Drew Rasmussen Is Now the Highest-Paid Ray Ever — and the Most Obvious Trade Chip in Baseball

The Tampa Bay Rays made the most consequential decision of their young offseason on Saturday, exercising a $20 million club option on ace right-hander Drew Rasmussen for 2027. According to DRaysBay, escalators in the original two-year deal — which carried an $8 million option when it was signed before the 2025 season — pushed the figure to $20 million, making Rasmussen the highest-paid player in franchise history.

That is the easy part. The hard part is what comes next.

MLB Trade Rumors reported that Rasmussen is "nonetheless expected to be traded" and ranks him No. 2 on its Top 40 Trade Candidates list. Yahoo Sports listed him among the Mets' top five trade targets of the winter. So the Rays have simultaneously locked up their best pitcher and signaled that he may have thrown his last pitch in a Tampa Bay uniform — a familiar piece of business for an organization that just won 98 games and an American League pennant.

The case for keeping him is obvious

Rasmussen, 31, went 16-5 with a 2.67 ERA across 30 starts and 172 innings in 2026, striking out 174 against just 32 walks for a 0.91 WHIP — a clear step forward from a solid 2025 (10-5, 2.76 ERA, 150 innings, 127 strikeouts). He carried it into October, including a seven-inning, one-run win over Cleveland in the ALCS. His final line of the season was a four-inning, one-earned-run loss in Game 5 of the World Series, the game that ended Tampa Bay's year in a 4-1 series defeat to Milwaukee.

He was also, notably, available. Rasmussen made 30 starts and threw 172 innings — volume that mattered on a staff that lost Shane McClanahan to left forearm tightness, shutting him down for the season and out of the postseason entirely.

The case for moving him is also obvious

The Rays have 17 players eligible for salary arbitration, per Yahoo Sports, and a payroll structure that has never carried a $20 million arm comfortably. Trading Rasmussen at peak value — coming off a career year, with one year of control at a known price — is precisely the arbitrage this front office has run for a decade. The rotation depth exists to absorb the loss: Freddy Peralta was acquired at the deadline as a possible top-of-the-rotation arm, and the bullpen posted a 2.65 ERA with a 1.017 WHIP in 2026, among the league's best.

There is also a performance caveat worth flagging for anyone assuming another 2.67 ERA. Rasmussen's expected ERA sat at 3.06, and his .243 wOBA allowed ran 28 points below his .271 expected mark. His changeup was genuinely devastating (.167 batting average, 35.3% whiff), but the gap between results and process suggests some regression is baked in — another argument for selling high.

The rest of the roster is already moving

Tampa Bay declined mutual options on Nick Martinez and Cedric Mullins, both now free agents; Martinez collects a $4 million buyout after declining his end. Junior Caminero, who played all 162 games and hit .276/.360/.524 with 42 homers and 101 RBI, is the franchise cornerstone around whom any retool gets built.

Off the field, the picture is finally stable: the Tampa City Council approved the stadium development deal 4-3, and the Hillsborough County Commission followed at 5-2, securing public funding for a project ESPN valued at $2.3 billion.

All of it sits against a looming CBA expiration and the possibility of a lockout, which complicates the trade market for every team. For the Rays, the Rasmussen decision is the one that will define the winter: keep the ace and push for another pennant, or convert him into the young talent that keeps the machine running through 2030. Either way, the option was never really about the $20 million.