When someone told Tyler Zuber he needed to meet with Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash late Tuesday afternoon, the unsung 29-year-old right-hander started counting the pitchers left on the roster.
Leading up to the trade deadline on Tuesday, the Rays acted as one of baseball’s busiest teams. Inside the clubhouse, players like Zuber said they were glued to their phones, wondering which of their teammates would be next to go. Zuber, whom the Rays had recalled from Triple A just a few days prior, assumed Cash was about to tell him that the club was sending him back to the minors.
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“I’m probably the odd man out here,” Zuber remembers thinking.
Instead, Cash shared some unexpected information: Zuber had just been traded. Inside Cash’s office, Zuber looked down at his feet upon hearing the news and expressed surprise.
“Yeah. You’ve just been traded to the New York Mets,” Cash told him.
“Are you sure? Are you sure you’re talking about me?” Zuber replied.
The trade deadline doesn’t have a Mr. Irrelevant, but Zuber would be on the shortlist if it did. Each summer, teams deal prospects that many fans never heard of. But they don’t typically exchange them for players with a similar level of anonymity. But that’s what the Mets did when they traded Double-A reliever Paul Gervase for Zuber, who has tossed just 3 1/3 innings this season — his first action in the major leagues in three years.
The final question Mets president of baseball operations David Stearns answered Tuesday in his post-trade deadline news conference was about Zuber. The question was: What intrigued you about Zuber? It could have also been: Who is he?
Stearns smiled. Then he said, “This is an interesting story.”
Tyler Zuber, shown here on media day during Cleveland Guardians spring training, was cut in March. (Joe Camporeale / USA Today)
As Zuber later explained, he was on the verge of hanging up his cleats just a handful of months ago.
Emotionally, Zuber said, he was just about done with baseball at that point. A sixth-round pick of Kansas City in 2017, Zuber made 54 appearances for the Royals over 2020-21 before they put him on waivers in 2022. He bounced from the Arizona Diamondbacks to the Cleveland Guardians without ever making an appearance for either organization. After several poor outings in spring training earlier this year, the Guardians released him in late March. Zuber had worked his way back from shoulder surgery but struggled to the point where no team was expressing any interest. And Zuber didn’t blame them.
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“I was a couple days away from calling it quits,” Zuber said. “I was very upset with baseball. After I was released, it all kind of just exploded in my face. I was over baseball. Forget baseball. I was like, ‘This game stinks. My kids will never play. I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through. This is miserable.’ I remember not wanting to even watch another game of baseball and almost deleting the MLB app.”
But Zuber kept training, kept throwing. He’d tell himself that if he didn’t hear anything by next Friday, he’d stop. Next Friday never really arrived, though. He kept pushing his end date back another week. And another. And then another.
Eventually, Zuber said, he convinced himself that his stuff still looked good. He had spent the previous year or so working on his mechanics at Driveline. His velocity was up to around 95 mph. He had developed a sweeper with characteristics and numbers, scouts later said, that jumped off the page.
So Zuber called his agent, Adam Groff of ACES Baseball, and asked if any teams were interested. No one had inquired. But the Long Island Ducks of the independent Atlantic League had an opening, and Groff suggested it would be Zuber’s best bet. After some deliberation, Zuber agreed it was worth the shot.
“I had one of those come-to-Jesus moments,” Zuber said. “I got to thinking that I invested all this money into getting back, had the surgery and I’ve put in so much blood, sweat and tears to try to get back. I told myself, after a month or two, if it’s not happening, if I’m not doing well financially, then at least I am going out on my terms and not someone else’s.”
Zuber lasted only a couple of weeks with the Ducks. He enjoyed the time with baseball lifers, forgot about playing for a paycheck and focused on having fun. Along the way, he pitched well, too. In six games and 5 2/3 innings, he had a 1.59 ERA with two saves and 10 strikeouts.
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“It was the greatest blessing that happened to me,” Zuber said. “Going to Indy ball made me love the game of baseball again.”
Zuber’s stint with the Ducks also persuaded major-league teams to give him another chance. The Mets were among the teams interested in him, league sources said. But Zuber signed with the Rays, who moved him to Triple-A Durham, where he logged a 2.49 ERA in 21 2/3 innings with 29 strikeouts and six walks before receiving a promotion.
For the last of couple of weeks, the Mets had tried to acquire Zuber, Stearns said. People familiar with the conversations between the Mets and Rays said that Tampa Bay insisted on receiving a minor-league player in return. The Mets and Rays agreed to the trade involving Zuber with just about two hours to spare on deadline day.
When asked if he expected a team to trade for him, Zuber, a straightforward country-type outdoorsman from White Hall, Ark. (pop: 5,600), replied, “Not in the slightest.”
On Wednesday, the Mets optioned Zuber to Triple-A Syracuse, but New York expects him to be part of their bullpen depth. Stearns has demonstrated a knack for acquiring anonymous relievers and getting production from them — Jake Cousins and Justin Topa come to mind. Zuber might turn into something. He might not. Either way, Zuber said, he’s at peace with where his journey has taken him.
“I’ve thought about this, and being that low really opened up my eyes to where I could see the big picture,” Zuber said. “Getting to the lowest point, I feel very strongly it was God’s way of humbling me and saying, ‘Hey, listen, you’ve been at the top, you’ve been in the major leagues, you’ve had success up there. So now I’m gonna take you all the way back down to the roots, and we’re gonna start from the ground up again.’
“I’m thankful, to be honest. I would not have changed anything that has happened at all because it has made me a whole lot better person, better pitcher, completely different mindset and outlook on things than I ever could have imagined. So I’m thankful for everything that happened.”
(Top photo of Tyler Zuber from July 28: Steve Nesius / Associated Press)
Will Sammon is a staff writer for The Athletic, covering the New York Mets and Major League Baseball. A native of Queens, New York, Will previously covered the Milwaukee Brewers and Florida Gators football for The Athletic, starting in 2018. Before that, he covered Mississippi State for The Clarion-Ledger, Mississippi’s largest newspaper. Follow Will on Twitter @WillSammon
