It's been a good first half for the Rays, who are looking to return to the summit after coming oh-so-close last year, losing the World Series in 7 games to Pittsburgh. The offense has been very good and the defensive makeover of the club has finally resulted in a top 10 (so far) defensive efficiency rating. The bullpen has been iffy at times but overall there are few complaints.
Around the league:
The Yankees have been worthy competition all year, preventing us from running away with the division. We'll see if they can sustain it in the second half.
As I said no real complaints. The offense has been marvelous, even the baserunning as we're not only providing quantity (first in steals) but quality (first in the baserunning metric). If I had to nit-pick, I'd say the rotation after Dave Rose has been a bit inconsistent.
A lot to like here. Jesus Avalos has already exceeded last year's full-season WAR as he's returned to superstar form and second-year guy Henry Dominguez has really taken a step forward as has Angel Gonzales, seriously raking as the full-time DH. Alex Brown and Jayden Woodard have done a great job filling in for the injured Aaron White and as mentioned in the previous post Rodrigo Aponte has replicated what Vinny Colon was doing before he was traded. The one disappointment here is Dave Gonzalez, who's a mediocre-to-bad defensive catcher and hasn't been hitting enough to stay above replacement value. That's one spot we could look at upgrading over the next month.
As I've pointed out before Dave Rose just keeps getting better with age, and he and Whitaker make an enviable 1-2 punch. After that the rotation is a bit more inconsistent as Swords has been up and down of late after a hot start and Barraza has been eternally a rollercoaster ride. And of course the hope was that Guzman was going to be an upgrade on Mastropietro but he's struggled since the trade despite better stuff/ratings. Still think he'll get it together eventually. The bullpen struggled early in the season but has settled down although we added Navarro since Cid and Tadlock, while good, haven't been lights-out. Meenach has been solid though.
The farm system hasn't been stellar for a long time although it's produced some key players for us of late (Dominguez, Whitaker). This year's #1 pick Escobedo is our top prospect and is highly regarded but he's a long way away. One thing not picked up on here is that our Durham team is an amazing 53-20 and boasts several MLB-ready players who might not be elite prospects but will keep us from missing a beat in case of injuries:
A couple of veteran IFAs we signed have been intriguing with Kim capable of putting up big numbers in MLB should we need him to step in, and the Cuban Estudillo excelling in the rotation and could pitch at the back end of our rotation.