The Tampa Bay Rays have already made a couple of notable deals this offseason under new owner Patrick Zalupski, shipping out the likes of Brandon Lowe and Shane Baz. Lowe was sent to a long-shot-at-best contender in the Pittsburgh Pirates, and Baz was traded to a pitching-needy division rival in the Baltimore Orioles, once again highlighting the unpredictability of their actions. With that under consideration, there is a specific player who Yankees should at least look at in their efforts to beef
up the bullpen with Devin Williams and Luke Weaver’s old roles still vacant beyond general placeholders. That would be the former Twin, Griffin Jax.
2025 Statistics: 73 games, 66 IP, 4.23 ERA (101 ERA+), 2.51 FIP, 2.19 xFIP, 35.0% K%, 7.4% BB%, 1.29 WHIP, 1.7 fWAR
2026 FanGraphs Depths Charts Projections: 67 games, 67 IP, 3.13 ERA, 3.06 FIP, 29.9% K%, 7.4% BB%, 1.13 WHIP, 1.4 fWAR
It was in one of those many sorts of off-the-wall roster moves that Tampa Bay acquired Jax during last year’s trade deadline. The Rays featured as a surprise participant in the Minnesota Twins’ fire sale, trading for one of the premier setup men of recent years despite sitting 10 games back in the AL East and in fourth place. They continued their second-half slide regardless, but the cost was only former young standout Taj Bradley—whose luster had clearly faded in their eyes—and they knew they would have Jax under contract through as late as the end of 2027.
Jax was a fascinating case study last season of how well someone can pitch without the results to show for it. On the surface, his 4.50 ERA in over 40 innings with the Twins indicated quite the disappointing season for such an established arm—look a little deeper, and you could see phenomenal numbers, with a 2.05 FIP and the best strikeout rate of his career (36.4%). The embodiment of what it means to be BABIP’d to death, Jax allowed a .393 BABIP in his time with the Twins, which is a tough thing to survive. That number came down to .333 during his time with the Rays, but it was still well above his career average (.282).
Jax took a few steps forward with the Rays, even if he was still a far cry from his 2024 self, then easily one of the top relievers in the AL. Somewhat tweaking with his arsenal, Tampa had Jax throwing fewer sweepers and more four-seamers—a pitch that he initially planned to limit exposure—as it got hit hard quite a bit.
There’s always a fine line when it comes to maximizing the production out of a primary pitch, in Jax’s case, the sweeper, without overutilizing it and thus rendering it slightly less effective than it otherwise could be.
Addressing the potential path of a Jax trade, while we’ve heard nothing on the subject, it’s an entirely plausible scenario that the Rays would look to move a reliever with only two years of control left. According to MLB Trade Rumors, Jax is projected to make something around $3.6 million in arbitration in 2026. As a reliever who truly broke out in 2024 and hasn’t had the benefit of closing games, that figure is unlikely to be prohibitively high during his arbitration years, even for a frugal organization like the Rays. With Pete Fairbanks gone to Miami, it’ll be interesting to see how Tampa handles their closer situation, likely to go to a committee with Edwin Uceta, Garrett Cleavinger, and Jax, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times.
Even if it doesn’t happen during the offseason, when you acknowledge that the Rays could easily be out of the mix again at the deadline, Jax should be a prominent name on the market before long — especially with an unsurprising bounce-back.
