The Rays introduced that right-hander Shane Baz has been reinstated from the injured checklist and optioned to Triple-A Durham.
Baz, 25 subsequent month, underwent Tommy John surgical procedure in September of 2022 and missed your entire 2023 season. The membership deliberate to carry him alongside slowly right here in 2024 after that missed season and he additionally injured his indirect in March.
He began the season on the IL however has been rehabbing in latest weeks. He’s made 4 begins for Triple-A Durham this month, logging 12 innings. His most up-to-date outing was yesterday, when he threw 76 pitches over 4 innings, putting out 4, strolling three whereas permitting three hits and one earned run.
The Rays might arguably use him within the majors, given the variety of accidents they’re coping with of their rotation. Jeffrey Springs, Drew Rasmussen and Shane McClanahan all underwent elbow surgical procedure final 12 months and are on the shelf. They’ve not too long ago been joined by Zach Eflin and Jacob Waguespack.
The present rotation consists of Aaron Civale, Taj Bradley, Zack Littell, Ryan Pepiot and Tyler Alexander. Each Civale and Alexander are struggling this 12 months, with every having an earned run common over 5.00.
Previous to his surgical procedure, Baz was trending in the direction of making a big affect for the Rays. He had a 4.02 ERA in his first 9 main league begins, putting out 28.9% of batters confronted whereas giving out walks simply 7.2% of the time. His work within the minors was much more spectacular, as he had a 1.68 ERA at Triple-A in 2021 and 2022, a part of the explanation why he’s been thought-about one of many high pitching prospects within the league in recent times.
Given his apparent expertise, there’s a case to be made for plugging him into the rotation now. Every of Civale and Alexander have extra expertise, however additionally they have choices and may very well be moved to Triple-A, or to an extended aid position within the bullpen.
As a substitute, the Rays have optioned Baz to Triple-A for extra work at that degree. Maybe that may be a approach of monitoring his workload in an setting the place wins and losses don’t matter as a lot, which is a good consideration. Baz hardly pitched in 2022 both because of elbow points previous to his Tommy John surgical procedure, so he’s a number of years faraway from a big innings tally. His profession excessive is the 92 frames he tossed in 2021, which isn’t even that prime for a starter and is now a couple of years within the rear-view mirror. He additionally hasn’t appeared to be in good type on his rehab, with 11 walks to only eight strikeouts and an ERA of 6.00.
Although there’s some logic to holding him in Durham and monitoring him, it would nonetheless have penalties for Baz. The righty got here into this season with two years and 14 days of main league service time. Had he stayed on the energetic roster or injured checklist all season, he would have completed this 12 months at 3.014, simply sufficient to routinely qualify for arbitration and to be on monitor without spending a dime company after 2027. If he finally ends up spending important time on optionally available project, he might alter each of these trajectories, although he might nonetheless get to arb as a Tremendous Two man even when he’s shy of the three-year mark.
For now, he’ll proceed with no matter plan the Rays have for constructing him up over the rest of the season. Maybe his return to the massive leagues can be motivated by an harm to one in all his teammates or it might simply be based mostly on some kind of workload guidelines that Baz has to hit.
