{"id":383389,"date":"2026-01-02T11:24:09","date_gmt":"2026-01-02T11:24:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/383389\/"},"modified":"2026-01-02T11:24:09","modified_gmt":"2026-01-02T11:24:09","slug":"the-rays-second-base-options","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/383389\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rays’ Second Base Options"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays made a pair of significant trades last month, shipping\u00a0Shane Baz<\/a> to Baltimore and\u00a0Brandon Lowe<\/a> to Pittsburgh on the same day. The Baz move probably means they\u2019re going to dip back into free agency for a cheap back-end starter after signing\u00a0Steven Matz<\/a> to a two-year deal. It\u2019s less clear what they have planned at second base, a position that Lowe has locked down (when healthy) for the past seven years.<\/p>\n

Free agency doesn\u2019t offer much excitement. It seems safe to assume the Rays aren\u2019t signing\u00a0Bo Bichette<\/a>. The open market options beyond that include Willi Castro<\/a>,\u00a0Ram\u00f3n Ur\u00edas<\/a> and\u00a0Luis Rengifo<\/a>. The biggest swings they could take are on the trade market.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay hasn\u2019t been prominently tied to Brendan Donovan<\/a>. They\u2019ve had conversations<\/a> with the Diamondbacks about\u00a0Ketel Marte<\/a> going back to the Winter Meetings. Those preliminary talks involved both Baz and Ryan Pepiot<\/a>. That framework is obviously no longer an option, and while the Rays could make a compelling package involving Pepiot and controllable relief help, Arizona GM Mike Hazen indicated earlier this week<\/a> that they could soon cut off talks regarding Marte altogether. Each of Jake Cronenworth<\/a>, Nico Hoerner<\/a> and\u00a0Jazz Chisholm Jr.<\/a> feel like long shot trade candidates.<\/p>\n

If the Rays don\u2019t find a clear answer outside the organization, where could they turn at the keystone?<\/p>\n

Richie Palacios<\/a><\/p>\n

Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times<\/a> wrote last month that Palacios was likely to be the top internal option. Acquired from the Cardinals over the 2023-24 offseason, the left-handed hitter turned in a .223\/.346\/.318 line over 316 plate appearances in his first season with the club. He batted .333 with a .396 on-base percentage last year but was limited to 17 games. Palacios fractured his right ring finger during Spring Training and began the season on the injured list. He returned in April but quickly suffered a right knee sprain that kept him out until September.<\/p>\n

Palacios had missed two months late in the \u201924 campaign with a sprain of the same knee. He has played in barely more than a third of the team\u2019s games over the past two seasons. \u201c(He\u2019s) a player we really appreciate, but he\u2019s got to prove healthy,\u201d president of baseball operations Erik Neander told Topkin in December. \u201cHe\u2019s certainly a candidate internally, but we\u2019re going to give ourselves a little bit of time to sort through it.\u201d<\/p>\n

At his best, Palacios shows the makings of a potential high-OBP bat. He takes a lot of pitches and has good contact skills with solid line drive rates. Palacios doesn\u2019t have huge power but has a .370 on-base percentage over five Triple-A seasons. While the Rays haven\u2019t given him much of a look against lefty pitching in the big leagues, he has more than held his own in his limited opportunities.<\/p>\n

Taylor Walls<\/a><\/p>\n

Walls is a more well-known commodity. He\u2019s a 29-year-old who owns a .195\/.286\/.298 career batting line in more than 1500 plate appearances. He\u2019s not going to produce at the plate. The Rays love Walls as an up-the-middle defensive player. Public metrics have been bizarrely divided on his work. Statcast\u2019s Outs Above Average grades him below average, yet Defensive Runs Saved annually rates him as a Gold Glove caliber infielder.<\/p>\n

The Rays\u2019 internal evaluation must align much more closely to the DRS view. They wouldn\u2019t continue bringing Walls back via arbitration if they didn\u2019t consider him a defensive asset. He\u2019ll play next season on a $2.45MM salary and is controlled for 2027 via $3.1MM team option. Walls will get a lot of action in the middle infield, but he\u2019s likely to begin the season on the left side of the bag.<\/p>\n

Tampa Bay waived Ha-Seong Kim<\/a> in August and used rookie Carson Williams<\/a> as their shortstop for the final month of the 2025 season. The 22-year-old was overmatched, striking out 44 times and batting .172 in 32 games. Williams also struck out in more than 34% of his Triple-A plate appearances. He has power and is a plus defensive shortstop but is likely to head back to Triple-A to continue working on getting his contact rate to a manageable level.<\/p>\n

That\u2019d leave Walls as the only real choice to play shortstop in the early going. Free agency and the trade market are even thinner there than they are at second base. Walls could kick over to second base midseason if Williams plays his way back to the majors.<\/p>\n

Position Change Hypotheticals<\/p>\n

While the Rays generally have a stockpile of multi-positional players, that\u2019s not so much a strength of the current roster.\u00a0Jonathan Aranda<\/a> came up as a second baseman but moved off the position for defensive reasons. He has only played 141 innings there in the big leagues and was a full-time first baseman last year. Aranda is a below-average athlete and runner who probably isn\u2019t moving back up the defensive spectrum.<\/p>\n

Chandler Simpson<\/a> was a middle infielder in college but has been a full-time outfielder since being drafted in 2022. Topkin notes that the 25-year-old took some pregame infield drills late in the season, though it\u2019s not clear if the Rays will continue that next year. Despite being one of the fastest players in the sport, Simpson isn\u2019t an especially gifted defensive outfielder. Maybe that\u2019ll lead the coaching staff to give serious consideration to testing him on the dirt in 2026. Simpson stole 44 bases while batting .295\/.326\/.345 with zero home runs in 109 games as a rookie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays made a pair of significant trades last month, shipping\u00a0Shane Baz to Baltimore and\u00a0Brandon Lowe to Pittsburgh…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":383390,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,19168,476,462,63563,82,52179],"class_list":["post-383389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-chandler-simpson","tag-jonathan-aranda","tag-mlb","tag-richie-palacios","tag-sports","tag-taylor-walls"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383389","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=383389"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/383389\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/383390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=383389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=383389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=383389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}