One of the more shocking moves of the MLB offseason thus far has been the Tampa Bay Rays declining the $11M club option on longtime reliever Pete Fairbanks. He finished his stint with the Rays throwing 256 â…” innings, posting a 2.98 ERA, saving 90 games (third in franchise history) and posted a 5.7 fWAR. Clearly, there will be a major market for Fairbanks in what is already a pretty loaded marker with Edwin Diaz and Robert Suarez leading the charge, but Fairbanks could potentially reunite with his former boss Peter Bendix in Miami.
The Texas Rangers drafted Fairbanks in the ninth round of the 2015 MLB Draft and was traded to the Rays in a one-for-one deal, sending Nick Solak to the Rangers in 2019. Bendix at that point was the Rays vice president, which who knows how much of a say he had when that deal is made, but certainly should mean something that the team traded for Fairbanks at that point.
Solak went on to slash .252/.327/.372/.700 with 21 home runs, 93 RBI and a 91 OPS+ in his four season with the organization. He was later traded to the Cincinnati Reds for cash considerations and has been bouncing around the league ever since. The trade went on to be a clear win for the Rays.
In 2025, Fairbanks posted a 2.83 ERA, 3.63 FIP, 8.80 K/9, 2.69 BB/9 and a career-high 27 saves through another career-high 60 â…“ innings pitched. His four-seam fastball was his best pitch per Run Value (four), averaging 97.3 mph and generating 21.9% whiff rate with opposing hitters posting a batting average of .221 and slugging percentage of .319. The one pitch that took a major dip in production was his slider, going from a seven run value down to zero (league average) and a major reason for that was that he wasn’t able to strike out many hitters with it, going from a 25.8 PutAway% to 19.7%. He did get many to whiff on it, going from a 23.6% whiff rate in 2024 to 30.8% this past season.
This past season, Fairbanks added a cutter to his arsenal, which he began to use midway through the season, ended up being an elite pitch that he is using to better manage contact against him. That pitch had a run value of three, averaging 90.5 mph and hitters whiffed on that pitch 34.4% of the time. Now with the opportunity to use that pitch for a full season, it’ll be interesting to see how far along that pitch can go and how much more usage he will give it.
If the Marlins go out and sign Fairbanks, he would be at the highest end of the realistic price range that the team would spend and maybe Bendix, knowing the player from his time with the Rays, would go out and make a bit of a stronger push. Fairbanks would immediately become the team’s everyday closer regardless of what has been said with a possible closer by committee. The team wants a high-leverage reliever per many reports and now, if they add one like Fairbanks, who is coming off a career year and has playoff experience, he needs to be the closer, shifting Ronny Henriquez over to the setup man. The likeliness that this happens is low, but it never hurts to dream assuming all the prior connections between the now two former Rays members.