The 2022 (and beyond) Tampa Bay Rays

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Corbin Burnes and the Padres finish off Atlanta and advance to face Washington in the NLCS.

[Art Deco]

Phew...



Once again the Rays built a healthy lead and once Gerald Ogando turned it into a nailbiter, but once again they held on and this time it meant a trip to the ALCS to face Toronto. Donye Evans got through a rough first inning with miminal damage and cruised from there and they rode a trio of homers to take a 5-1 lead with Carson Williams' shot putting them ahead to stay and Wander Franco's two-run blast providing separation. But for the second straight time Ogando shat the bed, loading the bases with nobody out and necessitating an early appearance from Randy Rodriguez. Rodriguez did allow a couple of runners to score but left with the lead still intact but unfortunately he strained his back getting the 3rd out, a "moderate" injury that will last a week and hurt us in the ALCS. With 3 of the first 4 Twins due in the 9th lefties we turned to Ryan Okuda, who atoned for allowing the winning run in the Game 4 by breezing through the 9th 1-2-3 and clinch the series.

So we head into the ALCS with a questionable bullpen as our setup guy Ogando has been horrendous while our closer is hurt. We're just going to have to build up some healthy margins and we'll need a much better start this time out from Luis German in Game 1.

[Art Deco]

An ugly start...



Luis German crapped the bed again and the offense wasn't much help either as the Rays lost an ugly 6-2 decision to Toronto in the ALCS lid-lifter. German loaded the bases in the opening frame but got to two outs before allowing a 2-run single and a 2-run triple, then gave up a homer in the 3rd for good measure as he followed up a disastrous start in the ALDS with another today. Bryce Eldridge pitched well in long relief and might just get the start in Game 5, provided we force one. Aldry Acosta will attempt to keep us falling in an 0-2 hole before going to Canada.

In the NLCS it's all even after two games:

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Big trouble now...



Rays pitching was garbage at the beginning and at the end and as a result they've fallen behind 0-2 in the ALCS and now head to Toronto where they'll have to win twice. Aldry Acosta was awful, putting them in a 4-0 hole but somehow the offense battled back to take the lead in the 7th. There were two out and nobody on when Nelson Haro struck out, only for the pitch to go to the backstop allowing Haro to reach. Ozzie Albies then singled and Wander Franco stepped up and hit what looked to be the biggest of homers. But the Randy Rodriguez injury proved large as Gerald Ogando was terrible for the third time in these playoffs, and Ivan Armstrong couldn't handle the pressure, giving up consecutive game-tying and game-losing singles to let Toronto win. So now our ace Donye Evans will try to keep us out of a pretty much insurmountable 0-3 hole.

[Art Deco]

[Art Deco]

All over but the shouting...



I knew the Randy Rodriguez injury in the ALDS was going to be a significant one but didn't think it would be this significant as without it the Rays would likely be holding a 2-1 ALCS lead instead of being on the brink of elimination at 0-3 down. It was deja vu all over again as the Rays got yet another poor outing from a starter, this time the red-hot Donye Evans giving up 4 runs in the 1st. But like in Game 2 the offense battled back and Rodolfo Solano's 8th-inning homer off Jays closer Darwin Cruz made it 6-5 Tampa Bay. Ivan Armstrong made it through the 8th so we headed to the 9th. After Gerald Ogando's string of absymal outings I figured I'd give Rodriguez a chance despite his back injury which was listed as moderate. Well that didn't work either as he gave up a leadoff homer, a triple and a sac fly to lose it. Walt Khattak will now try to keep the season alive tomorrow.

Meanwhile it's shaping up to be a Jays-Padres Fall Classic:

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Truly unbelievable...



If you had thought the Rays made an art form of blowing late leads in this series Game 4 is when they got it down to a science, blowing not one, not two, not three, but four leads in this game as they were mercifully swept by the Jays after another bullpen meltdown. They finally got a good outing from a starter as Walt Khattak was in fine form today and Carson Williams' 2-run homer put them up 3-2. Coby Holcombe blew the second lead by giving up a homer but Nelson Haro, who had a quiet ALCS after a huge ALDS, ripped his 3rd hit of the game - a 2-run homer to put them up 5-3 in the 8th. Ryan Okuda got through the bottom of the frame and Gerald Ogando got one more chance to put something positive in his ledger and predictably failed, giving up a 2-out, 2-run homer to let Toronto tie. Yet there was still one more lead to blow as Williams singled in a run in the top of the 10th to make it 6-5. With few options we turned to Bryce Eldridge, who completely flopped by allowing four straights hits for 2 runs and that was that. It's really incredible to think it games were 8 innings the Rays would be one away from clinching a World Series trip but instead they're going home after being swept.

Unlike Tampa Bay, the Nationals would not go quietly into the good night:

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What a comeback by the Nats.

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It went the distance, and congrats to the Nats including former Rays Austin Meadows and Josh Lowe:

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We did make it to the LCS with a team that seemed to struggle for large sections of the season so I can't be too dissatisfied with 2031, although the memories of the bullpen blowing 9th-inning leads in 3 of the 4 losses will haunt me for a while.

On to 2032, and the big development is the end of the Wander Franco era in Tampa Bay as the star SS becomes a free agent. His final season with the Rays was a huge disappointment as he only earned 2.5 WAR, and as he entered his 30s he seemed to be a downslope as he was good for 4.3 WAR in 2030 after averaging a little over 6/season for the four years before that. We're also losing a pair of starters to free agency in Taj Bradley and Luis German but we still have four returning. Finally we say goodbye to Gunnar Henderson, who was supposed to be our rental star last season but got off to a miserable start and missed the second half of the year with injury so we barely knew him enough to miss him. Otherwise the team remains largely intact. Here's the salary situation:



I don't really see us non-tendering anyone above. Rather than do a position-by-position outlook that consists of mostly "so and so returns", I'll identify our areas of need. We should have around $20M to play with so no big splash signings but enough to fill some holes.

Catcher. Angel Rivera will be brought back at his arbitration price but I feel he's someone we can improve on so I'll be on the prowl for someone better to share the job with him than Cade Arrambide.

Shortstop. We already have Wander's heir apparent in the fold with Isaac Cedillos. While he won't hit like Wander he's a far superior defensive SS and stands a decent chance of meeting or exceeding the 2.5 WAR Franco put up last season.

Rotation. As mentioned we do have four starters returning. The fifth could be prospect Jaheim Lennon and lefty reliever Ryan Okuda has the ability to start as well.

Otherwise it's steady as she goes with amazingly the entire bullpen coming back; most seasons in most saves I usually need a arm or three but not this time around.

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Notable retirements: A lot of big names including Bryce Harper (Phillies retire #3), Jose Ramirez (Cleveland retires #11), Shohei Ohtani, Pete Alonso, Francisco Lindor, Aaron Judge, Rhys Hoskins, Teoscar Hernandez.

Former Rays: Tyler Glasnow, Joe Ryan, Brendan McKay, Tanner Scott, Willy Adames.

Awards season:

Gold Glove: We have a winner! Alistair Hardy took the RF award. We had one of the best defensive OFs in the league when Hardy was playing with Elijah Green in CF and Rodolfo Solano in LF.

Reliever of the Year: Toronto's Darwin Cruz was a deserved winner after a 36-save, 1.94 ERA season with 116 Ks in 69 IP that earned him a whopping 3.6 WAR while our Randy Rodriguez and Erubiel Armenta finished 2-3. In the NL the venerable Edwin Diaz took his 3rd RotY award thanks to 34 saves and 1.65 ERA for Atlanta.

Silver Slugger: No Tampa Bay winners.

Rookie of the Year: Seattle 3B Mario Osorio won comfortably with 21 first-place votes after a .292-13-59 season while in the NL Cincinnati's Omar Delgado took 25 first-place votes with a massive power display of 55 HR and 115 RBI.

Cy Young: Who else could it be but the Yankees' Robert Ahlstrom? The righty won his fourth straight Cy Young after another stellar season, going 15-8, 3.47 with 251 Ks and an MLB-best 7.8 WAR. And another veteran, Corbin Burnes, won in the NL unanimously after a 16-6, 2.63 year with San Diego, also his fourth Cy but over the last 11 seasons.

MVP: Chicago's 3B Justin Still nosed out Seattle's Julio Rodriguez for the AL honors 313-291 and 14-8 in 1st place votes. Sill hit .277-55-132 and earned 5.7 WAR but the case could be made for Julio's 7.6 WAR and .310-29-100 season with superior defense. Juan Soto of Cleveland wasn't too far behind that pair with 5 first-place votes of his own. In the NL Ronald Acuna Jr. made it back-to-back MVPs, hitting .290-42-108 and earning 7.8 WAR despite missing nearly a full month of the season.

December 1: Wander Franco declined our qualifying offer so we'll get a comp pick in next year's draft; he was the only free agent I wanted to risk it on although I considered giving one to Gunnar Henderson. Donye Evans was awarded $13.6M in arbitration, a million more than we offered, Walt Khattak received $4.1M, about $300K more, and Elijah Green won $2.7M, also about $300K more as we lost all 3 of our arbitration cases. So our bottom line remains about $20M leeway in payroll.

December 10: The first big day of player movement around the league as 2-time reigning NL MVP Ronald Acuna Jr. left the only club he ever knew in Atlanta to sign a 5/162 deal with the Phillies. Meanwhile 37-year-old vet SS Carlos Correa joined the Yankees on a 2/57 contract. Correa's still at the top of his game coming off a 6.1 WAR season. And the Orioles traded their star C Adley Rutschman to Cleveland for a trio of prospects.

December 16: SS Aeverson Arteaga inked a big 7/168 pact with the Cubs.

December 17: More big free agent signing with the Yankees bringing back SP Deivi Garcia after many years in Arizona with a 5/101 deal, and 40-year-old superstar Mike Trout returning home of sorts to the Mets on a 2/28 contract. Trout has 612 career homers.

December 18: Wander Franco is officially gone but we'll still be seeing a lot more of him as he stayed in the division, signing for 7/175 with the Red Sox.

December 19: And another of our free agents defected to a division rival as Luis German joined the Yankees for 6/128. And to further the theme New York also signed lefty reliever Jovani Moran, who spent 2023-29 with us, to a 1-year, $5.6M deal.

December 20: Our reliever Gerald Ogando experienced the dreaded "guru in India" story and came back confused, not sure if he wants to play baseball.

December 26: The Rule 5 Draft came and went without any comings or goings on our end.

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January 7: The Hall of Fame voting is in, and nobody made it:



It's do-or-die next year for Joe Mauer, while some others made strong first-time showings (Altuve, Goldy, Freeman).

Meanwhile 38-year-old Trea Turner signed a 2/20 deal with Minnesota.

January 8: Lost OF Hendry Mendez to Texas on waivers.

Mendez was barely used despite being up all of last season and has no defensive value. Instead we'll go with a Japanese import from a couple of winters ago, Norietsu Kurakawa, who's an average CF and an above-average corner guy who has some pop and is coming off a good (4.1 WAR) year with Durham.

January 12: Former Ray Forrest Whitley, who's fashioned a career as a middle reliever since leaving here after the 2027 season, joined the Yankees on a 2/10 deal.

January 14: Elly De La Cruz, coming off a .266-37-113 season, signed a 3/29 pact with the San Antonio Seagulls.

January 20: We signed our first amateur IFA of the winter, 17-year-old SP Humberto Herrera, who has 60/50/75 potential.

January 26: The Rockies offloaded perennial 30-homer guy Zac Veen to Texas for a pitching prospect.

January 28: After spending 3 years in Philly, OF Byron Buxton is on his way to the Dodgers on a 3/49 contract.

February 5: Tanner Dodson, in our bullpen the last few years but who missed the second half of last season due to injury, joined the Yankees for 1 year and $3.9M.

February 14: Veteran C Reese McGuire embodies the term "journeyman". Starting in 2027 he went from the Yankees to Boston to Detroit to Arizona, back to the Yankees, back to Detroit and now he's going back to Boston on a 1/9.4 deal. Guessing Arizona is next on his itinerary.

March 16: Joey Gallo comes full circle as the 38-year-old returns to where he started in Texas, joining the Rangers for 1 year and $12M. He's consistently hit 35-40 HR and consistently hit around .200 but he's still been good for around 3 WAR/season the last few years.

March 21: We've lost Ozzie Albies for most of the season with a torn labrum as he'll be out until late August. I'm not sure that's a huge loss considering he only earned 1.2 WAR last year and is a lousy 2B. Victor Mesa and Marco Luciano can man the position adequately.

March 23: A newsy day as our free agent Taj Bradley joined the Cubs on a 2/32 deal and we signed a couple of vets to minor league deals: C Patrick Bailey and OF Ethan Wilson. Bailey should take Cade Arrambide's job as backup C and will cut into Angel Rivera's ABs more. We have a crowded OF but Wilson, who was a 2-WAR guy last year and has 25-HR power, will give us extra depth at Durham.

[Art Deco]

No further injuries as we wrapped up Spring Training, so the Opening Day Roster shakes out as thus:

C-A.Rivera, Bailey
1B-Caminero
2B-Mesa
SS-Cedillos
3B-C.Williams
IF-Luciano
LF-Y.Alvarez
CF-R.Solano
RF-Hardy
OF-E.Green, Kurokawa
DH-Haro

SP-Evans, Acosta, Khattak, Eldridge, Okuda
LR-Lennon
MR-Buckman, Onyshko, Holcombe, Marklund, Armstrong
SU-Armenta, Ogando
CL-R.Rodriguez

Rookie Jaheim Lennon makes it as a long man and Ryan Okuda gets a crack at being the 5th starter. This is about 95% of last year's team with the only new guys on offense being backup C Patrick Bailey and OF Norietsu Kurokawa.

The preseason picks peg us as a wild card team, which is fair since that's what we were most of last season before going on a late charge to win the division:

[Art Deco]

Opening Day:



Not the start we wanted although as you'll see below things went much better the rest of the series. Today though we found out it's extraordinarily difficult win a game with only two hits, even if your starter pitches quite well.

Game 2: 3-1 W. WP-Evans (1-0, 5 2 1 1 3 9). S-R.Rodriguez (1). HR-Solano (1). That's more like it as Donye was in mid-season form and 3-run 5th sparked by Solano's solo homer leading off the inning was all the offense they needed.

Game 3: 10-3 W. WP-Acosta (1-0, 6 2 0 0 0 11). HR-Haro (1), C.Williams (1), Mesa (1), Caminero (1), Y.Alvarez (1). Despite the scoreline this was a 0-0 game in the 5th and a 3-0 game in the 7th before the Rays put 6 on the board in an inning in which they hit four homers. Haro's 2-run blast in the 5th was the key while Acosta was about as dominant as you can get i his 6 innings of work.

Game 4: 2-0 W. WP-Eldridge (1-0, 6 3 0 0 2 6). S-R.Rodriguez (2). Yet another outstanding outing from a starter as Eldridge was tough and they scratched out enough offense to win with Isaac Cedillos' RBI single in the 2nd all they'd need in the end.

Team record: 3-1. Our eternal rivals the Jays started 4-0 of course. Next up: Oakland visits for 3 games.

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Game 1: 6-0 W. WP-Okuda (1-0, 7 2 0 0 1 8). HR-A.Rivera (1), Mesa (2). We've been quite good the past few years at converting relievers into starters (Donye Evans, Luis German, Aldry Acosta) and the latest success story could be Ryan Okuda, who was flat-out brilliant in his first start, dominating Oakland. Elijah Green's 2-run single in the 2nd was all Okuda needed and the Rays won comfortably.

Game 2: 6-5 W. WP-R.Rodriguez (1-0). Starter-Khattak (5.2 6 5 3 1 2). HR-Y.Alvarez (2). Rays were down 5-1 in this one before Yordan's 3-run homer got them back in it and Rodolfo Solano walked it off in the 9th with an RBI single. Alvarez added an RBI double for the first Tampa Bay run.

Game 3: 7-0 W. WP-Evans (2-0, 6 4 0 0 1 8). The Rays' brilliant start to 2032 continued with their sixth straight win and a series sweep of Oakland. Donye keyed the team's third shutout win in four games with another overpowering effort and Isaac Cedillos drilled 3 doubles, driving in 3 while Solano and Angel Rivera each plated a pair.

Team record: 6-1. Now in first, but only 1/2 up on Toronto and 1 game up on Boston. Next up: Our season-opening homestand concludes with 3 against Cleveland.

[Art Deco]

Game 1: 1-2 L. LP-Buckman (0-1). Starter-Acosta (5 2 1 1 2 8). A frustrating loss for the Rays as they left 10 men on base and lost the game by a run, wasting another brilliant Acosta start.

Game 2: 4-3 W. WP-Marklund (1-0). S-R.Rodriguez (3). Starter-Eldridge (5.1 5 3 3 3 6). HR-Mesa (3), Y.Alvarez (3). Starting down the barrel of a second straight defeat trailing 3-0 in the 6th, the Rays rallied in the bottom of the frame on a 3-run Mesa homer and a solo shot from Yordan to win it.

Game 3: 5-1 W. WP-Okuda (2-0, 5.2 4 1 1 1 9). HR-Caminero (2), Cedillos (2). The Ryan Okuda-to-the-rotation move continues a smashing success as he was incredible again. As a result Caminero's 3-run homer in the 1st was all they'd need today.

Team record: 8-2. We're 1 1/2 up on 6-3 Toronto to start the year but now will be tested on the road after playing 10 at home. That trip will start after a day off with 3 at Texas.

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Game 1: 4-1 W. WP-Buckman (1-1). S-R.Rodriguez (4). Starter-Evans (5 1 0 0 2 8). HR-Cedillos 2 (4). Neither team had a hit in this game until the 5th when the Rangers got one off Donye, then Cedillos homered in the 6th off Texas' Tarik Skubal for the first run, and after the Rangers tied it up Cedillos went deep again with a 3-run shot in the 8th to win it.

Game 2: 7-11 L. LP-Armenta (0-1). Starter-Khattak (4 6 5 5 1 2). HR-Mesa (4), Y.Alvarez (4). Rays fell behind 5-1, came back to lead 7-5, and then saw four relievers combine to allow 6 runs to lose it. Yordan had a nice game with an RBI double and a 2-run homer.

Game 3: 7-8 L (10). LP-Onyshko (0-1). Starter-Acosta (4.2 7 1 1 3 4). HR-Hardy (1). Another gut-wrenching loss as the Rays built a 5-1 lead, saw Texas come back to tie with a run off a wild Randy Rodriguez in the 9th (he walked 3 including one to force in the equalizer), then saw Alistair Hardy cap a 4-RBI day with a 2-run shot to put them back up 7-5 in the 10th only for Onyshko to give up a 2-out, 3-run walk-off homer to Corey Seager.

Team record: 9-4. Toronto swept its series so despite a fine record we're 1/2 back of them. Next up: The road trip continues with 4 at Yankee Stadium.