Ray Practice 2026 Club Options on Yandy Díaz, Add 2027 Attribution Options
Light and Yandy Díaz Various mini extensions have been formulated. The club announced that it has already received his 2026 club option, worth 12mm, while adding the club/attachment option for 2027. ACES customer Díaz will report that at 13mm, the 500 disks of 2026 will appear at 13mm, if he does not intend to appear in 2026.
Back in January 2023, Rays and Díaz reached a three-year, $24mm extension with the 2026 club option. He just held his first arbitration season in 2022 and he will do it twice more. That deal bought out both of the final ARB years and a free agent year, and the option gives the Lights a chance to expand with Díaz’s control window in another season. He made 6mm in 2023, 8mm last year and 10mm this year. Club options for 2026 are set to $12mm and there is no acquisition.
During the transaction, Díaz continued to hit, although the first year was much better than the second. In 2023, he hit 22 home runs with 163 WRC+ and scored .330/.410/.522 with 163 WRC+. His average hits in the game was .367, which helped him a little, but he walked with 10.8% of the clips, only 15.7% of the time. Last year, his walking rate dropped to 8.1%, and he hit only 14 home runs. His BABIP is standardized to some extent to .314. The result is .281/.341/.414 lines and 120 WRC+. His defensive performance at first base was also a bit slid. Fangraphs believes he is worth more than the 2023 replacement 5.0 win, but last year it was only 1.9 FWAR.
Without detailed information on the 2027 options, it’s hard to evaluate the trade-offs here. Díaz, now 33, will turn 34 in August. The Ray could have waited to see how he performed in 2025 before choosing the 2026 option. By locking it up, they earned a potential club choice for the next season with a similar salary.
Díaz may be sacrificing some future money-making ability, but the trade-off is that he has to ensure he has another 12mm today. This will protect him from further declines in the 2025 season. Under his previous contract structure, a bad 2025 campaign will result in his choice being rejected while he will head to free agents without a buyout. Now, he has locked 12mm.
Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times first reported the news and contract terms.
