Tampa Bay Rays May Be More Willing To Trade Yandy Díaz

[Matthew Lenz]

The Boston Red Sox have been unable to solve their first base puzzle since Triston Casas went down earlier this season. It remains one of their bigger needs as the trade deadline approaches.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic is reporting that the Tampa Bay Rays may be softening and more willing to trade Yandy Díaz.

Díaz is having another good offensive season for the Tampa Bay Rays. In 97 games, he has posted an. OPS of .816. He has hit 17 home runs, demonstrating his increased power output in recent years. Díaz has contributed significantly to the Rays' offense with 50 runs scored and 60 runs batted in. He is controllable through 2026, and has a 2027 club option that vests at $13 million with 500 plate appearances in 2026.

Should the Red Sox acquire Díaz? Join the conversation in the comments.

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[SPLENDIDSPLINTER]

19 minutes ago, Matthew Lenz said:

The Boston Red Sox have been unable to solve their first base puzzle since Triston Casas went down earlier this season. It remains one of their bigger needs as the trade deadline approaches.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic is reporting that the Tampa Bay Rays may be softening and more willing to trade Yandy Díaz.

Díaz is having another good offensive season for the Tampa Bay Rays. In 97 games, he has posted an. OPS of .816. He has hit 17 home runs, demonstrating his increased power output in recent years. Díaz has contributed significantly to the Rays' offense with 50 runs scored and 60 runs batted in. He is controllable through 2026, and has a 2027 club option that vests at $13 million with 500 plate appearances in 2026.

Should the Red Sox acquire Díaz? Join the conversation in the comments.

 

View full rumor

 

Definitely. Will it happen? Probably not.

[Jasonbay44]

I have hard time believing Rays would trade him in division, especially to Boston where he would really enjoy playing at Fenway. 

[notin]

34 minutes ago, Jasonbay44 said:

I have hard time believing Rays would trade him in division, especially to Boston where he would really enjoy playing at Fenway. 

No better way to slow down Boston’s future than trade a 34yo first baseman for some part of Boston’s future.

Plus with three wild cards, the division doesn’t mean what it used to…

[TedYazPapiMookie]

Yandy Diaz at 33 is on the downside but is a quality player for at least a couple more years.  Not sure why TB would want to trade him to Boston, they prefer to move players to non-divisional teams. 

While solving problems we need Breslow to clean-up the situation not just add.  We have several lame duck players right now that need to be moved:

1 - Abreu - The not so talented platoon outfielder who has excellent power but limited overall skills.

2 - Casas - A guy who got injured and now could be replaced by a trade or by Campbell who has been transitioned to 1B.

3 - Campbell - Not liked by Cora, he's as iffy to get a fair shake at his SS position as many others under Cora's biased choices so he's a square peg that will be hammered into a round hole or traded.  He's highly likely to end up like Priester, developing into a stud somewhere else.

4 - Yoshida - The over-paid Japanese player who is not a prototypical DH but has hitting skills better than any other DH on the team including Abreu.  If BOS can trade for Suarez and put him at DH, Yoshida becomes expendable immediately.

If Cora new how to manage we could hang on to several of these players but he'll work them into the rotation at the expense of the better players on the team.  He still over sits his star players just like he did in 2018, the last time he had talent on his roster.

[5GoldGlovesOF,75]

I like Yandy because he's a righty bat that doesn't strike out (14.9% K-rate) who can hit to the opposite field, which helps balance the line-up. Even if he doesn't have flyball pull power, he's a lifetime .317 hitter at Fenway in 207 PA. 

But here's a stat that shows maybe Diaz won't fit in with the current Red Sox: man on third, less than 2 outs --  career .352 in 161 plate appearances. Sardonically speaking...