{"id":18101,"date":"2025-07-24T08:36:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T08:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/18101\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T08:36:10","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T08:36:10","slug":"rays-prefer-to-keep-pete-fairbanks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/18101\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays Prefer To Keep Pete Fairbanks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Rays \u201cstrongly prefer\u201d to hold closer\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/f\/fairbpe01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Pete Fairbanks<\/a>, <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/6510085\/2025\/07\/23\/mlb-trade-deadline-rays-white-sox-updates\/?utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=mlbtw&amp;source=mlbtw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">report Patrick Mooney, Will Sammon and Katie Woo of The Athletic<\/a>. Tampa Bay is one of many bubble teams, holding a 53-50 record that has them right on the edge of the Wild Card chase.<\/p>\n<p>While the Rays are generally open to offers on almost everyone at any time, it\u2019s understandable that they\u2019re reluctant to deal Fairbanks this summer. They\u2019ve had a middle-of-the-pack bullpen overall. They added to that group by acquiring <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/b\/bakerbr01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Bryan Baker<\/a> from the Orioles before the draft. At the same time, setup man <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/r\/rodrima01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Manuel Rodr\u00edguez<\/a> will be out for an extended stretch with a forearm injury.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/c\/cleavga01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Garrett Cleavinger<\/a> is an excellent left-hander, but they\u2019re already short on high-leverage options from the right side. Even with Baker in the fold and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/u\/ucetaed01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=www.mlbtraderumors.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-07-23_br\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Edwin Uceta<\/a> racking up strikeouts this month, they\u2019re better off acquiring another righty rather than trading one away. The Athletic reports that the Rays would indeed prioritize the bullpen if they buy in the next week.<\/p>\n<p>The 31-year-old Fairbanks is operating as Kevin Cash\u2019s primary closer for a third straight season. He\u2019s 17-20 in save chances with a 2.84 earned run average across 38 innings. That comes with a career-low 20.3% strikeout rate that is cause for some alarm. The bottom line results nevertheless make Fairbanks one of their most trusted relievers.<\/p>\n<p>Fairbanks is in the final guaranteed season of his three-year extension. He\u2019s playing on an affordable $3.667MM salary. Fairbanks is guaranteed at least a $1MM buyout on a club option that is currently valued at $8MM but is likely to end up in eight figures by season\u2019s end as he triggers escalators based on his appearances and games finished. That might be rich for Tampa Bay\u2019s taste, but they\u2019re under no financial pressure to move Fairbanks this season and could reevaluate their 2026 payroll situation once the offseason arrives.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays \u201cstrongly prefer\u201d to hold closer\u00a0Pete Fairbanks, report Patrick Mooney, Will Sammon and Katie Woo of The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18102,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,591,16057,85],"class_list":["post-18101","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-mlb","tag-pete-fairbanks","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18101","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18101"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18101\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18102"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18101"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18101"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18101"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}