Rays Your Voice: Offseason begins, Peter Bendix departs

The World Series has come and gone and the offseason is well underway. The Rays placed six players on outright waivers, including catcher Christian Bethancourt, and lost three players to free agency. Now that everyone on the 60-day IL (plus Wander Franco) have been re-added to the 40-man roster, we can get a better sense of how the Rays plan to tackle this offseason.

One position group that has received a complete overhaul since the start of last season is catcher. Francisco Mejía was DFA and is now a free agent. Christian Bethancourt was just placed on waivers. Blake Hunt, who was the club’s top-catching prospect and came over in the Blake Snell trade along with Mejía, has been traded to the White Sox (this trade occurred one day after we recorded). Will the Rays look an external option to complement Rene Pinto, or will Alex Jackson be the Rays #2 backstop heading into 2023?

To trade or not to trade Glasnow? That seems to be the biggest question heading into the offseason. The star hurler will make $25 million this year in the last year of his contract extension, which would be the highest salary in franchise history. While we would all be bummed to see that gorgeous hair pitching for another team in 2024, it might make sense to cash in on Glasnow this winter.

News broke while we were recording that Peter Bendix would be heading down south to be the Marlins’ President of Baseball Operations, a promotion from his current role as GM under Erik Neander with the Rays. We speculate what that means for the Rays, and some potential candidates to replace Bendix.