According to Tampa Bay Rays president of baseball operations Erik Neander, the team expects left-handed ace Shane McClanahan to pitch somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 innings this season upon his return from Tommy surgery. John.

He made the comments last week during the winter meetings in Dallas.

When healthy, the 27-year-old is one of the best pitchers in the sport and his return should do wonders for the Rays, who finished fourth in the American League East last season.

A three-year veteran, McClanahan is already a two-time All-Star. Despite his injury at the end of 2023, he still finished sixth in the American League Cy Young voting. Lifetime, McClanahan is 33-16 with a 3.02 ERA. He strikes out more than 10 batters (10.1) per nine innings during his career.

THE Rays are one of the best teams in the league when it comes to pitching development, so it’s safe to say they don’t need to push McClanahan when he returns. They also have Taj Bradley, Zack Littell, Drew Rasmussen, Shane Baz and Joe Boyle as candidates to start games next season, so they can certainly afford to bring McClanahan in slowly if they need to.

When McClanahan returns to the rotation, he’ll return to a roster that looks different than the one he last started. Randy Arozarena was traded last year to the Seattle Mariners while Isaac Paredes was traded to the Chicago Cubs. Wander Franco is no longer on the 40-man roster due to legal issues and Tyler Glasnow has been traded to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

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