{"id":575927,"date":"2026-02-16T18:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T18:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/575927\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T18:06:19","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T18:06:19","slug":"rays-lhp-garrett-cleavinger-drawing-trade-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/575927\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays LHP Garrett Cleavinger drawing trade interest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/athletic\/7047128\/2026\/02\/14\/diamondbacks-zac-gallen-scott-boras-contracts\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Ken Rosenthal at The Athletic <\/a>dropped a surprising note that the Rays lone lefty reliever Garrett Cleavinger is evidently drawing strong trade interest this week, in sourcing likely derived from a couple teams pushing for the acquisition.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">In a vacuum, this is totally something the old Rays would do, as Cleavinger is a short-arm reliever making $2.4 million with yet another pay increase coming next season in his final year of arbitration. Short of paying for a lights out closer, the Rays usually build their bullpen in a cave with some scraps, and Cleavinger has eight saves since his 2020 major league debut.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The modern Rays, at lease of the last couple seasons, wait and see how the season will go before removing any key pieces. The logic would go: If there\u2019s a 20% chance this team is competitive for the playoffs, you see if you\u2019re in that 1\/5 chance before moving on from your best relievers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Rosenthal doesn\u2019t throw his weight around lightly, and given that this rumor is here at all, it would seem to indicate the Rays also think they have enough left handed support to part with a fireman southpaw and that the team didn\u2019t give a hard no upon inquiry.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">If the Rays acquiesce, it could indicate that 40-man left-handed starters Ian Seymour and Joe Rock might start getting more swing-man assignments or time in the bullpen to maximize their value on the roster. In camp the Rays will also have journeyman LHP Cam Booser, who I\u2019m willing to bet already had a strong shot to make the Rays roster this Spring.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Cleavinger sported a 2.35 ERA last season over 61.1 IP, his second consecutive season of sixty innings thrown, with a 33.7% strikeout rate (96th percentile in MLB) with a 36.0% whiff rate (97th percentile) and 7.4% walk rate (63rd percentile).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ken Rosenthal at The Athletic dropped a surprising note that the Rays lone lefty reliever Garrett Cleavinger is&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":575928,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2377],"tags":[5,4,297,2550,68,61580,2551,2549],"class_list":{"0":"post-575927","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tampa-bay-rays","8":"tag-baseball","9":"tag-mlb","10":"tag-rays","11":"tag-tampa-bay","12":"tag-tampa-bay-rays","13":"tag-tampa-bay-rays-rumors","14":"tag-tampabay","15":"tag-tampabayrays"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116081641761746613","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=575927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/575927\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/575928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=575927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=575927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=575927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}