The Tampa Bay Rays are heading into the offseason with a lot of decisions to make with their roster. At the end of the 2025 season, they had an MLB-high 17 players who were arbitration-eligible.
A few of them, such as relief pitcher Alex Faedo and shortstop Taylor Walls, have already had decisions made on them.
The right-handed pitcher was designated for assignment during a massive roster shake-up to clear space on the 40-man roster. Fellow right-handed pitchers Cole Wilcox and Chris Gerber were traded to the Seattle Mariners and New York Mets, respectively.
Walls never made it to arbitration. Instead, the Rays exercised their club option on him for $2.45 million and tacked on another option for 2027 worth $3.1 million.
With so much of their core in place and returning for 2026, Tampa Bay’s spot in the ranking of all 30 MLB rosters heading into the offseason will likely surprise some people.
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Mike Petriello of MLB.com has placed the Rays at No. 15 in his rankings. That is higher than most of the way-too-early rankings that have been shared, which feature Tampa Bay way too low in the bottom third of the league.
They had only one Major League free agent coming into the offseason: starting pitcher Adrian Houser. He is now being joined by closer Pete Fairbanks, who had his club option worth $12.5 million declined in favor of paying a $1 million buyout.
That doesn’t mean the Rays are without needs this offseason. Operating on a minuscule budget, they will have to get creative when upgrading the weaknesses on the roster.
They have identified catcher and outfield as their most pressing needs. It has been a never-ending quest to find a backstop who can help elevate not only the team’s offense but the performance of the pitching staff with his performance behind the plate.
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In the grass, Tampa Bay has a serious power outage. Their entire group of outfielders combined to hit only 29 home runs last season, which was by far the least in the league. President of baseball operations Erik Neander has said power and run production are what they are looking for when seeking outfield help this winter.
Shortstop is an underrated need, too. Walls is a stellar defender, but it is difficult to deploy him as an everyday player because of his struggles at the plate. One of their top prospects, Carson Williams, didn’t look quite ready, failing to seize his Major League opportunity in 2025.
Upgrading the offense is the No. 1 priority for the Rays this offseason. With a few tweaks and additions, this is a team that will challenge for a playoff spot in the American League based on how highly regarded the roster already is.
Eight AL teams are ranked ahead of them on this list. In a shocking turn of events, they are also one spot ahead of the Chicago Cubs, seven ahead of the Cleveland Guardians and eight ahead of the Cincinnati Reds; all three were playoff teams this past season.