How Will Dylan Ray Perform in Majors This Season?

Projections say that Ray is expected to debut for the Arizona Diamondbacks in the 2025 season, but how will he do?

Players warm up for batting practice at Arizona Fall League media day at Scottsdale Stadium during media day on Oct. 4, 2024, in Scottsdale, Arizona. / Megan Mendoza/The Republic / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Continuing our series of Arizona Diamondbacks player projections, a rookie expected to debut this 2025 MLB season, Dylan Ray, is up. The projection below is a composite of ZiPS and Steamer projections, prorated to our playing time projection.

Dylan Ray, Right-Handed Starting Pitcher, Entering Age-24 Season

Dylan Ray will be pitching at Triple-A with the Reno Aces this year, but projections systems predict that he will make his MLB debut this year with the Diamondbacks. Whether that's as a starting pitcher or as a reliever remains to be seen, but his potential being realized is of paramount importance for the team's future pitching staff.

Dylan Ray career minor league numbers in Arizona Diamondbacks organization and his projections for MLB in 2025 season / Jake Oliver

Why Ray may outperform the projection

Ray is an unknown to MLB teams and players. Oftentimes, many rookies experience success in the early goings of their career until there's enough data, appearances, and more for MLB players to adjust to them.

As such, it wouldn't be a shock to see Ray put up a 3-ish ERA over his first seven or so innings of MLB action. That's especially true if Ray pitches out of the bullpen as his pitches could play up as so often happens with pitchers pitching out of the bullpen.

In the minors, Ray struck out batters at a high rate as evidenced above and with his 74 strikeouts in 73.1 innings last year. That's against 34 walks. This all happened in the extreme offense-friendly Texas League in Double-A.

This is just his age-24 season, so there should be more in the tank for him to develop and become an even better pitcher. At the end of the day, if he pitches seven innings in MLB this year, it's a lottery ticket as to how he does but considering the D-backs' defense, catchers, and coaching staff, it's likely he does better than expected in such a short amount of innings.

Why Ray might underperform the projection

Ray didn't have a standout season last year in Double-A, even with the explosive offensive environment. He recorded a 5.22 ERA there in 70.2 innings. Plus, he averaged 2.0 home runs per nine innings and recorded a WHIP of 1.527.

That's a difficult stretch of statistics that Ray will have to bring down in order to perform well in MLB or to even get the shot to pitch in the big leagues. He's certainly able to do just that, but it will require a big leap.

Thus, if he struggles some at Reno and the team calls him up, it could set him back to where he debuts in 2026. If that happens then that means he underperformed these projections by not even getting the chance to make his MLB debut and show what he can do.

Summary

Dylan Ray is one of the Arizona Diamondbacks' top prospects. There's a reason he's ranked No. 15 by this site. He has the potential to be an impact arm in the Major Leagues. However, he has to make a big leap in limiting hard contact and base traffic in order to reach Chase Field this upcoming season.

If he can do that, he can absolutely strike out enough batters and keep hitters off-balance over the first few appearances of his career to perform far better than these projections. Only time will tell how he does, but it would not be a surprise to see him do well in Triple-A Reno and then make a cameo come September 2025.

After all, the D-backs believed in him enough to have him make a few appearances at the Arizona Fall League this past fall.

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