The Tampa Bay Rays still have October baseball in front of them, but one of the organization’s offseason questions has already been answered.
Aaron Brooks has elected minor league free agency, according to Charlie Wright of MLB Trade Rumors, via the Minor League Baseball transactions page. Brooks was one of five players to make that move, joining Bailey Falter of the Atlanta Braves, Seth Martinez of the Boston Red Sox, Aramis Garcia of the Arizona Diamondbacks and Owen Miller of the Chicago Cubs.
For Brooks, 2026 was a short and rocky ride with Tampa Bay. He started the year in the Mexican League before the Rays brought him in, then got one major league chance on May 13 against the Toronto Blue Jays.
It did not go well. Brooks came on in the 10th inning with a 3-1 lead, but that edge vanished fast after he issued two walks to load the bases with the ghost runner already on base.
Daulton Varsho then ended it with a walk-off grand slam.
That wound up being Brooks’ only big league appearance of the season. After that, he accepted an outright assignment and spent the rest of the year at Triple-A Durham, where the results were uneven: seven appearances, four starts and a 7.23 ERA across 18.2 innings.
Brooks also missed the rest of the season after suffering an injury in June.
The right-hander, who was a ninth-round pick by the Kansas City Royals in the 2011 MLB Draft, is now 36 and headed back to the open market after a year that began in Mexico and ended in Durham. The outing against Toronto was his first major league appearance since 2024, when he pitched for the Athletics.
Across his career, Brooks has logged 58 games and 207 innings in the majors. He’s also bounced around quite a bit, with stops in the KBO and the Dominican Winter League along with his time in Mexico.
In Other News...
Rays Put Their ALDS Control In Nick Martinezs Biggest Test Yet
Nick Martinez is set to take the ball for the Rays in Game 3 of the American League Division Series against the Yankees, a move that says plenty about how Tampa Bay has viewed his season. Kevin Cash went with Martinez based on the body of work he put together, and now the right-hander gets the kind of October assignment every pitcher wants and every staff leans on when the series starts to tighten.
Across the diamond, the Yankees are expected to counter with Max Fried, even with the left-hander acknowledging he may be waiting on a family development that could arrive any day. For Tampa Bay, the matchup turns into a test of poise as much as stuff, with Martinez asked to help the Rays keep control of a series that is becoming more serious by the hour. [Read more 🡒]
Rays Are Winning This Series With A Pitching Formula Yankees Havent Solved
Through the first two games of the ALDS, the Rays have leaned hard on a pitching plan that has kept the Yankees from ever really settling in. Instead of chasing innings with a parade of relievers, Tampa Bay has asked three of its starters to handle most of the outs, a structure that has let Kevin Cash manage the game with a little more breathing room and a lot less stress on the bullpen.
Freddy Peralta has been a big part of that foundation, giving the staff another arm that has looked sharper since arriving from the Mets and showing the kind of increased velocity that helped him earn AL Pitcher of the Month honors for September. The result has been a staff effort that players and Cash have both praised, even as the bigger question remains whether New York can finally find an answer for a formula that has worked so well so far. [Read more 🡒]
Rays Have Yankees So Cornered Boone Is Already Looking Ahead
The Yankees are already planning as if they will need to keep the AL Division Series going, a sign of how quickly the pressure has shifted with the Rays up 2-0. Aaron Boone said Carlos Rodn would get the ball in Game 4 if New York gets that far, while Max Fried is lined up for Game 3, the next game that now feels like a must-win for a club trying to avoid being pushed to the brink.
Boone pointed to the disappointment of Game 2 and said the Yankees have to move past it and turn the page quickly. From Tampa Bays side, the setup is exactly what a team wants when it has the upper hand: the opponent is juggling future pitching plans while trying to survive the present, and every inning from here carries the weight of elimination. [Read more 🡒]