The 2020 (and beyond) Tampa Bay Rays

[Art Deco]

A pathetic effort...



It's not an ALDS for the Rays if it doesn't go the full 5 games; usually, we're coming back to force the Game 5 but this time after scoring 33 runs in the first two games at Publix Park we've managed only a total of 4 in Detroit. Marc Gibson wasn't ready for prime time, and neither was the offense which didn't even make a peep until it was too late. Hopefully we can win a Game 5 shootout in Publix Park, although maybe Gordie Ager can give us more than 5 innings this time and pitch a gem. Oh and Dan Gregory got hurt as usual; he's got "moderate" back spasms so he'll miss Game 5 except in an emergency.

Whoever wins that Game 5 will be facing Texas as the White Sox once again go out at the first time of asking in the division series. Nothing is settled in the NL though:

[Art Deco]

We're getting two Games 5:

[Art Deco]

They did it again, and again they did it very late. The team that has been known for its late-inning comebacks during this five-year championship run pulled out another one to take the division series from Detroit and advance to the ALCS against Texas. Unlike the scoring orgies of the first two games in Publix Park, tonight's was a tight, tense affair with the Rays never ahead until they scored 4 times in the 8th, the door left ajar by the Tigers with a 2-out Tim Schneider error which should have ended the inning. That error came with two on and two out before Tomas Laboy delivered his second RBI single of the game to put the Rays in front, and then Jose Castillo left no doubt about the outcome with a 3-run homer. I shouldn't say "no doubt" since Detroit put a pair of runners on against Satoshi Sato in the 9th (one of which reached on a Nelson Bocardo passed ball after strike three) but he got a grounder to Dave Frick to end the game. It was a Frick error that put Detroit ahead early, and the Tigers went ahead 2-1 in the 6th knocking Gordie Ager out of the game and that's where the game may have turned. They had men on 2nd and 3rd and only 1 out at that point and knowing a strikeout was needed, I brought on Josh Grote and his 75 stuff even though Grote had been terribly inconsistent all year. This time Grote came through, getting a pair of whiffs to keep the game at 2-1 and the Rays tied it in the bottom of the frame. Sato also got a big whiff in the 8th when Willie Minier put two on with two out.

So now it's the Rangers in the ALCS and the omens point Tampa Bay's way as they have a remarkable 18-season streak of either losing in the ALDS or winning the World Series, and now the former is off the table.

[Art Deco]

Both NLDSes came down to a decisive Game 5.



This was a wild Game 5 which saw a number of former Rays play big roles. It started with Freddy Zamora, with us in 42-43, blowing the save in the 8th by giving up a 2-run homer. But Philly brought on Chris Williams (a Ray in 41-42), and he gave up a 2-run homer to put Milwaukee on top in the bottom of the inning. Zamora then gave up the tying run in the 9th when Philly perfectly executed a squeeze play, and after Williams got through the 9th, yet another former Ray, Dave Brown, came on to pitch the 10th. He then gave up another leadoff double to - you guessed it, a former Ray - Andy Ruggles, who scored the game and series-winner on a sac fly from - of course - former Ray Will Quintana. Who will Milwaukee face in the NLCS?



And that would be the Rockies, who rode a great game from Steve Fairweather to take a low-scoring affair from the Diamondbacks.

[Art Deco]

Good grief...



Now the Rays know how the Tigers feel, blowing a 7-run lead to lose a playoff game. Almost as soon as the Rays went up 7-0, Texas was back within 7-5 an inning later, and even though the Rays scored two more runs which seemed to be insurance, their lousy bullpen gave up another 5 in the 7th (including a soul-crushing 3-run homer allowed by Mel Mejia, something we should have expected since Dave Frick hit one off him when he was with Washington last year to win Game 7 of the World Series) and Texas went on to win 11-10. The Rays had a great chance to tie or win in the 9th with the bases loaded and a run in, but Jose Castillo flew to shallow right and Luis Barela, who has reverted to his lousy form of the first few months of the season, grounded to first to end the game. So now Ben Moses will try to keep us from falling into an 0-2 hole going back to Texas.

[Art Deco]

It wasn't pretty but it was a win, and that's all that counts this time of year. The Rays took advantage of some Texas miscues to score their runs on a night their offense was largely muted, with their first run scoring on a Ranger error and two of the three runs in their key 7th-inning rally scoring on wild pitches. Ben Moses gave them a great start, and the bullpen at least wasn't a complete disaster this time out. Bobby Connell was a disaster, but last night's goat Mel Mejia came up big with a couple of whiffs to hold Texas to the one run in the 7th, Satoshi Sato was great in the 8th and Willie Minier...well he didn't give up two runs. It looked like he would when he put men on 2nd and 3rd with nobody out, but he got three fly balls after that with only one of them bringing a run home and escaped. Gordie Ager will try to give the Rays a leg up in Game 3 in Arlington.

The NLCS opener:

[Art Deco]

[Art Deco]

Embarrassing...



The box above speaks for itself - Gordie Ager was nowhere near the ace he normally is and we're down 2-1 in the ALCS. Marc Gibson will try to keep us out of a deep hole tomorrow.

[Art Deco]

That's more like it...



The Rays came back to life even though it looked like more of the same after 3 innings. Two runs in the 4th put them ahead and then a 3-homer barrage in a 4-run 5th put the game away. Marc Gibson pitched with a lot of traffic on in the early innings but got around it and ended up with perhaps the team's best start this postseason. Greg Bookhart will see what's up his sleeve in tomorrow's pivotal Game 5.

Meanwhile Milwaukee is practically in the World Series:

[Art Deco]

Backs to the wall again...



Like a junkie who needs a bigger and bigger fix just to feel something, the 2046 Rays need to be on the brink of elimination just to get going (or so we hope) after being blown out again in Texas to fall behind 3-2 in the ALCS. The game was lost in the second when Greg Bookhart couldn't get out of an inning he prolonged with his own error, allowing four homers as he's gone from one of the top #2 starters in the league to someone completely unreliable over the last couple of months. Ben Moses will be tasked with keeping the season alive in two days at Publix Park.

And the Brewers will just be sitting back to see how this all plays out as they swept Colorado to make the Series:



Jesus Pargas, who hit .438 in the 4 games, was named Series MVP.

[Art Deco]

Turn out the lights, the party's over...



The 2046 Rays died as they lived: getting shaky work from their bullpen, as Willie Minier couldn't protect a 4-2 lead in the 9th and the Rangers took the game 5-4 and the ALCS 4-2 and will face Milwaukee in the World Series. It marked the end of a couple of remarkable streaks for the Rays - first and foremost their shot at an MLB-record six consecutive World Series titles is over, and secondly their 18-year run of either losing in the ALDS or winning the Series is also over as they lose an ALCS for the first time since 2027 to the Angels. It looked bleak for 6 innings as they were being shut out, but they got one of their patented Publix Park rallies in the 7th, scoring 4 times to take the lead. Satoshi Sato got through the 8th, but Minier was a disaster in the 9th, loading the bases with one out and then giving up a bases-clearing double as he seemed completely unable to retire lefties this postseason. They went meekly 1-2-3 in the 9th and just like that it was over.

No question where our offseason priorities are going to be - beefing up the pitching, especially the bullpen. Our reliever corps looked great on paper going in - plenty of guys with great stuff, good overall ratings and for the most part a track record of success. But for whatever reason (and it wasn't the defense, which was much better this year although Yuji Morioka was sorely missed in the postseason, at least defensively) the whole was far less than the sum of its parts. We'll also need a legit CF as Dan Gregory's contract is up and he's too injury-prone to re-sign long-term, Mario Saro, as good a LF as he might be, is brutal in CF (35 rating), and Chris Parham can't hit enough although we generally score enough runs so we might carry him there if we have to.

[Art Deco]

[Art Deco]

Usually if you lose in the playoffs you want to lose to the eventual champ, and Texas is halfway there after winning the first two in Milwaukee:

[Art Deco]

Maybe this will be 2019 again with the road team winning all the games.

[Art Deco]

Or not...

[Art Deco]

Goin' back to Milwaukee....

[Art Deco]

And in the end we did lose to the champs.

[Art Deco]

The bossman has given us a payroll of $200M for 2047, and right now we have the following salaries adding up to $205M:



Jim Brophy will not be tendered, so there's $20M off the total, although I am making a qualifying offer to Dan Gregory of $18M so if he takes that we're right back where we started (he probably won't). Tony Cordova has gotten too pricey at $12.5 for a part-time catcher as I'm ready to turn over the full-time job to Nelson Bocardo, so I will see what I can deal him for. With the way they pitched last year I'm not sure I want to spend $24M combined on Sato and Minier either, with Sato more likely to be kept. Tomas Laboy was close to being traded last year and probably will be this winter. Finally I may move Seth Williams and his $16.5M final year of team control. Williams has been a fine player but isn't anything incredible for a 1B and we have some prospects at the position who might be ready (Vinny Rodriguez, Eric Wilson).

As for needs, pitching is obviously the key. We're only returning 3 of our 5 starters (Ager, Bookhart, Moses) with Brophy being non-tendered and Marc Gibson a free agent. We have some internal options as Caleb Ramos and Chris O'Brien could move in from long relief, and Tristan Goulet, Jimmy Leonard and Jonathan Melendez at Durham are possibilities but I probably want to see if I can acquire an established starter. And the bullpen. Oh the bullpen. Josh Grote is a free agent so he's gone. As mentioned previously they all look good on paper with great ratings but they were such disappointments. I would like to acquire at least one elite reliever and see what else the market bears.

Among the position players we will need a true CF if Dan Gregory doesn't take us up on the qualifying offer, and we have three outstanding corner OFs for two positions in Mario Saro, Doug Johns and Alex Duran. With only two years of team control left I would consider trading Johns for an top-notch CF but it would need to be a RH-hitting one as we'd be a bit too vulnerable to lefties without him.

On the infield Morioka-Frick-Barela is set but as mentioned Seth Williams could be dealt (assuming there's a market for him). Bocardo will need a caddy at C, and it could be rookie Kurt Ferguson or rookie defensive whiz Alex Alejandre, or I could find a veteran backup.

[Art Deco]

Some former Rays retirements of note: Danny Romero, who won the 2038 Cy Young with us, hung it up as did former star 1B Jon Jimenez who went unsigned last year coming off a 38-homer season in 2045 and figured enough was enough. Also hanging up the cleats were Jeff Baez, who was our starting SS for 7 years and won a Gold Glove with us in 2039 as well as Mike Barkley, our closer for a season, and Rayhmer Costa, who always intrigued me with his 70 stuff and control combined with his 25 movement which kept him from being more than a run-of-the-mill middle reliever.

Got several deals in the works but waiting on free agents to declare so I can open up some 40-man spots. I've decided to keep Minier and Sato and hope that they bounce back to dominant form; they weren't terrible last year but they weren't consistent.

Awards season:

We didn't win any Gold Gloves. I voted for Morioka at 2B but former Rays farmhand Art Rivers won it for Oakland.

Silver Sluggers: We won at 3B (Barela), LF (Sato), RF (Johns) and DH (Castillo). I also voted for Dave Frick at SS but the electorate liked Kevin Kane's 43 homers more although Frick was better than him 145-131 in wRC+.

Congrats to our Rookie of the Year:



Of course we had the usual "should a professional who played in Japan and who is 31 win RotY?" controversy but it wasn't much of one for the voters. Arizona's Greg Barrett won the NL award with an impressive .308-28-95 maiden season.

And add another Ray to our long list of Cy Young winners:



He wasn't a slam dunk winner but took the award by a decisive-enough margin both in first-place votes and total points. Ager becomes the 12th different Ray to win the award and first since Jim Brophy in 2043. The NL winner was the unheralded Ruben Roncancio of Cincinnati who went 16-7, 2.39 leading the league in wins and MLB in ERA although he only fanned 129 in 195 IP.

The AL MVP went to Chicago's Joel Taylor (.306-46-117, with a league-best 7.4 WAR) as it probably should have, although I voted for our own Mario Saro, who finished third with 4 first-place votes behind the Yankees' Nelson Gamez, who had 57 HR and 135 RBI this year. Down ballot Doug Johns finished 6th, reigning 4-time winner Luis Barela 8th, and Dave Frick 9th. Over in the NL the no-brainer (and unanimous) winner was Cincinnati's Steve Hopfensperger, who was .318-55-126, had an OBP of .440 and accumulated 10.1 WAR.

OK, now time for a couple of trades:



Perez has great stuff, 60 as a starter and 70 as a reliever, but has only 40 movement and 45 control and was a pending MiLB free agent who didn't want a MiLB extension and therefore would have had to have been added to the 40-man. He did generate a fair amount of interest from other teams and we sent him to the Jays for Riley, his polar opposite:



In years past I would have avoided this pitcher profile like the plague, but after seeing how well we did with Jim Brophy last year (who didn't have this kind of movement or control) I'm confident the 70-rated duo of Morioka and Frick will make him look good. Those ratings above are as a starter, he's at 45 stuff as reliever. Not sure yet whether he starts or relieves but if it's the latter he'll be our long man. He was worth 1.0 WAR in 38 innings in relief last year for Toronto after being called up in August.

And another deal, which my assistant GM hated:



Yes he hated it even though Forbes has had a combined -0.1 WAR over the last two seasons and is recovering from shoulder inflammation and in return we're getting Gray, who finished third in the NL Reliever of the Year voting last year, had an MLB-high 47 saves, was worth 1.9 WAR and is signed for the next two years at $1.78M per year. This enables me to add an insurance policy in case Sato and Minier remain inconsistent and gives us a closer for 2048 when Minier is a free agent and I'm probably not going to pay Sato $15M in his last year of arbitration.

November 23: Dan Gregory declined our qualifying offer. I'm going to wait and see how he does in free agency as I'd still like to bring him back on a 1 or 2-year deal; otherwise I'm going to have to find a CF. Same thing applies to Tony Cordova, whom I non-tendered at C, I'd be glad to sign him as a backup if the price is right.

UPDATE: Gregory has gone from "fragile" to "wrecked" which seems about right but wants $30M/year, and Cordova wants $21M/year. Hah!

[Art Deco]

December 7: We say goodbye to Dan Gregory, who patrolled CF for us the last six season when he wasn't hurt, as he signed a 3/72 deal with the team that beat us in the playoffs and won it all, Texas. All I can say is good luck Rangers - Gregory is now wrecked and will probably be lucky to give them 80 games/season. Since we made him a qualifying offer we'll get a supplemental first rounder. The Rangers also signed SP Rogelio Espinoza, one of the game's better starting pitchers over the years with San Diego but who had a down season in his walk year with Washington, to a 5/116 deal as they're serious about their title defense.

December 9: Josh Grote, who had an up-and-down season in our pen last year, signed a $1/1.1 deal with Washington where he'll probably go back to starting.

December 11: Zach Wells, who tormented us for years in Toronto as one of the game's best hitters, went for 5/148 to Philadelphia so we don't have to see the career .332 hitter much anymore.

Well we have a replacement for Dan Gregory in CF - and he's 38!



Since he's played his entire MLB career with the Dodgers, I really haven't talked about Kevin Crater very much but he's an LA legend and a future Hall-of-Famer. He's hit 562 career homers and although he's never won a Gold Glove he's an excellent defender (60 with a +4 ZR in CF last season) even at his current age as he's rated a solid 80 for speed (as well as 80 for baserunning and stealing). In fact he's coming off third 30/30 season when he hit 36 HR and stole 35 bases at the age of 37. He's in the final year of his contract and the Dodgers probably aren't really going anywhere these days, so they gave him a shot at a ring. They're eating 75% of his salary and the cost wasn't much for us (BJ Turner, who was questionable to make the team, and Jose Soto, a somewhat promising but C+ starting pitching prospect). Now there is a downside with Crater - he has terrible on-base skills at this stage of his career, having hit .191 and .218 the last two seasons with OBPs of .243 and .262. But the power and the defense will be more than enough (it was enough for 3.5 WAR last year) and I expect those numbers to tick up playing in Publix Park.

December 21: The Dodgers gave free agent SP Dan Robinson, who was in our 2045 rotation, a 6/132 deal.

December 22: Added C Kurt Ferguson, IF Ed Herrera, OF Jeremy Williams, OF Corey Herring and P Chris Krisik to the 40-man roster.

Our farm system isn't that great these days, a byproduct of continually drafting at the end of the first round. But we do have some prospects worth adding to the 40-man to keep them from the Rule 5 draft. Ferguson right now will be the backup catcher unless we pick someone up, Herrera and Krisik are top 150 prospects, and Herring and Williams can rake and probably play for some other MLB teams right now.

December 23: Lost OF Chad Chaplain to the Dodgers in the Rule 5 Draft.

Chaplain is a 34-year-old CF who played with Durham last year. He actually can play a decent CF and I guess LA needed someone after they traded us Kevin Crater. He was a starter from 2036-2043 with the Reds and Twins but never had more than 2.1 WAR in a season. Chaplain was minor league depth for us but likely won't be missed.

December 25: Rays fans found a Christmas present under their trees this morning, imported from Japan:



We now have our backup catcher, who was an international free agent who came over. He's no Yuji Morioka, but at $2.4M he'll be useful and provide some pop when he plays along with elite-level defense, in other words the perfect backup catcher. I'm figuring on Nelson Bocardo playing about 110-115 games so we're not asking a lot from Suzuki.

Meanwhile Jeff Brockman, who started for us in 2040-42 and was part of Washington's "super-rotation" last year full of free-agent-to-be aces such as Dan Robinson and Rogelio Espinoza but missed the playoffs, signed a 5/103 deal with the Angels.