{"id":147465,"date":"2026-02-07T20:36:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-07T20:36:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/147465\/"},"modified":"2026-02-07T20:36:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-07T20:36:07","slug":"victor-mesa-jr-traded-to-tampa-bay-rays-marlins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/147465\/","title":{"rendered":"Victor Mesa Jr. traded to Tampa Bay Rays &#8211; Marlins"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\tOn Friday, the Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays agreed on a trade that sent outfielder <a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/players\/m\/mesavi01.shtml?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=fishonfirst.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-07_br\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Victor Mesa Jr.<\/a> to the Rays in exchange for minor league infielder\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.baseball-reference.com\/register\/player.fcgi?id=brachi000ang&amp;utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=fishonfirst.com&amp;utm_campaign=2026-02-07_br\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Angel Brachi<\/a>. Mesa had been\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/fishonfirst.com\/news-rumors\/miami-marlins\/roster-moves-victor-mesa-jr-dfa-garrett-acton\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">designated for assignment<\/a> on Tuesday in a corresponding roster move that allowed the Marlins to claim Garrett Acton off waivers.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tMesa remains in the state of Florida, but leaves the only professional franchise that he&#8217;s ever known.\u00a0The 24-year-old had been the longest-tenured position player in the Marlins organization, signing alongside his brother, Victor Victor Mesa, in October 2018 when both were international free agents.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\u00a0\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tIn 2025 at the Triple-A level, Mesa slashed\u00a0.286\/.352\/.460\/.813 with seven home runs, 33 RBI and a 121 wRC+ in 52 games played. He was called up to the majors and made his debut where in 16 games, he hit .188\/.297\/.344\/.641 with one home run, six RBI and an 81 wRC+.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tMesa will have a slightly easier path to regular MLB playing time with Tampa Bay than he had in Miami, but making the Opening Day roster looks like an uphill battle for him. The Rays have three other left-handed-hitting outfielders ahead of him on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fangraphs.com\/roster-resource\/depth-charts\/rays\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">their depth chart<\/a> in Chandler Simpson, Cedric Mullins and Jake Fraley. If necessary, the Rays can option him to the minor leagues (Mesa has one more option left).\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAs for\u00a0Brachi, 19, he signed for $800k in the 2024 international signing class. Repeating the Dominican Summer League last season, he slashed .337\/.453\/.408\/.861 with 21 RBI, 17 stolen bases and a 142 wRC+ in 51 games. The Cumana, Venezuela, native has led all rookie-level players in Minor League Baseball with 30 HBP since making his pro debut\u2014that is a major reason for his\u00a0career .403 OBP.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tEntering the 2025 season, FanGraphs had Brachi as the <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.fangraphs.com\/tampa-bay-rays-top-56-prospects\/\" rel=\"external nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">49th-best prospect<\/a> in the Rays organization with a 35+ future value on the 20-80 scale. &#8220;He\u2019s a gritty scout favorite with limited tools but advanced baseball acumen and feel to hit,&#8221; wrote\u00a0Eric Longenhagen and James Fegan. Brachi&#8217;s biggest obstacle long term will be producing power (zero homers in his MiLB career thus far).\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe Marlins and Rays have linked up on at least one trade with each other every year dating back to 2021, so this deal extends that streak to six years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On Friday, the Miami Marlins and Tampa Bay Rays agreed on a trade that sent outfielder Victor Mesa&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147466,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[71347,135,137,136,71145],"class_list":{"0":"post-147465","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa","8":"tag-angel-brachi","9":"tag-tampa","10":"tag-tampa-headlines","11":"tag-tampa-news","12":"tag-victor-mesa-jr"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}