Prior to Friday’s game with the Texas Rangers, the Tampa Bay Rays announced they had traded minor-league pitcher Yacksel Rios to the Seattle Mariners in exchange for cash considerations.
Rios was signed to a minor-league deal February 1, with an invite to big league Spring Training. He was assigned to the Triple-A Durham Bulls, and had gone 2-0 with a 0.66 earned run average and two saves in 12 appearances.
Rios has spent parts of four seasons in the big leagues. The 27-year-old made his major league debut in 2017 with the Philadelphia Phillies, and appeared in 53 games with them between 2017 and 2019, when he was placed on waivers and claimed by the Pittsburgh Pirates. He pitched in 10 games with the Pirates in 2019 and three times in 2020, spending most of the year at the Pirates’ alternate training facility in Altoona.
Steve Carney is the founder and publisher of St. Pete Nine. One of the people most associated with baseball coverage in Tampa Bay, he spent 13 seasons covering the Rays for flagship radio station WDAE, first as producer of Rays Radio broadcasts, then as beat reporter beginning in 2011. He likes new analytics and aged bourbon, and is the owner of one of the ugliest knuckleballs ever witnessed by baseball scouts.
