Catcher , who was designated for a signment by the Rays last week, has cleared waivers and been sent outright to Triple-A Durham. He had the right to elect free agency but has chosen to accept. was among those to relay the information. Players with at least three years of big Jay Scrubb Jersey league service time have the right to reject an outright a signment and elect free agency. However, exercising that right means forfeiting any remaining salary commitments, unle s a player has at least five years of service time. Rortvedt is between three and four years. He qualified for arbitration for the first time after last season. He and the Rays avoided arbitration by agreeing to a $1.125MM salary for 2025. Rortvedt has pocketed about a third of that already but would have to walk away from the rest of it in order to head to the open market, so its not surprising that he has chosen to report to Durham. For the Rays, they get to keep a bit of experienced non-roster depth behind the plate. Rortvedt had a solid season for them in 2024, getting into 112 games and stepping to the plate 328 times. His .228/.317/.303 slash line wasnt tremendous, as his 87 wRC+ indicates he was about 13% below league average at the plate. However, catches are usually about 10% below league-wide par, so Rortvedts offense was pa sable enough. He also received solid marks for his work behind the plate. Putting the two together, FanGraphs considered him to be worth 1.4 wins above the replacement on the year, with Baseball Reference putting him a bit lower at 0.9 WAR. The Rays were satisfied enough to give him a raise and bring him back for 2025 but his bat has disappeared. Rortvedt slashed .095/.186/.111 in 70 plate appearances before getting designated for a signment last week. A tiny .122 batting average on balls in play wasnt helping him out but his batted ball metrics all trended in the wrong direction as well. The Rays signed in the offseason and then acquired last week, pushing Rortvedt down the depth chart. Since Rortvedt is out of options, he got pushed off the 40-man entirely. Though hes not having a strong season, he should get some regular playing time for Durham and could perhaps get his offense back on track. If hes able to do so, he could be the first man up if either Jansen or Thai s suffers an injury. is also on the 40-man roster but he started the year on the minor league injured list due to an ankle injury and still hasnt played an official game this year. If Rortvedt isnt called up by the end of the season, he will be able to elect free agency, as is the case with all players with three-plus years of service who are outrighted off a 40-man roster during the season. Photo courtesy of Mark J. Rebilas, Imagn Images Landry Shamet Jersey