RBLR Rays Roundtable – 3/23/26 Ceiling Raisers & Roster Surprises
Port Charlotte is in the rearview. Now comes the part that actually matters.
The 2026 Rays are walking into the regular season with more question marks than certainties — but that’s kind of the whole story. Can McClanahan stay healthy long enough to remind everyone what he is? Is Carson Williams about to do something special at short? And how did Ryan Vilade end up here? This week’s roundtable gets into all of it.
Sandy (@SandyAndTheRays) : The Return Of The Ace
I’ve been thinking about this for months — and honestly, trying to will it into existence since last season: Shane McClanahan’s return to the Rays rotation.
With the regular season quickly approaching, Friday’s game brought a mix of relief and déjà vu. McClanahan took the mound for his final start of spring training against a familiar opponent, the Boston Red Sox — the same team he faced in his last spring outing a year ago, when a nerve injury in his left triceps derailed his comeback and led to a third straight missed season.
Even if it was “just” spring training, it was encouraging to see him throw five scoreless innings on 73 pitches. More than anything, it was just good to have Mac back. After not having him the last couple of seasons, getting through camp healthy feels like a win — and maybe the first real sign that this time, it might finally come together.
Jacob Macauley (@raysfarmreport) : Why Ryan Vilade made the OD roster
Ryan Vilade was informed after the Rays 3-2 win over Minnesota on Saturday that he has officially made the Rays opening day roster, marking the first time in his career he has accomplished this feat. In every organization Vilade has been in, he has been given minimal opportunity, logging no more than 49 plate appearances in a single season.
Ryan’s spring on the surface might have Rays fans a bit confused as to how he made the roster, running a 72 wRC+ and a .116 ISO, but the under-the-hood statistics do his spring more justice. Ryan flashed elite swing decisions all spring, posting a double plus 52% Z – O-Swing%, and he made contact within the zone at an 80th percentile rate (89.8% Z-Contact).
The surface-level statistics suggest that he possibly sacrificed power to get to these marks, but his 43.9% HardHit% (55th percentile) suggests otherwise. Ryan’s bat is an integral part of why he made the team, but possibly the most important thing he has shown is the ability to play four different positions. Vilade’s versatility and tantalizing offensive upside should give him the reins to the short-side platoon utility role for the foreseeable future.
Dustin Teuton (u/FLBoy19) : Running with a healthy Hunter Bigge
Hunter Bigge’s 2025 season can be defined as very unlucky. A lat strain in May removed him from the team early, but what happened after that was one of the scarier moments the Rays have had in recent years. Bigge, about to finish his recovery, was in dugout when a 105 mph foul ball off Adley Rutschman’s bat hit him in the face on June 19, causing multiple facial fractures and ending his season.
Bigge came up through the minors strictly as a reliever after the Cubs took him in the 12th round out of Harvard in 2019. Bigge had solid stuff, but struggled with his command during his hike through the minors. That started to improve in 2024, and it was enough for the Rays to target him in the Isaac Paredes trade along with Christopher Morel and Ty Johnson.
The Paredes trade is decisive among Rays fans, mostly because the poor early return. I still think the market for Paredes was softer than people wanted to believe because his player profile particularly with regards to batted ball quality and his defensive regression. Some of that has been backed up since, both by the kind of returns tied to him later and by Houston not being able to move him this offseason even with plenty of noise around it.
Now that Morel is gone, a lot more of the pressure from that deal shifts to Bigge. He appears capable of handling it. He is not a super high-stuff guy with regards to pitch modeling, but at his best he mixes solid stuff with the ability to command four pitches, and that plays.
The 2025 numbers in 15 innings were skewed do to his home ballpark, injury, and of course small sample size. His 2.4 HR/9 and 6.20 FIP stand out, but the 4.59 xFIP shows him to be more in line with average. A 100% LOB rate and a .184 BABIP were obviously not going to be sustainable, however he still did put up at 2.40 ERA. At 27, it is unlikely to be a decrease in pure stuff, but likely is tied to the lat stain he suffered in early May. When he was right in 2024, he had a 2.60 ERA, 2.76 FIP, and 2.83 xFIP to go with a 32.9% K rate, showing an ability to be a very effective reliever at the MLB level.
With bullpen openings going into 2026, Bigge has a real chance to become part of a possibly dominant late inning relief group of Garrett Cleavinger, Griffin Jax, and Edwin Uceta.
Jake Shutters (@JakeShutters) : Carson Williams is the biggest ceiling-raiser for the 2026 Rays
It isn’t an uncommon position to be in for a baseball fan in January.
Looking all over the internet for any sort of news, predictions, or speculation, specifically about your favorite team. I was no different, as I looked just about everywhere for some sort of Rays coverage to get me through the offseason. Doing this, I stumbled across an ESPN article detailing what they called “one stat that determines each team’s 2026 chances”.
I scrolled down to Tampa Bay, and I was surprised to see it be Junior Caminero’s 45 home runs hit in 2025. Sure, it was one of the best seasons from an offensive talent in franchise history, and I believe priority number 1 is extending Caminero long term, but I disagreed that that specific stat would be the most important thing that would determine how 2026 goes at the Trop (he hit 45 in 2025, and they only won 77 games).
I spent some time thinking about what I would call the most important stat for the Rays and settled on one thing; Carson Williams’ wins above replacement.
It’s been possibly the most common gripe among Rays fans since, well, we don’t have to get into that. But the shortstop position, and specifically Taylor Walls’ struggles at the plate have been well documented since he’s essentially taken over in mid 2023. They tried to replace him with Ha-Seong Kim last year, and that ended up with Kim being waived after playing an incredibly short stint with the Rays.
Williams is still the top prospect in the organization in plenty of publications, and provides something that the Rays haven’t seen since before mid 2023: a legitimate game changer at shortstop. Williams is a legit home run threat with really good raw power numbers and elite athleticism that makes him a plus plus defender at shortstop. He started off very slow in AAA-Durham last year but eventually turned it around to the tune of a 125 wRC+ from May 31st to his eventual call up to Tampa Bay.
He didn’t play well in a short stint, but Williams still possesses the ability to give the Rays another 3-4 win player who has 20+ home run potential in the infield if he can put it together in the majors in 2026. The Rays lineup is already sneaky, as they went back to a more throwback, platoon style build this year, but adding a breakout Williams to a shortstop position that’s been almost laughable at the plate over the last two years would deepen the lineup and add another real threat who can hurt you with the long ball. And the best part, is you sacrifice little defensive value at the most important position on the field. Carson Williams’ 2026 performance, in my opinion, is the one that can most positively affect the 2026 Tampa Bay Rays, and with the injury to Taylor Walls, it appears he may get his shot to do so on the opening day roster.
The RBLR Rays Roundtable is a weekly collection of analysis, insight, and perspectives from a cast of writers assembled because of their unique backgrounds and experience. Check this space weekly for new updates and features covering the Tampa Bay Rays, the Rays’ minor league prospects, and more!
