Tyler Glasnow and Shane McClanahan, MLB’s best starting duo?
BOSTON — Working out the deal to get Tyler Glasnow to forgo his first year of free agency and stay in Tampa Bay for the 2024 season — albeit at a team record-tying $25 million salary — was a major victory.
But the real payoff for the Rays will be the wins they expect it to lead to over the next two seasons.
With Glasnow looking as good, and perhaps better, as he was before his August 2021 Tommy John elbow surgery, the Rays see him joining Shane McClanahan next year as the dominating duo atop what will be one of the game’s most overpowering rotations.
“You’re arguably talking about what could be the best right- and left-handed starting pitchers in baseball … to potentially be on one team,” Rays pitching coach Kyle Snyder said. “Literally, that is their ceiling.”
As pitching-centric as the Rays typically are, as good and as deep and as successful as they have been over past seasons — including having a pair of Cy Young winners in David Price (2012) and Blake Snell (2018) — they could have their best group yet.
“If you can put together a rotation with multiple aces, I mean, it’s really enticing,” general manager Peter Bendix said. “There’s very few teams across baseball that ever get the chance to do that. I don’t know if it’s going to work out. Things happen. Guys get hurt. Guys change.
“But it is exceptionally enticing and intriguing to potentially have two of the top however many pitchers in baseball at the front of our rotation. Who are both young. Both are dynamic. They’re both great people. You have the lefty and the righty even, right? It’s a really intriguing thing that makes us really excited.”
Consider that in addition to Glasnow and McClanahan, the Rays could have a rotation that includes some combination of Drew Rasmussen, Jeffrey Springs, Shane Baz, Yonny Chirinos, and prospect Taj Bradley. (Corey Kluber will be a free agent in 2023.)
“You’ve got a right- and left-hander, both sitting 100 (mph) when they’re feeling good that day, with elite stuff,” Springs said. “That’s two really, really good workhorses as the 1-2. It’s exciting. Everybody we have in the rotation, guys that are coming back from injuries or whatever, I think it could be something special for sure.”
In their quest to win a World Series, the Rays believe in taking as many shots as they can.
That’s why they are constantly tweaking and retooling their roster, trying to find ways — with limited revenues and small payrolls — to remain competitive every season rather than trying to go “all in” some years and step back in others.
Signing players to extensions — exchanging risk of injury and poor performance for the reward of retaining them around with below market deals — helps. In the last 10 months, the Rays guaranteed more than $230 million in extensions to Wander Franco, Manuel Margot and now Glasnow.
“Certainly, Shane is pitching at a Cy Young level this season, and ‘Glas’ was doing that the year before,” baseball operations president Erik Neander said.
“You look at the other guys and what they’re doing in addition, it’s certainly exciting to think about. To get that type of high-end talent together, to keep it together, to have it all synch up and win games — it’s easier to assemble a bunch of talent over a decade, it’s a lot harder to time it all up. This is something that certainly makes that a little more achievable over the next couple years, and that’s a big reason we did (the Glasnow extension).”
Plus, they’re quietly confident Glasnow, with his elbow healthy and his heart happy over being “exactly where I want to be,” could be even better.
McClanahan said it was “a game changer” for the Rays to keep Glasnow, who headed Friday to Durham, N.C., for the next steps in his rehab, and potentially toward a late-September return.
“‘Glas’ is a top-five pitcher in the game, top three, top two. His stuff’s unbelievable. His work ethic is unbelievable,” McClanahan said. “It’s a really good group of guys and a hell of a staff. It’s super exciting. It makes you want to look forward and get excited for the future, but obviously we have to focus on now.”
How dynamic a duo Glasnow and McClanahan turn out to be will depend on many factors, so it’s too soon to start making the Drysdale-Koufax, Johnson-Schilling or even deGrom-Scherzer comps.
But the Rays do feel like they’re holding a pair of aces.
“Before Glasnow’s injury, and then what McClanahan (is doing), you put those guys together,” manager Kevin Cash said, “it’s probably hard to find 1-2 punches that are better.”
• • •
Sign up for the Rays Report weekly newsletter to get fresh perspectives on the Tampa Bay Rays and the rest of the majors from sports columnist John Romano.
Never miss out on the latest with the Bucs, Rays, Lightning, Florida college sports and more. Follow our Tampa Bay Times sports team on Twitter and Facebook.
