{"id":890053,"date":"2026-09-13T03:34:37","date_gmt":"2026-09-13T03:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/890053\/"},"modified":"2026-09-13T03:34:37","modified_gmt":"2026-09-13T03:34:37","slug":"rays-select-brody-hopkins-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/890053\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays Select Brody Hopkins – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

2:39PM: Hopkins\u2019 selection has been officially announced by the Rays.\u00a0 Right-hander Alex Cook<\/a> was optioned to Triple-A to create room on the active roster, and right-hander Michael Grove<\/a> was designated for assignment.\u00a0 (MLBTR explored the Grove transaction in greater detail here<\/a>.)<\/p>\n

1:20PM: The Rays will be selecting right-hander Brody Hopkins<\/a>\u2019 contract before today\u2019s game with the Astros.\u00a0 WCIV\u2019s Scott Eisberg<\/a> was the first to report the news after being informed by none other than Hopkins\u2019 father.\u00a0 Corresponding moves will need to be made to make room for Hopkins on both the Rays\u2019 active roster and the 40-man roster.<\/p>\n

A sixth-round pick for the Mariners in the 2023 draft, Brody is the second member of the Hopkins family to reach the majors, as his older brother TJ<\/a> played in 25 games as an outfielder and DH for the Reds in 2023.\u00a0 The younger Hopkins has been in Tampa\u2019s organization since the 2024 trade deadline, when the Mariners included Hopkins as part of the trade package that brought Randy Arozarena<\/a> to Seattle.<\/p>\n

Hopkins drew top-100 attention prior to the season, though MLB Pipeline no longer has him in their top-100 prospect list and he has dropped from 37th in Baseball America\u2019s preseason ranking to 81st in BA\u2019s updated list from August.\u00a0 The 24-year-old got his first taste of Triple-A ball this year and the overall results haven\u2019t been good, as Hopkins has 5.17 ERA and an ungainly 21% walk rate over 94 innings for Durham.<\/p>\n

Most of the damage came as a starting pitcher, however, and Hopkins has looked much sharper since being moved to Durham\u2019s bullpen in mid-August.\u00a0 He has a 3.00 ERA, 16 strikeouts and (perhaps most importantly) just five walks over 39 total batters faced in nine innings of relief work.<\/p>\n

It remains to be seen whether or not this role change will remain permanent, as Hopkins pitched well enough as a starter in the lower minor league levels that Tampa Bay probably doesn\u2019t want to close the door on his rotation future.\u00a0 Becoming a reliever, however, has now earned Hopkins his first taste of Major League action, and his high-octane arsenal might lend itself more naturally to a bullpen role down the road.<\/p>\n

As per Baseball America\u2019s scouting report, \u201cHopkins has the best stuff of any Rays minor league starter, with an all-out, all-power, all-the-time approach that is quite unusual for a starting pitcher.\u201d\u00a0 BA gives Hopkins\u2019 curveball a 70 on the 20-80 scouting scale, as well as 65 grades for his fastball and cutter, and a 60 for his sweeper.<\/p>\n

All of these pitches usually come with extra velocity, topped off by an upper-90\u2019s fastball that can touch the 100mph mark.\u00a0 It makes for quite a repertoire on paper, though as one can guess from his Triple-A walk rate, Hopkins has had trouble keeping all these plus pitches inside the strike zone.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay\u2019s pitching development unit has a long history of getting the best out of high-upside arms, so it wouldn\u2019t be a surprise if Hopkins is able to immediately impact the Rays\u2019 bullpen.\u00a0 This late-season call-up is at least a chance for the big league staff to evaluate Hopkins in a look ahead to 2027, and the best-case scenario would see Hopkins become a secret weapon for the Rays in postseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2:39PM: Hopkins\u2019 selection has been officially announced by the Rays.\u00a0 Right-hander Alex Cook was optioned to Triple-A to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":890054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[558],"tags":[459718,64,63,459719,360402,591,85],"class_list":["post-890053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-alex-cook","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-brody-hopkins","tag-michael-grove","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890053","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=890053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/890053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/890054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=890053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=890053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=890053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}