How the league looked:
Wander was leading in batting average for much of the month before he slipped a little and Greene overtook him. What you don't see in the NL at the bottom since LA and Colorado tied for the NL West lead is that St. Louis made it as the third wild card while LA won its division. The Rays were good for the 3rd best record in MLB behind Houston and the Cubs. Here's the playoff tree:
The offense was the story of our second half surge as the pitching was excellent all season. Even the lousy defense improved as the year went on and although our DE wasn't great we ended up with a positive zone rating. The only nit I can pick is walks - we don't draw many of them and we allow too many of them.
Wander and Elly were the only ones who put up star-level performances this year but we had a lot of solid players and lot of combo production out of the catching spot and DH.
Mason Auer ending with a WAR of 0.0 in the second half for us was a bit of a surprise as he didn't quite play D as well as he did in Chicago. And of course the traded Lowes are at the bottom. Josh didn't do much with the Mets but Brandon turned into a beast with the Yankees: 321/398/603 with 25 HR and 85 RBI in 96 games with some help from that short RF porch. Hopefully he doesn't come back to haunt us in the playoffs but that wouldn't be until the LCS and the Yanks would have to get past Houston first.
Just great numbers all around. Notice
Taj Bradley came back at the end of the year and started the final game of the season. He was rocked but at least it was good to see him back and he pitched quite well in his rehab at Durham. He's not going to be on the playoff roster though. Pepiot as mentioned is a Cy Young candidate, even if he did miss out by 5 innings on the ERA title as his lack of stamina keeps him from being more than a 5-6 inning guy.
Isaiah Campbell came up in August and pitched very well but suffered a torn rotator cuff late in September. He's supposed to be out 4 months.
Before I post the prospect pipeline list, just wanted to show what an insane season Brock Jones had at Durham:
Jones will be in the running for a job with us next year, but it'll likely be as a 4th OF. He has 55/60 power and a 55/60 eye but he's only rated 45 for contact and gap power so I doubt he could come close to replicating those numbers at the MLB level. Caminero's kind of blocked too with Elly at 3B and Vargas/Jung/Manzardo at 1B/DH. He can also play some 2B but we have a guy named Wander there.
One guy to take note of on here for 2026 (aside from Chourio, who should take over for Randy in LF) is Fernando Costume (whose name I assume is pronounced Cos-TOO-may and not like the word costume), whose ratings rose throughout the season and ended up at Durham. As a reliever he's rated 60/50/55 with 70/55/65 potential and as a starter the stuff is 55 with 65 potential. He was good for 4.2 WAR at two stops this year. He's probably ahead of the higher-ranked Diaz, who had some struggles at Durham.
Next post: A recap of the Wild Card round, which will reveal the identity of the Rays' ALDS opponent.