The 2020 (and beyond) Tampa Bay Rays

[Art Deco]

One win away...



Tony Guzman found his stuff and the Rays find themselves one win away from back-to-back world championships after a 4-1 win in Game 5 of the World Series. Guzman faced an early moment of truth in the first inning with men on 2nd and 3rd and one out and after not striking out anyone in his poor Game 1 start he whiffed the next two batters to escape the jam and gave the Phillies nothing from there through 5. And the the pen took over from there, preserving the shutout until the 9th when Bill Sutherland (perhaps rusty as he was making his first appearance of the series) let the Phillies score and brought the tying run to the plate before getting a game-ending double play. Rodrigo Aponte had a big 2-run homer to make a 2-0 nail-biter something more comfortable and is up to a whopping 21 RBI this postseason (including 3 in Game 4 without getting a hit - two sac flies and a groundout). So we head back to Tampa with two chances to celebrate in front of the home fans and Tony Valladares getting the call in Game 6, looking to replicate his dominant Game 2 outing.

[Art Deco]

Always the hard way...



Well, we're going to Game 7, as the Rays will play as many games as they possibly can this postseason. And in both the previous two series they had their ace Dave Rose on the mound for the deciding game and tomorrow will be no exception. The less said about tonight the better as former Ray Juan Davila kept his current team alive with a monster game. Here we go.

[Art Deco]

We'll get 'em next year...



50 years to almost the date the Phillies have again beaten the Rays in the World Series and as a result have become the first team to vanquish Tampa Bay twice in the Fall Classic after tonight's 6-2 Game 7 win. The Rose did not smell as sweet tonight as Dave was hit hard with both new Rays nemeses Juan Davila and Ramon Herrera putting up a 4-spot in the 3rd from which Rose and the Rays never recovered. It was also a disappearing act for the bats which managed a mere two runs in each of Games 6 and 7 in the hitters' haven known as Publix Park. So congratulations to the Phillies, who also had not won a World Series since that rainy night in Philly 50 years ago against this same team.

[Art Deco]

Still disappointed over losing the Series up 3-2 with two games at home - in fact, I think that's the first time it's happened in any of my Rays saves although there have been so many now I may have just forgotten. Still three straight trips to the Fall Classic is nothing to sneeze at even if two of them ended in Game 7 losses at home.

2059 is going to be a bit of a transition year as some key players take their leave. Most notable is Jesus Avalos, our star RF who is now a free agent. We did get to Game 7 of the WS without him as he missed the last month-plus of the regular season and all of the postseason with an injury but he earned 34 WAR in a little over 6 seasons with 212 homers and an MVP season in 2054. He did earn about 2/3 of that WAR between 2053-55 and has settled into more of a 3.5-4 WAR guy the past few years and he's 30 so he's not worth the contract he seeks. Also departing is Dantel Chinchilla who declined his player option for 2059. The 2B/SS spent the last 8 years with the club and was about as steady a 3-WAR guy as they get, accumulating 24.9 in that time frame. I was a bit surprised he declined it ($15M), but I'm not heartbroken he's going.

Others leaving include closer Bill Sutherland, who also declined his player option, as well as relievers Jake Cid, Chris Friedman, and starter Tony Valladares, who was a rental when acquired. Also we say goodbye to longtime staff member Randy Mastropietro, who was once really good but hasn't been for a couple of years now. The departures of Sutherland, Cid and Friedman leave the back end of the bullpen as Devin Tadlock and Joe Rose's arthritic elbow, so we're going to need to concentrate on that area.

But the upshot of all these departures is that we're going to have some real money to spend. The payroll budget is $170M and we only have a little over $100M in obligations. One thing I would like to do is improve the team defense, which fell to near the bottom of the league again after being briefly above-average. That's gonna start with SS and CF. Aaron White manned SS last year but he had a -5.2 ZR and will slide over to his better position of 2B with Chinchilla leaving. We have the incredible glove of Edward Mojica to play the position but he has about the worst bat imaginable so he's really not playable as a regular. So finding a decent SS is a top priority this winter. Meanwhile Henry Dominguez is a well below average CF. Jalen Diaz looks set in RF after a couple of brilliant stints the last two years filling in for Avalos, so that would mean Dominguez would need to move to LF. But we have Joel Bland there so that's a bit of a dilemma. DH is not an option with Angel Gonzales and Gonzales can't move to 1B since Rodrigo Aponte is there. So maybe we trade Bland for a CF or SS.

Another dilemma is Orlando Diaz. The youngster has prodigious power but is a terrible infielder so there's no way I want to install him at SS, while 2B and 3B (Paul Mayes) are covered. With his 5-star potential he could command a nice return in trade. So he's on the block too.

As for the pitching, getting some arms for the bullpen is also a priority. The rotation will return the formidable 1-2 punch of Dave Rose and Tony Guzman, #4 starter Victor Boria is back, and I want to believe in lefties Elijah Whitaker (a year ago at this time a #2 starter, now used out of the pen after control problems) and Julio Mattila. Also our best prospect is starter Luis Vargas (#39 overall in MLB) and he's just about ready, so I don't think I'll be going after starting pitching.

Speaking of Vargas, there's some depth at the AAA level which could get tapped but the only one likely to get the call is C Jonathan Restituyo, a 7th-round pick from 2054 who has great contact and bat-to-ball skills (.347 and .342 BAs at Durham the last two years) but no power or OBP ability beyond his BA (25 power/30 eye). He's a 55/60 catcher though, so he sounds like the perfect backup. Prince Brown, who impressed in a 100-AB stint, also could figure into the 2B mix.

So the tl;dr goals for the offseason:

1. Improve the defense with a new SS and CF, with Orlando Diaz and Joel Bland to dangle in trade (although we'll have enough money to sign a FA who could help)

2. Beef up the bullpen, including at least one late-inning power arm.

[Art Deco]

Retirements: Among notable former Rays there was possible Hall of Fame closer Steve Falcon (562 career saves, including 74 for us from 2048-49), OF Alex Duran (313/363/585 with 126 homers for us from 2046-51), and a couple of 3B who were briefly with us, Kang-Cheol Lee and Josh Abney.

Well I said in the previous post that we were looking at trading Orlando Diaz and Joel Bland, and sure enough we did in a pair of blockbuster deals which also saw another big bat of the last couple of years depart.

First the Diaz deal:



A stated goal was to upgrade our defensive play in CF. Well let me introduce you to Jesus Lozano. The 28-year-old has simply put up ZRs of 22.8, 22.9, 23.0 and 16.5 the last four seasons. And he can hit, too: 273/322/494 with 31 homers last season, good for 5.4 WAR, and stole 17 bases. We're taking on salary here with Lozano due for $13M in his second year of arbitration while Diaz is not arb-eligible for another couple of years, but as mentioned we have a lot of money to play with this winter. The other two guys in the deal, Magana and Cerrato, were throws-in and 1 to 2-star prospects.

And if you thought that deal was big, get a load of this one:



Yep, we didn't just deal Bland but we also parted ways with Aponte, who hit .275-29-111 in his first full season. The deal came together when the best offer for Bland was Mario Pineda, one of the game's better power hitters whose 162-game average over his four seasons in the bigs is 43 HR, 125 RBI, and a 308/366/563 triple slash line. LIke Lozano he's heading into his 2nd year of arbitration although he's a couple of years younger at 26. Acquiring Pineda would make Aponte expendable so we added him in the deal to get a SS and a late-inning reliever. The SS in McNabb, a rookie who had a brief cup of coffee with the Orioles in September after an incredible minor league campaign in AAA ball, hitting 360/397/537 with 44 doubles, 12 homers and 85 RBI while putting up a +6.8 ZR in 84 games at SS. He's versatile and also played 43 games between 2B/3B. Now these stats overrate him a bit - he's rated 55/45 at MLB level with potential to bump to 50 power but all I want is competent SS play (even a ZR of 0 would be an improvement over White's -5.2 at the position last year) with a passable bat and I'm confident McNabb can provide that. But wait, there's more - the Orioles sent us their closer Gamez, coming off consecutive 40-save seasons. The only catch is that he's rated 60/45/60, not exactly dominant. He was good for 2.0 WAR last year with a 2.97 ERA but had a 4.69 ERA, 0.4-WAR year in 2057. He'll be more of a setup guy for us so we still need to fine one more dominant arm, preferably a lefty.

Awards Season:

Gold Glove: nope, no Rays

Reliever of the Year:
AL: Emmanuel Longoria (LA), 1 SV, 123 K in 114 IP, 2.20 ERA, 2.4 WAR
NL: Sergio Sanchez (NY), 42 SV, 2.56 ERA, 117 K in 91.2 IP. Interestingly Sanchez had fewer first-place votes (13) than teammate Eric Olberding (18) but nosed him out 119-113 on points. Olberding was more of a swingman with 9 starts.

Silver Slugger:
Our Angel Gonzales won the AL DH award, while new acquisition Jesus Lozano took the NL CF nod.

Rookie of the Year:
AL: Hugo Dixon (CF, DET), .280-19-89, 4.5 WAR
(Omar Gaitan got my lone third-place vote)
NL: Manny Herrera (LF, SF), .244-25-73, 2.4 WAR

Cy Young:
AL: OK, this has to be the closest Cy Young voting in the history of the award:



Damn. Our Dave Rose almost pulled it off, although he was a clear third choice of many (not me). I'll put their numbers side-by-side:

Kemp: 14-8, 2.75, 168 K in 202 IP, 6.0 WAR
Trujillo: 19-8, 3.53, 291 K in 237 IP, 5.3 WAR
Rose: 18-7, 3.29, 219 K in 219 IP, 4.8 WAR

NL: Salvatore Oyola (STL), 20-4, 2.29, 219 K in 219.2 IP, 5.6 WAR. No fractured voting here, he was unanimous.

MVP:
AL: Jerry Esparza (2B, TOR): .291-51-120, 7.6 WAR. 22 first-place votes. He also won in 2056. Our Angel Gonzales was a distant 9th while new pickup Pineda was 4th.
NL: Jorge Banuelos (C, CLB): .272-39-89, 6.6 WAR. He was a close winner over LA 2B Gerald Minotes (14/335 to 10/313).

November 23: We lost both our arbitration cases, but Angel Gonzales and Aaron White will only get about $100-150K more than we offered. Jesus Avalos also unsurprisingly declined our qualifying offer so a comp pick looms.

December 10: Chris Friedman, a key part of our bullpen last year, signed a 2/15 deal with the AL East rival Yankees.

December 11: We came to the Winter Meetings to deal and got our late-inning lefty reliever:



Diaz has averaged 43 saves/season over the last three years for Pittsburgh and is coming off a 2.6 WAR season. He's not the prototypical flamethrower, rated 55/75/50 but he keeps the ball in the park (only 2 HR allowed all of last year) and gets groundballs. He'll be a test of our new-look defense. Diaz is a one-year rental and the price was Young, a pretty good OF prospect but way down our depth charts.

And then we added another bullpen lefty:



Bowie, rated a solid 60/60/45 and coming off a 1.2-WAR season, will take over middle-inning lefty role held last year by Manny Lopez. Butler is a marginal prospect and Houston is picking up his salary so it was a freebie I couldn't turn down.

But wait, there's more help for the pen coming:



Who says you can't come home again? Sanchez was in our pen in 2055/56 and earned 3.5 WAR over those two years combined. He brings his 80 stuff and 70 movement (with 40 control) back home for a year (another pending free agent) after saving 34 games last year for the Angels. We now have four pitchers who were closers last year (Diaz, Gamez, Sanchez and the incumbent Tadlock). The price was Hinkkanen, who was solid for us in middle relief after being claimed on waivers.

December 12: And we ain't done bolstering the bullpen:



Flores is rated 70/55/55 as a reliever but can also be an effective starter, albeit with 35 stamina so we'd need to piggyback him. For now we'll use him in long relief but his stuff is good enough to close in a pinch as he showed in Oklahama City where he saved 9 games for them after coming over at the deadline. At $2.6M for one year, the price was right.

To make room for him on the 42-man roster we had to DFA lefty reliever Angel Melendez, who was up briefly last year. He should clear.

December 14: Tony Valladares parlayed his clutch stint with us after the trading deadline as the SP signed a 6/121 deal with Oakland.

December 20: Added SP Luis Vargas and OF Jacob Densmore to the 42-man roster.

Vargas is our top prospect and is close to being MLB-ready while Densmore looks like a good OF who may or may not get a sniff with us.

December 21: Today was the Rule 5 Draft, and we had only one loss: 36-year-old OF Luis Barraza was taken off Durham's roster and I barely knew we had him. Interestingly old friend Randy Mastropietro had signed with the Yankees but they left him unprotected and he was grabbed by the Astros.

December 22: Signed Taiwanese free agent 1B Mi-Yuan Jiu to a minor league contract.

The 27-year old switch-hitter from Taiwan is rated 50/60 with 60 contact potential so he could be useful in a pinch and might have some trade value down the road.

December 31: Another of last year's bullpen surfaces with the Yankees as Jake Cid signs a 2/20 deal with the Bombers.

[Art Deco]

January 1: Only one player made the Hall of Fame - former Cincinnati and Yankee slugger Nelson Gamez, who sailed in with 95.6% of the vote on his first attempt. Gamez had 602 career homers and 63.5 career WAR but his career .245 BA is quite low for an enshrined player. Former Rays stars Kikuo Kawase (57.9, 8th year), Victor de Jesus (50.2, 7th year) and Bo Angeac (48.3, 9th year) are looking at uphill battles to make it.

January 12: The "other" Avalos, former Rays power-hitting OF Ezequiel, signed a 5/106 deal with the Cubs. Still no deal for Jesus yet.

January 16: Another former Ray standout, closer Mario Berumen, is back in the division after a 3/34 deal with the Yankees.

January 17: And there goes Jesus Avalos, off to Texas on a 5/130 contract. I wish them well with his decline phase. We collect a supplemental 1st round pick for our troubles.

January 20: Not content to add all-around studs like Lozano and Pineda, we went out an made another mega-blockbuster trade:



Welcome to Tampa Bay Ed Silver! Who is he? Here are some particulars:



Not too shabby. And despite his average-looking 55 rating in RF, he won the Gold Glove thanks to a +19.3 ZR at the position, giving us two elite defenders in the OF with Lozano in CF. There's really nothing he can't do, and the power numbers should come up in Publix Park. So what's the catch?

Well he does have this contract, which he just signed this winter:



OKC is picking up 15% of it but now we're committed to roughly $325M in total. If he continues to be an 8-WAR player we'll be able to deal him to someone in 2-3 years if we have a cash crunch though. As for the cost in players, Sailes of course is the key guy going the other way here - he was outstanding filling in for Joel Bland last year in both the regular season and the playoffs, although he was out of a job for us in the short term with Jalen Diaz in RF, Lozano in CF and Henry Dominguez in LF. Instead now Diaz will become the fourth outfielder as we're looking to make the rubble bounce in the AL in trying to get back to the summit.

This pretty much does it for the roster-building this winter with only $19M left to spend.

January 22: Our long-time SS Dantel Chinchilla has joined Indianapolis on a 3/52 deal. He was a great servant to the team and he'll be missed, but he's also 33. The fans weren't happy but they'll get over it as we gave them three superstars this winter.

February 3: We signed our first big international amateur free agent, 16-year-old Robby Bolanos from the Dominican Republic. He's rated 80 potential power and 55 potential contact, and looks to be an average defensive OF. A long, long way to go for him of course.

February 11: Preseason has begun, and seeing that I've spent like a drunken sailor owner Jorge Rios opted not to add to our salary budget.

It's now on to the exhibition schedule.