The Rays have not acquired infielder J.D. Davis from the Yankees. Jon Heyman of The New York Post reported on X that Davis was going to the Rays but later recanted it, also on X. Davis had been designated for assignment by the Yankees a couple of days ago and is presumably still in DFA limbo. He’ll have to be put on waivers in the coming days now that the trade deadline has passed.
Davis, 31, has had a strange year. Back in February, he and the Giants went to an arbitration hearing, which he won. That set him up to make $6.9MM this year instead of the $6.5MM figure the club requested. But after the Giants signed Matt Chapman, they put Davis on waivers and released him.
Under the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, arbitration salaries are guaranteed if they agreed to prior to a hearing, but not if a hearing takes place. The Giants only had to pay Davis about 30 days’ termination pay, which was roughly $1.1MM. He then signed with the A’s, earning a $2.5MM guarantee. Even when combined with the termination pay from the Giants, he was making only about half of what he thought he earned in arbitration.
He hit .236/.304/.366 in his time with Oakland, leading to a subpar 96 wRC+. The rebuilding A’s likely hoped to turn Davis into a deadline trade chip but it wasn’t trending that way so they designated him assignment and flipped him to the Yankees in a small deal. But he didn’t receive much playing time as a Yankee, getting into just seven games in over a month before being designated for assignment again.
Davis slashed .268/.352/.443 from 2019 to 2023 for a wRC+ of 120. Though he has struggled this year, teams looking for roster upgrades won’t have much choice now that the deadline is done, so perhaps his past track record will draw someone’s attention. He has more than enough service time to reject an outright assignment while retaining all of his salary, so he’ll end up a free agent if he clears waivers. At that point, a team could sign him for just the prorated league minimum with that amount subtracted from what the Yankees pay.