Rays exercise 2026 club option on Yandy Díaz, add 2027 vesting option

The Rays and Yandy Díaz have worked out a mini extension of sorts. The club announced that it has preemptively picked up his 2026 club option, adding a 2027 vesting option that is based on 2026 performance thresholds. Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times reported the news prior to the official announcement. The full details of the new agreement have not yet been publicly reported.

Back in January of 2023, the Rays and Díaz agreed to a three-year, $24MM extension with a club option for 2026. He had just had his first arbitration season in 2022 and he was set to go through the process twice more. That deal bought out those two final arb years and one free agent year, while the option gave the Rays the chance to extend their window of control with Díaz by yet another season. He made $6MM in 2023, $8MM last year and will be making $10MM this year. The 2026 club option was set at $12MM with no buyout.

Over the course of the deal, Díaz has continued to hit, though the first year was far better than the second. In 2023, he hit 22 home runs and slashed .330/.410/.522 for a wRC+ of 163. His .367 batting average on balls in play was helping him out a bit, but he drew walks at a 10.8% clip and only struck out 15.7% of the time. Last year, his walk rate fell to 8.1% and he only hit 14 homers. His BABIP normalized somewhat to .314. The result was a .281/.341/.414 line and 120 wRC+. His defensive grades at first base also slid a bit. FanGraphs considered him to be worth 5.0 wins above replacement in 2023 but just 1.9 fWAR last year.

Without details on the 2027 option, it’s difficult to assess what the trade-off is here. Díaz is now 33 years old and will turn 34 in August. The Rays could have waited to see how he performed in 2025 before picking up the 2026 option. By locking it in now, they are presumably hoping to benefit down the line somehow. Perhaps that suggests 2027 is some kind of club/vesting option which will allow the club to extend its window of control over Díaz by another year. Perhaps the salary on that 2027 season will be on the lower end.

If that is the case, then Díaz is perhaps sacrificing a bit of future earning power. But the trade-off for doing so would be that he’s guaranteeing himself another $12MM today. That would protect him against a further decline in performance during the 2025 season. Under his previous contract structure, a bad 2025 campaign would have led to his option being declined and him heading to free agency with no buyout. Now he has the $12MM already locked in.