The rosters are out for the American League Championship Series between the Tampa Bay Rays and Cleveland Guardians.
The Rays look to keep the good times rolling after sweeping the New York Yankees in the American League Division Series as they've kept the group of 26 players mostly the same. In fact, the Rays only made one change and that was to add their top pitching prospect, Brody Hopkins, to the active roster and dropped LHP Garrett Cleavinger.
Brody Hopkins has the arsenal of a sure fire 100% first ballot Hall of Famer but the command of someone that could only enter Coopertown with a paid admission ticket. The 24-year former 6th round draft pick is still relatively new to being a full-time pitcher as he didn't fully make the conversion until he was drafted by the Seattle Mariners in 2023. The Rays acquired him a year later as part of the return for Randy Arozarena and quickly looked like they had pilfered another team in a deal as Hopkins quickly developed into one of the top starting pitching prospects in baseball.
However, his command issues quickly became apparent with a promotion to Triple-A to start off the 2026 season. There were times when Hopkins was absolutely unhittable on the mound, but the reasoning at times could either be due to his incredible pitch repertoire or his inability to throw within the zone. The Rays eventually tinkered with Hopkins mechanics and moved him from the starting rotation to try and see what they could do solve Hopkins command woes. While pitching in relief, Hopkins BB% did drop while he remained very effective so in late September, and the Rays decided to bring the talented flame thrower up to the big leagues in a trial run for the postseason.
The results were disastrous.
Hopkins did demonstrate just how ridiculous his aresnal is as FanGraphs rated his stuff as elite, albeit in a small sample size of 5 IP.
However, it doesn't matter how jawdropping your fastball is when you can't locate it. Over those 5.1 IP, Hopkins 6 of the 24 hitters he faced (25%) while also throwing 3 wild pitches. A bright spot is that Hopkins threw in the zone on 49% of his offerings, which is above league average.
Unlike the ALDS where the Rays only used 8 of their rostered 12 players, the ALCS will likely call for each arm that Kevin Cash has in his deck, meaning that Hopkins will make an appearance at some point.
Will that be tonight?
