Welcome again to Prime of the Order, the place each Tuesday and Friday I’ll be beginning your baseball day with some information, notes, and ideas in regards to the sport we love.
On Tuesday, I wrote about how the Brewers have been in a position to leverage largely unheralded depth into a wonderful begin to their season. In a dialog in regards to the column with certainly one of my buddies the next day, I referred to the Brewers as “Rays North” for his or her means to extract essentially the most out of gamers and pile up wins. However actually, the Brewers are paving their very own path and the Rays are at one thing of a crossroads.
Coming into an enormous four-game sequence towards the Orioles on Friday, the Rays are 31-31, and 13 video games again within the AL East. They’ve bought 100 video games left, so there’s no must panic simply but, however they’re susceptible to lacking the playoffs for the primary time since 2018, and for his or her first shedding season since 2017.
The ever-present depth that has outlined the Rays for a lot of Kevin Money’s tenure simply hasn’t been there, particularly on the pitching aspect. The bullpen, which has been fodder for cheeky memes each time the Rays decide a reliever up off waivers (I like tweeting “1.80 ERA coming” for each arm they snag off the scrap heap), has plunged to twenty ninth in WAR, with the staff merely not possessing the breadth of arms that it has in years previous. The center relievers have been particularly troublesome; whereas Pete Fairbanks, Jason Adam, and Garrett Cleavinger have all been wonderful as soon as the ball has gotten to them within the late innings, the bridge to them is crumbling.
And their starters aren’t serving to issues. Solely Ryan Pepiot and Zack Littell have ERAs under 4.00, and Aaron Civale and Taj Bradley have been hit particularly arduous. Bradley has tantalizing potential and might carve by way of hitters with the perfect of them when he’s on — he struck out eight batters in his first three innings towards the Purple Sox two begins in the past — however when he’s off for an inning or two he will get completely hammered. He’s allowed seven homers throughout 5 begins. That inconsistency has fueled a rotation that ranks twenty sixth in WAR, and in contrast to in prior years, the Rays don’t have reinforcements on the best way. Joe Rock is their solely prospect pitching notably effectively at Triple-A.
It’s a bit extra encouraging — if not by a lot — that Tampa Bay sits nineteenth within the majors by place participant WAR, and possibly that’s sufficient to conjure up some Rays magic. Nonetheless, I’m simply unsure this offense ought to even be this good. Isaac Paredes is sort of singlehandedly carrying the bats, with final 12 months’s core of Yandy Díaz (99 wRC+), Randy Arozarena (83 wRC+), and Josh Lowe (109 wRC+ in simply 15 video games thanks to some IL journeys) failing to help him. I don’t suppose Díaz is immediately a median bat; he received the batting title in 2023, continues to hit the ball arduous, and nonetheless makes nice swing choices. Arozarena is a unique story. His swing-and-miss points and newfound incapability to optimally hit the ball (his sweet-spot share is within the first percentile) don’t precisely give me hope {that a} turnaround is imminent.
So, the place do the Rays go from right here? Many different groups could be relieved in the event that they nonetheless had a .500 document as loads of their most vital gamers underperformed; these golf equipment would possibly financial institution on some constructive regression and resolve to improve their roster earlier than the commerce deadline. However that’s not how the Rays function, particularly in an especially powerful AL East.
Complicating issues is their payroll, which is at the moment at $97 million, by far the very best of the six years for which we’ve payroll information at RosterResource. Whereas groups won’t ever open the books and say precisely what a selected payroll means for monetary losses and positive aspects, proprietor Stuart Sternberg claimed earlier than the season that the excessive payroll would result in “actual losses.” Sternberg added that he views these losses as value it as a result of he’d “prefer to hold [the successes] rolling,” and I’ve no actual cause to doubt that he signifies that; the Rays have been good for years, and he’d absolutely prefer to have a proficient staff when the franchise’s new stadium ostensibly opens in 2028. What I’m unsure, although, is that if augmenting this deeply flawed staff to win this season is the perfect transfer. For the primary time shortly, I might see the Rays stepping into the exact opposite path.
The Rays are by no means ones to make big additions on the deadline — it’s extra complementary gamers like Nelson Cruz and Civale, and longer-term performs for untapped potential like Arozarena and Fairbanks — however that doesn’t imply they won’t make big subtractions. Tampa Bay is known for by no means having untouchables, and regardless of his anemic efficiency, groups are apparently fairly in Arozarena. He has the third-highest wage on the staff, and I’ve no cause to imagine the Rays additionally wouldn’t entertain affords for his or her two highest earners, Zach Eflin and Díaz, if the return is commensurate and the entrance workplace thinks that such a transfer could be the perfect path towards enhancing in 2025 and past. On a smaller scale, if the Rays are roughly .500 by the point the deadline rolls round, I’d be stunned to see Amed Rosario, Shawn Armstrong, Phil Maton, Chris Devenski, and Harold Ramírez nonetheless on the staff.
As ordinary, what the Rays find yourself doing on the deadline would possibly result in some head-scratching; loads of their strikes throughout their stretch of success seemingly got here out of nowhere, and a few of these surprises hardly made sense on the time. However this is a company that’s all the time enthusiastic about what’s subsequent reasonably than pushing all its chips in for a single season. And there’s no cause to suppose that this received’t be a fast reset reasonably than a protracted rebuild. Subsequent 12 months, ace Shane McClanahan, Jeffrey Springs, and Drew Rasmussen are anticipated to return to the rotation after recovering from elbow accidents that can price them most or all of this season. Additionally, the Rays ought to have über-prospect Junior Caminero, who’s at the moment battling quad points in Triple-A, wholesome and able to contribute in 2025. And don’t neglect about Xavier Isaac, who’s tearing by way of the minors himself and might be an choice for the massive league membership as quickly as subsequent 12 months. Taking part in for subsequent season might be the good transfer for the Rays at this level, and if which means buying and selling away some expertise from this 12 months’s membership, then so be it.