{"id":19613,"date":"2025-07-24T03:59:07","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T03:59:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/19613\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T03:59:07","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T03:59:07","slug":"rays-option-taj-bradley-mlb-trade-rumors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/19613\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays Option Taj Bradley – MLB Trade Rumors"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays optioned\u00a0Taj Bradley<\/a> to Triple-A Durham after tonight\u2019s rough start against the White Sox, reports Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times<\/a>. They\u2019ll presumably announce that decision and a corresponding roster move tomorrow.\u00a0Joe Boyle<\/a>, who has been working in long relief, stands as the obvious candidate to step into the rotation.<\/p>\n

Bradley didn\u2019t make it out of the second inning tonight. He gave up four hits and three walks, allowing four runs in an inning and two-thirds. That promptly erased a four-run lead that the Rays had built in the bottom of the first. They took the lead back in the middle frames before an eighth-inning implosion by setup man Kevin Kelly<\/a> led to an 11-9 defeat to the American League\u2019s worst team.<\/p>\n

This pushed Bradley\u2019s season earned run average to 4.61 across 111 1\/3 innings. The 24-year-old righty has a slightly below-average 20.2% strikeout rate against a 9.3% walk percentage. Leading up to tonight, he was coming off two of his best outings of the season. Bradley blanked the Orioles over six innings with as many strikeouts in his first start out of the All-Star Break. He\u2019d closed the first half with six innings of one-run ball against Boston.<\/p>\n

Bradley has been in Kevin Cash\u2019s rotation all season. This is his first optional assignment since the end of 2023. Boyle, who was one of five relievers called upon tonight, worked three innings of one-run ball. He carries a 1.42 ERA in 19 innings over five MLB appearances. Acquired from the A\u2019s in the\u00a0Jeffrey Springs<\/a> trade, Boyle has a huge arm but has struggled with command throughout his career.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old has seemingly taken a step forward in that regard this year. He walked 10.8% of batters faced across 15 Triple-A outings. That\u2019s still higher than average but much more tolerable than the 17-20% range at which he\u2019d sat for most of his minor league career. Boyle fanned 33% of Triple-A opponents with a 1.85 ERA while working from Durham\u2019s rotation.<\/p>\n

Bradley\u2019s demotion one week before the deadline is interesting. USA Today\u2019s Bob Nightengale<\/a> reported a couple weeks ago that the club was open to offers on Bradley. ESPN\u2019s Jeff Passan<\/a> similarly wrote this morning that the one-time top pitching prospect is available in trade discussions. Bradley is likely still a season away from arbitration and under club control for four years beyond this one. If the Rays don\u2019t trade him, they\u2019ll need to keep him in Durham for at least 15 days unless he\u2019s brought up to replace someone who is going on the injured list.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays optioned\u00a0Taj Bradley to Triple-A Durham after tonight\u2019s rough start against the White Sox, reports Marc Topkin…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19614,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,16629,462,82,16630],"class_list":{"0":"post-19613","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-joe-boyle","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-taj-bradley"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19613","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19613"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19613\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19614"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19613"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19613"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19613"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}