A's Pick Up Depth Reliever From Tampa Bay Rays

The A's newest farmhand was born to wear green and gold

Apr 3, 2023; Washington, District of Columbia, USA; A general view of a Tampa Bay Rays hat and glove during the seventh inning of the game against the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park. Mandatory Credit: Scott Taetsch-Imagn Images | Scott Taetsch-Imagn Images

The Athletics have been busy adding relief options of late, picking up Mark Leiter Jr. for the big-league squad, and then adding right-handers Joel Kuhnel and Brooks Kriske as depth options for the bullpen.

According to his player page, the A's have also added former Tampa Bay Rays farmhand JJ Goss on a minor-league deal in recent days, giving the green and gold another interesting option to consider throughout the 2026 campaign.

After designating JJ Bleday for assignment earlier this winter, Goss will help the A's meet their quota of JJ's for the upcoming season. The 24-year-old shares a birthday with the legendary Rickey Henderson, so it's only fitting that he's with the A's now.

He has been assigned to Triple-A Las Vegas, though he has yet to pitch at that level in his minor-league career, which began in 2019. It would appear as though he's been battling injuries for the past couple of seasons, as he has racked up just 63 cumulative innings in relief the past two years. He's also missed large swaths of time, though the ailment on minor-league injuries is not made public.

This past season in Double-A Montgomery, Goss made 33 appearances and tossed 40 innings, holding a 3.38 ERA (3.09 FIP) along with a solid 1.03 WHIP and a 7.5% walk rate. His strikeout rate from 2024 to 2025 dropped from 28.6% to 19.4% between seasons, but he also moved up a level in the process. If he can recapture some of those K's, he'll be in business with the A's.

Too good to be true?

In his two years in the bullpen, he has given up just one home run in his 63 innings of work, making it look as though limiting long balls is a bit of a skill he has. In his final year as a starting pitcher in 2023, he allowed 16 homers in 95 innings, by far and away the worst he's been in that category. In 101 1/3 innings the year before, he'd allowed just seven.

This could be something to keep an eye on as he progresses to the hitter-friendly Pacific Coast League.

In addition to limiting home runs, he's also been pretty good at keeping the ball on the ground, running a 44.6% ground ball rate this past season. In the most recent prospect write-up on him over at FanGraphs, they mentioned that Goss was sitting 93-94 in relief in 2024, as his velocity and ability to miss bats had rebounded some in that move to the bullpen.

The biggest concern here has to be that while he has had success the past two seasons, he has had a couple of large outlier stats. The first being that he didn't allow a single home run in 2024, which helped his ERA (2.35) and FIP (2.56), despite running a fairly high BABIP of .339.

In 2025, that BABIP was well below league average (.248), while his trend of not allowing many home runs continued. What happens if those two narratives end up changing on him as he continues to progress up the minor league ladder on his way to The Show? We'll see in 2026.