{"id":762488,"date":"2026-07-27T04:03:17","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T04:03:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/762488\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T04:03:17","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T04:03:17","slug":"rays-phillies-monitoring-foster-griffin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/762488\/","title":{"rendered":"Rays, Phillies Monitoring Foster Griffin"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Rays and Phillies had a scout at Foster Griffin<\/a>\u2018s start yesterday, according to The Athletic\u2019s Spencer Nusbaum<\/a>.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t surprising that the playoff contenders are keeping an eye on Griffin, who could be one of the most intriguing arms on the trade market\u2026.if the Nationals decide to move him at all.<\/p>\n

Griffin gave up three earned runs on a walk and six hits over 6 2\/3 innings, with two strikeouts.\u00a0 This quality start was actually a dip in Griffin\u2019s current form, as it ended a streak of eight consecutive starts with no more than one earned run allowed.\u00a0 The left-hander now has a 2.76 ERA, 22.6% strikeout rate, 45.5% grounder rate, and an excellent 5.6% walk rate over 124 innings, with a strong chase rate that somewhat offsets his middling strikeout and whiff rates.<\/p>\n

A 3.75 SIERA, 82.9% strand rate, and .249 BABIP are other indicators that Griffin isn\u2019t pitching quite as well as his bottom-line numbers imply.\u00a0 That said, Griffin (who turns 30 tomorrow) has been one of the finds of the season, as he has more than delivered on the one-year, $5.5MM deal he signed with the Nationals last winter.\u00a0 After posting a 6.75 ERA in eight innings and seven games with the Royals and Blue Jays from 2020-22, Griffin spent the next three seasons reinventing himself in Japan with the Yomiuri Giants, and the results have been evident.<\/p>\n

If the Nationals struggled as expected this year, Griffin might well have already been traded in advance of the deadline.\u00a0 However, powered by perhaps baseball\u2019s best offense, Washington has posted a 54-52 record and sit a game out of the final NL wild card slot.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t out of the question that Griffin still gets moved<\/a>, but doing so would greatly weaken an already subpar pitching staff.<\/p>\n

While the team is still listening to offers on such notables as Griffin, CJ Abrams<\/a>, or Luis Garcia Jr.<\/a>, the Nats might try<\/a> to thread the needle by with some strategic buying and selling.\u00a0 We saw some of this in yesterday\u2019s trade<\/a> that sent Curtis Mead<\/a> to the Red Sox for Connelly Early<\/a>, as Washington sold high on Mead (a former top prospect who only broke out after joining the Nats in March) for another former top-100 prospect in Early who has already enjoyed some success since making his MLB debut last September.<\/p>\n

Perhaps another such creative trade could be found with the Rays, who are no stranger to outside-the-box types of deals.\u00a0 Tampa has one of the top rotations in baseball on paper, but Shane Rasmussen\u2019s durability is a question mark since injuries kept him from pitching in 2024-25, and both Griffin Jax<\/a> and Ian Seymour<\/a> have only been built up into starters during the season.\u00a0 Adding a proper starter in Griffin would help solidify the pitching staff, and give the Rays another starter that could viably start a playoff game.<\/p>\n

The Phillies already have their postseason top three lined up in Cristopher Sanchez<\/a>, Zack Wheeler<\/a>, and Jesus Luzardo<\/a>, but the struggles of Aaron Nola<\/a> and Andrew Painter<\/a> have left Philadelphia hunting for help at the back end of the rotation.\u00a0 While Griffin would be a fit here, it\u2019s worth noting that the Nationals are only three games behind the Phillies for second place in the NL East, so Washington may have less interest in swinging a deal with a division rival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Rays and Phillies had a scout at Foster Griffin\u2018s start yesterday, according to The Athletic\u2019s Spencer Nusbaum.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":752877,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2290],"tags":[5,55398],"class_list":["post-762488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-baseball","tag-baseball","tag-foster-griffin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@mlb\/116989958768250470","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762488","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=762488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/752877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}