The Tampa Bay Rays have started up their offseason with the goal of improving for the 2026 campaign.
Coming into the winter, there is still a lot to like about the Rays. This is a team that was a contender in the first half of the campaign in 2025 but was unable to sustain it for a full year. Injuries and some poor scheduling in the first half played a part in that, but this was a franchise that finished the season with a positive run differential.
As the team starts to gameplan for what 2026 will look like, they have already made a couple of notable decisions this winter. Firstly, the team exercised options on shortstop Taylor Wells and star slugger Brandon Lowe. These were some relatively easy decisions to make for the team, but they did make one surprise decision.
After a great start to his career with Tampa Bay, the team elected that the price tag was too high for them to retain closer Pete Fairbanks, who will now be a free agent. The overwhelming thought was that the team was going to pick up his option and then trade him. However, the trade market for Fairbanks apparently never developed, and the team elected not to pick up his option.
As a very talented player for the franchise, this certainly doesn’t make the team better right now, but the money that they saved might be able to be allocated elsewhere to improve overall. Chad Jennings of The Athletic (subscription required) recently wrote about the Rays being a strong team coming into the 2026 campaign, ranking them 14th overall.
Strong Rating Makes Sense