Last week the Tampa Bay Rays sent outfielder Wil Myers and some prospects to the San Diego Padres in a three-team trade with the Washington Nationals. The Rays received a number of young players in return and the team is happy about who will be joining their organization.
This trade has been broken down extensively over the past week since a majority of the players are relatively unknown because of their youth. A number of those players were sent to Tampa Bay, including Washington Nationals' outfielder Steven Souza Jr. and pitcher Travis Ott as well as San Diego Padres' pitcher Burch Smith and first baseman Jake Bauers.
A few days after Tom Jones of the Tampa Bay Times penned an article entitled, "Wil Myers trade not as crazy as it sounds," Rays' president of baseball operations Matt Silverman spoke with Tampa Bay Times' Marc Topkin about his optimism regarding the trade. Silverman worked alongside former Rays' president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman for a number of years and the Myers trade showed how Silverman's thought process was heavily incorporated in the organization's past personnel decisions. He perhaps even made a more drastic decision than the Rays' would have made in the past by trading Myers, a 24-year-old outfielder and the 2013 AL Rookie of the year.
"Heading into the offseason, we expressed optimism about the 2015 team," Silverman told Topkin. "That optimism is just as strong as we stand here today. While there's been a lot of change, the talent level at the major-league level remains very high, and we should be a formidable club ... We are even more confident about the roster that we have today compared to a couple months ago."
Silverman reiterated he and the organization hadn't lost faith in Myers and had no plan to trade him, but the outfielder was garnering a lot of interest, which ultimately yielded a number of attractive young players that were hard to refuse. The team had received calls from "about a half-dozen teams" inquiring about Myers during the MLB Winter Meetings and Silverman simply entertained some of the talks to see what they could get.
Well they received Steven Souza Jr., who is viewed as a formidable replacement for Myers after slashing .350/.432/.590 with 18 home runs, 75 RBIs and 26 stolen bases in 96 games at Triple-A Syracuse. On top of that, they got a starting catcher in Rene Rivera and three prospects (Ott, Smith and Bauers). Ott is a 19-year-old lefty who has already had success in the minors over the past two seasons (4-4 with a 3.96 ERA and 1.31 WHIP); Smith has had a good minor league career (15-11 with a 3.71 ERA and 1.19 WHIP) in 48 games (46 starts) since 2011 and; Bauers is another 19-year-old who has showcased his talents early on (.296/.376/.414 with 8 home runs and 64 RBIs in 112 games at Class-A Fort Wayne).
Although it will take a few years to see how the Rays really made out in the trade, Silverman is happy with the outcome for now and is confident heading into 2015.
