PORT CHARLOTTE — The disappointment the Rays officials felt over posting a second straight losing season cut deep.
Throughout the long winter, baseball operations president Erik Neander acknowledged, in assorted tones of voice, how they just weren’t good enough.
Though Neander said the original plan was to make small changes this offseason and bank on the group improving, once they started tinkering, they went for an extreme makeover, determined to raise the overall level of talent they had to work with.
As they open spring camp this week, they are confident that the depth and competition for jobs and playing time they created will help lead to a higher total of wins.
“The way we thought about it is we’ve had two seasons here that in the eventual finality to those seasons we didn’t have a record that we were proud of,” Neander said. “To sit there and (say), ‘We’ll just kind of bring it all back and hope for better,’ it’s — I don’t know. If we want to win a lot of games, we usually don’t just sit on our hands.
“We just wanted to give ourselves a better chance. To get on the other side of the offseason, get into camp, and be in a stronger position with strength in numbers in some of these areas. That was part of our approach.”
That should be evident for the next six weeks around the Charlotte Sports Complex, as pitchers and catchers — many of whom have already been there working out — formally report Wednesday and take the field for the first official session Thursday morning.
The most obvious competitions look to be for the final roster spots in the bullpen and the outfield. The infield, catching tandem and rotation — with the signing of free-agent Nick Martinez completed Tuesday night — appear to be set, though some playing time, platoon shares and ordering will still be determined.
The Rays need to see more consistency at the plate from Taylor Walls to go along with his stellar defense. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times)
But the Rays are also counting on improvements as a result of internal battles from players — returnees and newcomers — who have something to prove, in terms of disappointing performance or injuries.
As well as a desire to get the team back to playoff contention.
“I think it’ll be motivating,” manager Kevin Cash said. “We’re not going to make a ton of decisions based on spring training performance, but I do think guys are going to push each other. There’s going to be a little bit more sense of urgency. There are not many guys that were with our club last year that are feeling great about how their seasons ended.”
Rays feel they got their man in signing Nick Martinez to $13M deal
For example, Cash said he expects a lot of self-motivation from the starters, who look to be 2025 All-Star Drew Rasmussen, Ryan Pepiot, Shane McClanahan (the two-time All-Star who has been sidelined by injury since August 2023) and veteran free-agent additions Steven Matz and Martinez.
“There’s going to be an eagerness to go out and perform,” Cash said. “I’ve watched our pitching staff for many years, and how they kind of form a bond in spring training. They support each other. They push each other. …
“All of those guys are going to be working really hard. People are going to see that. They’re going to set the tone for us. I’m excited to kind of watch it firsthand.”
And Cash expects there to be a noticeable difference.
‘I’m certainly excited to get in there and see the urgency that we need,” he said. “I’m not going to say we didn’t have urgency (previously); we just didn’t play the way we felt we were capable of. But we’ve got a bunch of good guys that are highly competitive and want to show better this upcoming season than we did last year.”
Though it would be hard — and quite impressive — for third baseman Junior Caminero and DH Yandy Diaz to improve on their 2025 performances, just about all the other Rays can in some way.
The goal for Jonathan Aranda this season? Keeping the All-Star healthy and on the field all year. (Luis Santana/Tampa Bay Times)
Jonathan Aranda had an All-Star season but was sidelined in late July by injury. Having him on the field all year would help. Drew Rasmussen led the rotation and was also an All-Star, but was limited due to past injuries to 150 innings. Taylor Walls played his usual great defense at shortstop, but his hitting was inconsistent.
The infield returns pretty much intact, but with veteran Gavin Lux replacing traded All-Star Brandon Lowe, who took his 30-homer power to Pittsburgh.
The outfield has been remade and looks to be eight deep, headlined by the additions of prospect Jacob Melton and veterans Cedric Mullins and Jake Fraley.
By declining closer Pete Fairbanks’ option, the Rays will go back to the committee approach Cash favors in handling high-leverage situations based on matchups, and they appear to have more legit candidates than for the eight bullpen spots.
“We’ll see how it shakes out,” Neader said. “But I think if we have a fully healthy camp, we will have more than 26 players that we believe are capable and arguably deserving of being on our major-league club if the opportunity is there for them.”
He used the outfield as an example, acknowledging that it would have been “really fun” to improve by bringing in one star player, but that changing most of the cast and bringing in a handful of talented players can also work. And that if a by-product is tough decisions and players upset about being sent to the minors, well, that’s OK, too.
“It’s finding the right guys to create competition, to push one another, to challenge one another, where there’s no free passes for anybody, that each spot is to be earned,” Neander said. “And I think that is something that we’ll have more decisions to make by the end of this camp than we typically do in each area.”
©2026 Tampa Bay Times. Visit tampabay.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.
