{"id":342413,"date":"2025-12-12T04:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-12T04:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/342413\/"},"modified":"2025-12-12T04:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-12T04:59:07","slug":"rays-have-discussed-pepiot-baz-in-marte-trade-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/342413\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays Have Discussed Pepiot, Baz In Marte Trade Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays are among a number of teams that have been tied to Diamondbacks star Ketel Marte<\/a>. Arizona general manager Mike Hazen has consistently downplayed the chance of a deal coming together on their MVP-caliber second baseman, but he hasn\u2019t slammed the door shut given the team\u2019s need for starting pitching.<\/p>\n

Nick Piecoro of The Arizona Republic<\/a> reports that conversations with the Rays have kicked around a framework that would send both Ryan Pepiot<\/a> and Shane Baz<\/a> to the desert. Piecoro writes that nothing is believed to be close on that front and the Rays are not necessarily any kind of frontrunner. Indeed, he adds that the Diamondbacks have had conversations with another team interested in Marte that would be built around a bigger-name starting pitcher.<\/p>\n

Whether or not talks with Tampa Bay progress, the mention of multiple controllable starters hammers home the high asking price which the Diamondbacks have set. Pepiot landed in Tampa Bay as the centerpiece of the Tyler Glasnow<\/a> return two offseasons ago. He\u2019s the team leader with 297 2\/3 innings pitched since the start of 2024.<\/p>\n

The former third-round pick owns a 3.75 earned run average while striking out a little more than a quarter of opposing hitters. He\u2019s a decent strike-thrower who sits around 95 MPH with his heater and has a plus changeup. Pepiot\u2019s slider is a distant third offering, and the changeup has made him a reverse splits pitcher. He has held left-handed hitters to a .192\/.287\/.354 batting line with a near-28% strikeout rate over the past two seasons. Righties have hit .243\/.303\/.420 while punching out at a 23% clip.<\/p>\n

Pepiot is unlikely to develop into an ace, but he\u2019s an established mid-rotation starter who turned 28 in August. He has a little over three years of service time, so he\u2019s under arbitration control through 2028. MLBTR contributor Matt Swartz projects<\/a> him for a $3.7MM salary. Teams place a premium on an affordable #3-type starter. The Rays presumably aren\u2019t shopping Pepiot, but it\u2019s a testament to Marte\u2019s offensive impact that the righty would be on the table in those conversations.<\/p>\n

Baz, 26, has also come up<\/a> in trade talks with the Astros. The 6\u20193\u2033 righty is a former top prospect who has yet to reach his upper mid-rotation ceiling. That\u2019s partially due to some early-career injuries, including Tommy John surgery that wiped out his 2023 season. He posted a 3.06 ERA across 14 starts when he returned in \u201924. That earned him a spot in Kevin Cash\u2019s rotation this year, but Baz had an up-and-down performance. He concluded with a 4.87 ERA across 166 1\/3 innings. That\u2019s despite a solid 24.8% strikeout percentage and 11.6% swinging strike rate.<\/p>\n

The pure upside might be higher with Baz than it is with Pepiot. He sits 97 MPH and gets above-average movement on an 85 MPH knuckle-curve and 90 MPH cutter. Baz has plus stuff and is a decent enough strike thrower. He has been held back by a lack of start-to-start consistency. He allowed one run or fewer 10 times (including seven scoreless appearances) but also had 10 outings in which he gave up five or more runs.<\/p>\n

Baz also has between three and four service years and is eligible for arbitration through 2028. He\u2019s projected for a $3.1MM salary. Teams are probably divided as to whether they\u2019d prefer Pepiot\u2019s stability or Baz\u2019s raw stuff, but both pitchers have significant trade value. They\u2019re two of the three returning Tampa Bay pitchers (alongside\u00a0Drew Rasmussen<\/a>) who topped 100 innings. The Rays are likely to give Steven Matz<\/a> a starting opportunity, but they\u2019d certainly need to backfill the rotation if they traded two starters.\u00a0Shane McClanahan<\/a> hasn\u2019t pitched since 2023. Joe Boyle<\/a> and\u00a0Ian Seymour<\/a> have limited track records.<\/p>\n

The Diamondbacks would require a monster return built around MLB starting pitching to move Marte. He\u2019s coming off a .283\/.376\/.517 showing with 28 home runs. Marte is the best second baseman in the league and is signed for a bargain $102.5MM over the next six seasons (the final of which is a player option year).<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a risky deal when you\u2019re talking about trading really, really good players at all,\u201d Hazen told Piecoro. \u201cIt\u2019s something that we have to at least listen to in our job. It\u2019s not something that you really look forward to, necessarily, when you have the players that we do. But it\u2019s also the reality of our team and where we are that I have to consider some things.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arizona agreed to terms with\u00a0Michael Soroka<\/a> on a one-year deal this week. He\u2019ll be in the rotation alongside\u00a0Ryne Nelson<\/a>, Eduardo Rodriguez<\/a> and Brandon Pfaadt<\/a>. (They\u2019re unlikely to get Corbin Burnes<\/a> back from Tommy John surgery before August.) Nelson was the only one of that trio who found much success this year. The D-Backs need to add another two starters and don\u2019t have a ton of payroll space to address that via free agency. They\u2019re also looking for bullpen help and could upgrade at third base or in the outfield.<\/p>\n

While Marte is the best second baseman at least loosely available on the trade market, the Rays ironically have the second-best such option.\u00a0Brandon Lowe<\/a> is coming off a 31-homer season in which he hit .256\/.307\/.477 over 553 plate appearances. Lowe is entering the final season of his contract and is set to make $11.5MM. The Rays have reportedly gotten hits<\/a> from the Pirates and Reds (surely among others) about his availability.<\/p>\n

President of baseball operations Erik Neander touched on Lowe\u2019s trade candidacy from the Winter Meetings (link via Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times<\/a>). He called the two-time All-Star an \u201cimportant, impactful player who provides power at a position that is hard to find.\u201d Neander acknowledged the Rays\u2019 history of shopping players whose control windows were closing but praised both Lowe and\u00a0Yandy D\u00edaz<\/a> as longtime contributors.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur history is our history. We\u2019ve made (trades) with players that are established, that are impactful contributors that as they get their way closer to free agency, we\u2019ve made plenty of those decisions. But we\u2019ve also made decisions the last few years to kind of continue to roll forward with these guys. We greatly appreciate them and are more than happy to ride in the next year and see what this team can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Both clubs could go in a few different directions over the coming weeks. There\u2019s no guarantee either will end up moving their star second baseman, but the trade market has yet to really pick up as most of the top free agent hitters continue weighing their options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays are among a number of teams that have been tied to Diamondbacks star Ketel Marte. Arizona…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":342414,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[64,63,24617,7815,591,189984,61899,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-342413","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-brandon-lowe","11":"tag-ketel-marte","12":"tag-mlb","13":"tag-ryan-pepiot","14":"tag-shane-baz","15":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342413","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=342413"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342413\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/342414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=342413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=342413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=342413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}