The Rays have selected the contract of right-hander Jacob Waguespack, the team announced Friday. Left-hander Jeffrey Springs, who’s recovering from Tommy John surgery performed last April, was moved to the 60-day IL to open a spot on the 40-man roster. Tampa Bay also optioned southpaw Jacob Lopez to Triple-A Durham and reassigned non-roster pitchers Brendan McKay and Michael Gomez to minor league camp.
Waguespack’s addition to the 40-man roster and the decision to option Lopez both lend clarity to the Rays’ rotation outlook as they navigate a pectoral injury to starter Taj Bradley. Waguespack can still technically be optioned to Triple-A, but today’s move seems to put him squarely in the running for a spot on the Opening Day roster. The 30-year-old righty has spent the past two seasons with the Orix Buffaloes in Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball, primarily working out of the bullpen, and also pitched in the majors with the Blue Jays in 2019-20.
The 95 2/3 innings Waguespack pitched with the Jays represent his entire body of big league work. He worked to a 4.38 ERA with an 18.8% strikeout rate and 8.7% walk rate through 78 innings (13 starts, three relief appearances) as a rookie in 2019. The right-hander’s sophomore season saw him torched for 16 runs in 17 2/3 innings (8.15 ERA), though that was in no small part due to a bloated .410 average on balls in play. Waguespack’s strikeout, walk and ground-ball rates were mostly in line with his 2019 levels, and his spike in BABIP came despite a notable drop in his opponents’ average exit velocity and hard-hit rate.
When Bradley went down, each of Waguespack, Lopez and non-roster righty Naoyuki Uwasawa were listed as potential rotation options, alongside swingmen Tyler Alexander and Chris Devenski. Tampa Bay also signed Jake Odorizzi to a minor league deal just this morning, but he’ll need to build up and could require some minor league work to begin the season before he becomes a more viable option in early or mid-April. Even if the plan is to plug Odorizzi into the big league rotation as early as possible, Waguespack could make a couple early starts and, if he shows well, move into the bullpen or else head down to Durham to work out of the rotation there and serve as continued depth.