5:20pm: The Rays have now made it official. Williams has been selected with Kim landing on the 10-day IL due to low back inflammation, retroactive to August 20th. Outfielder Stuart Fairchild has been transferred to the 60-day IL to open a 40-man spot. Fairchild hit the 10-day IL July 22nd due to a right oblique strain. His 60-day count is retroactive to that initial IL placement, so he could be reinstated in late September if he’s healthy by then.
12:20pm: The Rays are calling up infield prospect Carson Williams, reports Jeff Passan of ESPN. He will take the active roster spot of Ha-Seong Kim, who is going on the injured list, reports Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times. Kim departed yesterday’s game due to back stiffness. The Rays will also need to open a 40-man roster spot.
Williams, 22, is the Rays’ top prospect and one of the top prospects in the entire league. The Rays took him 28th overall in the 2021 draft. He is currently ranked 74th overall at Baseball America, 14th at FanGraphs, 24th at ESPN and 47th at MLB Pipeline.
As can be seen from the disparity in those numbers, Williams is a divisive prospect. Keith Law of The Athletic gave him the #8 spot coming into the year but then did a midseason update of 60 names with Williams not getting a mention.
The gaps seem to be because Williams has a solid floor but big questions about his ceiling. He is considered a strong defender at short and a plus runner, which gives him the floor. Offensively, he has huge power but strikes out a ton. Prospect evaluators seem split on how much those strikeout concerns will undercut his future career as a big leaguer.
On the optimistic side, FanGraphs compares him to players like Elly De La Cruz, Oneil Cruz and Ezequiel Tovar, who have enough talent to work around strikeout totals. They suggest it’s possible Williams rounds into a player like Willy Adames at some point, while also nothing that an Adalberto Mondesí future seems possible.
Looking at traditional numbers, it’s easy to see the optimistic view. Williams hits about 20 home runs per year and steals 20-35 bases annually as well. From 2021 to 2024, across multiple levels, he stepped to the plate 1,578 times. He struck out in 30.6% of those but also drew walks at an 11.4% pace while hitting 62 home runs. His combined batting line of .256/.353/.478 translated to a 132 wRC+.
His 2025 performance highlights the pessimistic view and perhaps explains why Law bumped Williams off his midseason update. Williams has taken 451 plate appearances at the Triple-A level this year. He still has 23 home runs and 22 stolen bases, as well as a strong 12.4% walk rate, but a huge 34.1% strikeout rate has cut into his batting average and on-base percentage. His .213/.318/.447 line this year translates to a subpar 98 wRC+.
It’s quite difficult to succeed in the majors while striking out that often. Among qualified hitters this year, Cruz has the highest strikeout rate in the league at 31.9%. He has hit some huge bumbs but his .207/.304/.398 line translates to a wRC+ of 92. Players like Riley Greene and James Wood also have strikeout rates above 30% with more success, but it’s a tricky area to be in.
Clearly, there’s a wide range of possible outcomes here. If Williams can rein in the strikeouts or work around them, there’s star-level upside. The floor isn’t awful, as being a glove-first shortstop with speed can still be a useful player, but that’s something well below a star.
At some point, the Rays will have to put him in against big league pitching to see what happens, and now is a logical time. As mentioned, Kim is heading to the injured list, opening up playing time at shortstop. The club has fallen to 6.5 games out of a playoff spot. They’re not totally buried in the standings but probably leaning towards focusing more on the future than on 2025.
It also works out in terms of the prospect promotion incentive. A player can earn his club an extra draft pick if they are top prospects and hit certain criteria in terms of awards voting. A player is PPI eligible if he begins a season on two of the three top 100 lists from BA, ESPN and MLB Pipeline. If the club then promotes the player early enough in a season to earn a full service year, that club will get an extra draft pick if the player wins Rookie of the Year or finishes top three in MVP or Cy Young voting during his pre-arbitration years.
It is now too late in the season for a player to get 45 days of service time. That means Williams will retain rookie status going into 2026 if the Rays keep him from getting to 130 at-bats. Assuming he still ranks on prospect lists going into 2026, he would be PPI eligible if the Rays put him on their Opening Day roster in 2026.
Photos courtesy of Kim Klement Neitzel, Imagn Images