MLB · P · Tampa Bay Rays
Steven Matz
B/T R/L · 6' 2" · 205 lb · born Stony Brook, NY, USA · age 35 · draft 2009 rd 2 · played P 41 · MLB debut 2015-06-28
342 batters faced scored this season His season card →
On the record · career milestone this season
1,000 career strikeouts — Thu, Sep 24 · night game vs. New York Yankees The scorecard → · The write-up →
The card rack
Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases.
FlagshipSteven Matz #630 · 2015 Topps Heritage · 11 recent sales 7N ▲0%
His flagship is his rookie — one card, one market.
Live on eBay now · asking, not sold · as of 2026-10-19 · paid links
Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases. · Flagship = his most-traded card (the market’s reference); the rookie = the top card of his first card year. As of October 19, 2026 · trend is FVR's own nightly archive · prices via SportsCardsPro · what these terms mean
Scout’s note
Steven Matz, a 35-year-old lefty out of Stony Brook, NY, is still taking the ball for Tampa Bay in his eleventh big-league year, but a last-14-day MLB line of four appearances and five strikeouts says the innings are short and the misses are few.
Note written · FVR scout (GLM-5.2)
We wrote about Matz here — The Overnight: 1,000 career strikeouts (September 24, 2026)
What he’s paid
ArbitrationA market fact, not an engine read: what a club decided about him, on the season before this one. Figures from Cot’s, as of .
- 2026 salary
- $7.50M
- Tax hit
- $7.50M
- Service time
- 11 yr 99 d
- Guaranteed
- $15M
The deal 2 years $15M (2026–2027) — $7.5M a year on average, worked out by us rather than stated on the sheet, and not the same thing as the tax hit above
On the sheet: 2 y/$15M (26-27) · agent Icon Sports · 1 / 3 options left
After this season, as the sheet has it
| Season | 2028 |
|---|---|
| Cash | Free agent |
| Tax hit | — |
Regime flagged: the sheet's out-year codes read arbitration and 11.099 reads free_agency. Kept the sheet's; Super Two and optional assignments move this line and the service boundary cannot see them.
Cash and the tax hit are two different rulebooks and are never subtracted from one another — see the payroll board for his club, Tampa Bay Rays.
A second set of books
The same contract, read by MLB Spreadsheets (Ethan Hullihen), as of . We keep two sources on this because one source cannot check itself.
- Tax AAV
- $7.5M
- Guaranteed
- $15.0M
- Term
- 2 yrs
What the sheet prices each season at
| Season | 2026 | 2027 |
|---|---|---|
| Salary | $7.5M | $7.5M |
A base salary under his own reading, and never subtracted from the cash figure above: a signing bonus lands in one and not the other, so the two disagree on most men without either being wrong. And the sheet does not mark which future seasons are GUARANTEED — a club option and a projected arbitration award are both just a number here, so read past the end of the deal as his forecast rather than as money owed.
Two sources, read a month apart, put this guarantee at the same dollar. That is the check, and it passed.
The tax AAV above is his number under the CBA’s own rulebook, not the average we work out from Cot’s total. On a contract with deferred money the two come apart on purpose — and neither is subtracted from the other.
Collect Steven Matz
If the signal is right, the cardboard usually finds out later. Current listings:
Steven Matz cards on eBay →Paid link — as an eBay Partner, FVR earns from qualifying purchases.
Umpire favor
-1.3 net runs over 29 graded games — the zone cost the umpire more than it gave, on balance.
The postseason
Steven Matz’s playoff games, each on its reconciled card. Kept apart from the season line below — none of it is counted in a season number on this page.
- AL League Championship Series, Game 3 · TB vs. CLE · 2.0 IP, 2 K, 0 ER
The line
Bio & season lines: MLB StatsAPI · refreshed nightly · abbreviations →