Heading into the 2025-2026 off-season, could you name how many players the Rays will have reach free agency?
There’s a couple “trick question” type answers in there, as Brandon Lowe (age-31) has a $11.5M club option with a $500K buyout, and Closer/MLBPA player rep Pete Fairbanks (32) has a $7M club option with a $1M buyout.
That leaves just one player from the 2025 Rays to discuss: SP Adrian Houser (33).
Yandy Diaz (34) is under contract at $12M in 2026 with a $10M club option for 2027, and Drew Rasmussen (30) is under contract for $5.75M with an $8M club option for 2027. After that, the Rays have no players under team control beyond the limits of their rookie contracts. (Other than he-who-shall-not-be-discussed.)
Will the Rays try to re-sign Houser?
Houser is not a household name, and you’d be forgiven for missing that he was a Tampa Bay Rays starter if you only casually tuned in to the 2025 season. He was a Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher that was flipped to the Mets in 2024 while making only $5 million in his final year of arbitration. Then in free agency, Houser signed a mere $1.35 million deal (prorated) with the abysmal Chicago White Sox.
What happened next surpassed expectations, with Houser turning in a 2.10 ERA/3.34 FIP over 11 starts in 2025, leading to him being acquired by the Rays for Curtis Mead and two prospects.
Tampa Bay had the need for Houser after dealing away two starting pitchers (Zack Littell and Taj Bradley), and only Joe Boyle (part of the Jeffrey Springs return) deemed ready in Durham to fill their shoes. Houser also seemed ideal in that he induced a lot of groundballs, which might help a team playing in a minor league ballpark.
Houser, however, didn’t deliver the same results for the Rays, providing a 4.79 ERA/4.38 FIP over 10 starts.
Heading into next season, it seems unlikely he’ll return to the Rays either — with Rasmussen, Boyle, Ryan pepiot, Shane Baz, and hopefully Shane McClanahan filling out the rotation. If one of them isn’t ready for 2026, the team could try stretching out Griffin Jax (the return for Bradley), utilize other Durham arms like Ian Seymour, or hit the market looking for a different arm that fits the team’s return to Tropicana Field.
