Rays fans got the fine regular season that was expected but the quick playoff exit wasn't after back-to-back titles. We will lose a key cog next season and replacing him is going to be priority one this offseason.
Free Agents leaving: C Diego Cartaya*, C Shea Langeliers, OF Riley Greene, RPs Pete Fairbanks and Camilo Doval.
Arbitration-eligibles being non-tendered: RP Max Green, IF Jeremiah Jackson, C Cal Raleigh.
*Qualifying offer of $18.9M made, since he's asking for 10/330 in an extension I'm confident he declines it.
Owner Stu Sternberg gave us a projected payroll of $160M. If we take out the non-tenders that leaves us with approximately $135M in obligations, giving us a few bucks to spend.
Position-by-position outlook:
C: Truly the biggest area of need with Cartaya and his backups departing. Cartaya was a 5-win guy and one of the top catchers in the game so it's going to be a tall order to approximate his contributions. Right now the "incumbent" and only catcher left on the 40-man is Angel Rivera, who hit 251/339/410 at Durham with 8 HR in 239 AB. He has a good bat with potential 50 contact, 55 power and 60 eye and rates as a 45/50 defensive catcher. Depending on who we acquire Rivera will either be the backup or in a job-share.
1B: Junior Caminero had a fine season (27 HR, 100 RBI) and will be back. The only possibility he slides to DH is if we move Ozzie Albies here.
2B: And Albies is back as well. Albies' defense is lousy but until we have someone else who can do better overall at the position, he'll stay there.
SS: Wander is entrenched.
3B: Marco Luciano is the incumbent but he missed the second half of last season and Freili Encarnacion filled in adequately for him. Neither was gangbusters as they each played roughly half a season and Encarncion was worth 1.0 WAR to Luciano's 0.4.
IF: With J.Jackson being let go Brooks Lee, who played well while up for Wander last year, looks like the backup IF. Encarnacion may figure in as well as Luciano can play some 2B and SS.
LF: Natanael Santana is coming off a 28-HR, 2.1-WAR season and has the inside track.
CF: Zach DeLoach was outstanding and he has one more year left of team control (in which he'll earn at least $15M in arbitration).
RF: James Wood was a disappointment last year, hitting .232 with only 19 HR but was still worth nearly 2 WAR.
OF: Fu-Chi Chin was the backup but we may be looking to upgrade from him as his glove disappointed and he didn't hit a whole lot. We have some options at Durham with IL MVP Mitsuyoski Arakawa, Luis Leones (who was up briefly) and Hendry Mendez, who came over in the deal that brought us Camilo Doval from the Cubs. Beyond them there's Elijah Green, who can play elite OF defense, while Joshua Mears and Lonnie White are still on the 40-man.
DH: Robby Castillo, who played for us in September, has the inside track as the left-handed side of a platoon here, and Max Viera, who disappointed last year, could be the righty half, but we could stand an upgrade here too. Maybe this guy:
This would be Nelson Haro, the #5 prospect in baseball, who's ready for the bigs. He hit a pedestrian 276/328/414 at Montgomery last year but as you can see he was unhappy and I'm confident he'll perform better in the bigs.
Rotation: Swanda, Eldridge, Orze, Bradley and Khattak all return and Grayson Rodriguez is due back around August. Luis German is capable of starting as well but he'll be more needed in our depleted bullpen.
Bullpen: Speaking of which Edwin Diaz returns as one of the game's most dominant closers but his setup guys (Green, Doval, Fairbanks) are all gone. Trey Riley and Aldry Acosta were excellent after being picked up on waivers and will return, as will German and Charlie Ruegger who pitched very well after coming back up from Durham. We're thin on lefties though as long man JP Sears and the unproven Andri Tavarez are our only current options there. So we're definitely looking for a power lefty.
So these are our main objectives for the upcoming offseason:
1) Find a full-time or at least job-share catcher
2) Find a reliever or two, especially a power lefty
3) Possible upgrades in a corner OF or 3B