{"id":464080,"date":"2026-02-09T17:00:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:00:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/464080\/"},"modified":"2026-02-09T17:00:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-09T17:00:08","slug":"rays-to-sign-former-reds-padres-innings-eating-righty-veteran-pitcher","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/464080\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays to sign former Reds, Padres innings-eating righty veteran pitcher"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Tampa Bay Rays<\/a> haven’t been the biggest spenders, nor the most active team this offseason around Major League Baseball. But they have made a few additions.<\/p>\n

Gavin Lux, Ben Williamson, Victor Mesa Jr., Justyn-Henry Malloy, Steven Matz, and Jacob Melton are all coming to Tampa Bay this offseason.<\/p>\n

Those are some interesting additions, but the Rays could still use some more pitching. And according to Jon Heyman of The New York Post<\/a>, that’s the Rays’ next move. They’re reportedly signing an innings-eating righty to a free agent deal in veteran Nick Martinez.<\/p>\n

Rays to sign vet Nick Martinez to FA deal<\/p>\n

MLB insider Jon Heyman reports that, “Nick Martinez to TB Rays, sources tell @Joelsherman1 and me. Pending Physical.”<\/p>\n

The Rays adding pitching depth this offseason isn’t a surprise, as there are some question marks about the starting rotation after Drew Rasmussen and Ryan Pepiot.<\/p>\n

Shane McClanahan has struggled with injuries, Matz hasn’t been a great pitcher recently, and Joe Boyle is a similar question mark.<\/p>\n

Martinez is a 35-year-old veteran pitcher who can eat innings for the Rays. He spent the past two seasons with the Cincinnati Reds<\/a>, where he was both a starter and reliever for the Reds.<\/p>\n

While his 4.45 ERA last season wasn’t the best mark, his 3.10 ERA the year prior was an encouraging mark for the Rays.<\/p>\n

More:\u00a0MLB Hot Stove tracker: Live updates on news, rumors, signings and trades for 2025 free agency<\/a><\/p>\n

Since coming back from a four-year stint in Japan from 2018 through 2021, Martinez has put up 3.67 ERA across four seasons with 61 starts in 192 games pitched.<\/p>\n

He might be more of a reliever than a starter, but his totals the last four years have never fallen below 106.1 innings pitched. This past season, he put up 165.2 innings pitched across 26 starts and 40 games pitched.<\/p>\n

Teams need pitchers to throw a lot of innings over the course of a full season, and Martinez has been one of the best innings-eaters in recent years.<\/p>\n

He’s a great addition for the Rays’ rotation and pitching staff in need of more arms, and especially innings for the upcoming 2026 MLB season.<\/p>\n

More MLB news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Rays haven’t been the biggest spenders, nor the most active team this offseason around Major…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":464081,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,462,82],"class_list":["post-464080","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mlb","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-mlb","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464080","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=464080"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464080\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/464081"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464080"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464080"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464080"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}