Predicting the Rays first minor league call-up of the 2025 season

2024 Dominican Republic Series - Boston Red Sox v Tampa Bay Rays
2024 Dominican Republic Series - Boston Red Sox v Tampa Bay Rays | Bryan M. Bennett/GettyImages

The Tampa Bay Rays recalled nine pitchers from their minor league system last season and most of them wound up being major contributors to the outcome of the season. Edwin Uceta took full advantage of his May call-up and became one of the best relievers in the game. Mason Montgomery was a late September addition, but the Texas native still recorded a 1.86 ERA and 17 strikeouts in his 9.2 innings of work, including his stretch of two innings on September 24th when he struck out six straight Tigers. The Rays seem to get the best out of their young prospects when they make their long-awaited debuts.

Top prospects, Carson Williams and Tre' Morgan will be in a Rays uniform in due time, but we believe that a young pitcher will be the first to emerge from the minors in 2025. Yoniel Curet is a 22-year old right-handed starter that was lights-out in his Double-A debut last season. The Dominican hurler went a perfect 4-0 with a 1.75 ERA in 25.2 innings with the Montgomery Biscuits.

Curet has been added to the 40-man roster, so he will certainly get plenty of innings in spring training and he may start the year with the Triple-A Durham Bulls. His call-up will potentially come sooner than others in the farm system due to his impressive arsenal of pitches. He has an upper-90's fastball mixed with a 60-grade slider that scouts rave about. The righty also wields a solid changeup to keep opposing hitters off-guard.

Not only is his repertoire deep and crafty, he is also naturally going to be able to find a big league roster spot due to the intense need for quality arms and the tendency for pitcher injuries in this league. It's unfortunate, but the Rays called up close to 10 pitchers last year because of the injuries of Pete Fairbanks, Taj Bradley, and others.

Although the hard-throwing starting pitcher is only 22-years of age, we believe his skill set is beyond his years. Also, Curet was an international draft pick in 2019 when he was only 16 years old. Therefore, the young star-in-the-making has had ample time for growth in the Rays system which has hopefully prepared him for an early 2025 call-up.

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