Rays Notes: Melton, Williams, Woodford

The Rays have optioned top prospects Jacob Melton and Carson Williams to Triple-A Durham to begin the season, the team announced. Melton entered the season with two option years remaining. Williams has a full slate of three option years.

Both players made their big league debuts in 2025 — Melton with the Astros. He came to Tampa Bay by way of the three-team trade sending Brandon Lowe and Mason Montgomery to Pittsburgh and Mike Burrows to Houston. A strong showing this spring might’ve put Melton in position to win a spot in the Opening Day lineup, but he struggled to a .161/.212/.387 showing with a dozen strikeouts in 33 plate appearances.

The rocky spring numbers have little to no impact on Melton’s status as a potential major contributor for years to come. He enters the season ranked 70th on Baseball America’s ranking of the game’s top 100 prospects. The 25-year-old is was a second-round pick in 2022 who saw his stock dip with a middling 2024 season but who rebuilt much of the fanfare surrounding him with a terrific minor league run in 2025.

Melton missed nearly two months last year with a high ankle sprain but hit .286/.389/.556 with a huge 14.7% walk rate in Triple-A prior to being called to the majors. Big league pitching proved to be a challenge the Oregon native, as Melton was stymied for a .157/.234/.186 slash in a small sample of 78 major league plate appearances. He still played good defense and went 7-for-9 in stolen base attempts. However, last year’s rough MLB cameo and this spring’s shaky showing suggest that he could use a bit more seasoning in the upper minors.

At some point, Melton should get a look this season. Tampa Bay’s outfield isn’t exactly composed of established stars. Left fielder Chandler Simpson is the fastest player in baseball but has bottom-of-the-scale power and needs to improve his outfield reads if he’s to become even an average defender. Cedric Mullins signed a one-year deal in free agency and will be hoping for a rebound after a dismal 2025 season. Jake Fraley was non-tendered by the Rays and re-signed to a cheap one-year deal. Jonny DeLuca, Ryan Vilade and Justyn-Henry Malloy give the Rays some right-handed complements to that entirely left-handed outfield slate, but none of the three righties is an established contributor himself.

Williams, meanwhile, was sent down despite strong results this spring. He went 6-for-22 with a pair of doubles and a stolen base (albeit with two other unsuccessful attempts). As with Melton, he’s a touted prospect who struggled considerably in his first exposure to MLB pitching last summer. The 2021 first-rounder appeared in 32 games and took 106 plate appearances but batted only .172/.219/.354. He popped five homers but struck out in an alarming 41.5% of his plate appearances.

Williams has mashed his way through the lower and middle levels of the minors, but he’s been a below-average hitter in Triple-A and in his tiny major league sample. He hit .213/.318/.447 with a 34% strikeout rate in Durham last year. Strikeouts are always going to be an issue for the 22-year-old, but he has above-average speed, plus power and a plus glove at shortstop. Williams typically draws plenty of walks, so the hope will be that he can be something of a three-true-outcome slugger who happens to play a plus shortstop as well. That’d make him an easy regular and lock him in as a fixture with the Rays, but there’s still some work to be done.

For now, it seems likely that Taylor Walls will open the season at shortstop. Trade acquisition Ben Williamson is expected to get some looks there as well (in addition to time at third base and second base).

One other recent cut for the Rays was veteran righty Jake Woodford, who was a non-roster invitee but was reassigned to minor league camp two days back. The 29-year-old right-hander had a nice showing, tossing 7 1/3 innings and holding opponents to a run on four hits and two walks with five strikeouts and a nice 45% ground-ball rate.

MLBTR has learned that Woodford has an upward mobility clause in his contract on Friday. Effectively, that clause will make him available to all 29 other clubs. If another team is willing to put Woodford on its 40-man roster, the Rays have to either select him to their own 40-man roster or let him go to the club that’s willing to do so. Since Woodford is out of minor league options, he’d need a team willing to carry him on the major league roster to step up.

The No. 39 overall pick back in the 2015 draft, Woodford has pitched in parts of six major league seasons between the Cardinals, White Sox, Pirates and D-backs. He has a career 5.10 ERA with a very low 14.9% strikeout rate but strong walk and ground-ball rates (7.6% and 45%, respectively).

Woodford has pitched both out of the bullpen and out of a rotation. He’s totaled at least 21 major league innings each season dating back to 2020. The right-hander logged a 6.44 ERA in 36 innings with Arizona in 2025 and spent the rest of the season in Triple-A with the Yankees and Cubs, combining for a 4.55 earned run average in 61 1/3 innings there. A club that’s incurred some injuries in the rotation this spring and is looking to bring in some length for the bullpen could take a look once that clause triggers on Friday.