{"id":394370,"date":"2026-01-08T03:25:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-08T03:25:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/394370\/"},"modified":"2026-01-08T03:25:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T03:25:07","slug":"rays-sign-edward-olivares-blake-sabol","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/394370\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays Sign Edward Olivares, Blake Sabol"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays agreed to minor league deals with outfielder\u00a0Edward Olivares and catcher\u00a0Blake Sabol, reports Marc Topkin of The Tampa Bay Times<\/a>. Both players will be in camp as non-roster invitees. Additionally, Topkin reports<\/a> that right-hander\u00a0Brian Van Belle signed a two-year minor league contract after being released last month.<\/p>\n

Olivares, a veteran of parts of five MLB seasons, is back stateside after a year in Japan. The righty-hitting outfielder signed with the Orix Buffaloes last offseason. Olivares only made it into 11 games at the NPB level, batting .182 without a home run. He appeared in 61 games with the Buffaloes\u2019 minor league club, hitting .213\/.327\/.301 over 165 plate appearances.<\/p>\n

The 29-year-old Olivares has played for the Royals, Padres and Pirates. He\u2019s a .254\/.306\/.407 hitter in a little under 1000 big league plate appearances. He has solid tools headlined by above-average speed and a plus arm. A sub-6% walk rate has limited his on-base upside, and he doesn\u2019t have the power to play everyday in a corner outfield spot.<\/p>\n

Sabol gets a new job on his 28th birthday. A left-handed hitter, he played in 110 games for the Giants as a Rule 5 pick in 2023. Sabol connected on 13 homers and hit .235\/.301\/.394. That\u2019s not bad for a rookie catcher, but a lack of defensive polish has mostly kept him in the minors since that season. Sabol combined for 19 MLB appearances with the Giants and Red Sox between 2024-25. He hit at a league average level in Triple-A two seasons ago but limped to a .183\/.296\/.326 showing in 66 minor league games last year.<\/p>\n

The Rays have Hunter Feduccia and Nick Fortes lined up to split the catching work. Prospect Dominic Keegan is the only other catcher on the 40-man roster. Evaluators have questions about Keegan\u2019s defense, especially his arm. That has been the primary issue for Sabol as well, but he\u2019ll provide some experience as a non-roster player in camp.<\/p>\n

Van Belle will miss the entire 2026 season after undergoing late-season elbow surgery. The Rays outrighted him at the beginning of the offseason, then released him entirely in mid-December. Van Belle had been on track to qualify for minor league free agency at the end of next season. The transactional sequence allows the Rays to get a look at him in Spring Training \u201927. Van Belle debuted last year with four appearances, tossing 8 1\/3 innings of five-run ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays agreed to minor league deals with outfielder\u00a0Edward Olivares and catcher\u00a0Blake Sabol, reports Marc Topkin of The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":394371,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[65],"tags":[190917,190918,190919,363,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-394370","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-blake-sabol","9":"tag-brian-van-belle","10":"tag-edward-olivares","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394370","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=394370"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/394370\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/394371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=394370"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=394370"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=394370"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}