs as a prospect contributor. James is a Chicago native who has been writing about baseball on the internet since 2010, appearing across numerous outlets including Baseball Prospectus, ESPN, FanSided, The Athletic, The Chicago Sun-Times, Baseball America and elsewhere. A BBWAA member, James has covered the White Sox as a beat writer since 2017, which has involved tracking a lot of prospect success stories and many more failures. As a longtime appreciator of how FanGraphs’ prospect coverage blends an understanding of the statistical indicators of successful major leaguers with the outlier physical qualities that drive them, James is excited to analyze and continue learning about all things prospects going forward.
Content Source: blogs.fangraphs.com