March 27, 2019: Where we stand.

Tommy Pham, the outfielder who was traded by the St. Louis Cardinals to the Rays in the middle of the 2018 season, said on MLB radio in December that “it sucks going from playing in front of a great fan base to a team with really no fan base at all.”  As a newcomer to the area and the team, Pham can be forgiven his mistake, for it is not that there is no fan base in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, it’s that the fans turn out to root against them.

That sounds glib and perverse, and there are indeed many true Rays fans in the area, but it is nevertheless largely a true statement.  When the Rays play the Yankees, for example, there are so many Yankee fans at Tropicana Field (the Rays’ widely disparaged home dungeon), that one visiting Yankee a few years back commented, according to the Tampa Bay Times, that it seemed more like playing a home game to him than an away game.  And that’s the way it is when Boston is in town, and Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago (the Cubs mostly), Pittsburgh, St. Louis, and maybe one or two others.    When the visiting team hits a home run or turns a double play, there are great cheers that rattle the rafters and dishearten the Rays—players and fans alike.  And when teams arrive who happen not to have retirees living in our area, the home faithful usually stay home, attendance always struggling on those dates to rise much above 10,000.  It’s long gone beyond an embarrassment and is now the slow tolling of a death knell.

But it hasn’t been all bad through the years.  We thrilled at what ex-manager Joe Maddon was able to do with a ragtag roster of rookies and bargain basement players.  He was hired in 2006 and two years later miraculously led the team to the World Series against the Phillies, which the warm-weather Rays lost in Philadelphia’s blizzard conditions.  After that came three more post season appearances.  Joe was loved by the Tampa press, the players, and a growing fan base, but then, in a disappointing display of venality, Maddon abandoned us in 2014 for the big bucks waved at him by the Cubs, whom he managed to a world championship in 2016.  As the manager who led the Cubbies out of the desert (a WS victory for the first time in 108 years), Maddon was deified by the baseball world--everywhere but Tampa.  
          And the Rays? Well, there was a four-year period of ineptitude while they got used to their young, engaging, and untested manager Kevin Cash, who was one day shy of his 37^th birthday at his hiring in December 2014.  Finally in 2018, his fifth year as manager, Cash righted the sinking ship and led the Rays  to a 90-72 record, which should have been enough to get them into the post-season, but wasn’t.  They finished third, a full ten games behind the second place Yankees, and eighteen games behind the eventual World Series winner Boston.  They fell just short of the second wild card spot too.

Cash got the kudos—and a five-year contract extension..  He had spent the previous four years learning his trade, becoming a great communicator with his players and the press, and developing a style that allowed him to use his talent in ways that were unconventional—but successful.  The classic example is his use of “openers” who go just an inning or two before giving way to the “bulkers” who pitch three or four innings before the high-leverage guys come in to finish up.  He seems content to not have an official “closer,” preferring to use match-ups to decide who works the 7^th, 8^th, and 9^th innings.  And he took player versatility to another level with middle infielders virtually interchangeable and able to play corner outfield positions too.  He also took the idea of defensive shifts to another level, sometimes employing four outfielders.  In the second half of the 2018 season, the Rays became everyone’s favorite team to watch, and the team no one wanted to play.  They were too unpredictable, too dangerous, too good.  And until the final days of the season, they still had a reasonable chance to get into the playoffs.  They went into the off season the talk of baseball.

For 2019, they topped their payroll at what has been routinely reported as $52 million, (right at the bottom of MLB payrolls), which includes a $15 million dollar investment in free agent pitcher Charlie Morton.  If you are struggling with the arithmetic, Morton is receiving 29% of the entire player budget on opening day, leaving a mere $37 million for everyone else. Besides Morton, the Rays traded OF Mallex Smith to Seattle for C Mike Zunino, exchanging power for speed, then added free agent Avisail Garcia, who had an injury-shortened 2018, but who played in 136 games in 2017 with 18 homers, 80 RBIs, and a .330 B.A.  They soon bumped their payroll by locking in two players, their Cy Young winning LHP Blake Snell (5 years, $50 million) and INF Brandon Lowe (6 years, $24 million).

As for the rest, the 2018 team is largely intact.  1B Jake Bauers, one of the fan favorites last year was traded to Cleveland for INF Yandy Diaz, a chancy exchange that many are reserving judgment on.  But we will see this year more of Tommy Pham, Kevin Kiermaier, Matt Duffy (starting the season on the injury list), Ji-Man Choi, Austin Meadows, Michael Perez, Joey Wendle, and Willy Adames.  The pitching staff has Snell and Morton at the top followed by Tyler Glasnow, who had a terrible spring (0-5) but continues to somehow impress management.  The “openers” include Ryne Stanek for sure, plus one or two others.  The “bulk” guys are Ryan Yarbrough and Yonny Chirinos, while the late inning relievers include Chaz Roe, José Alvarado, Diego Castillo, Adam Kolarek, Wilmer Font, and Jalen Beeks.  And yes, all of that can change in a heartbeat—and will, especially with quality triple A players knocking on the major league door.  To say the Rays are deep would be to say the obvious.  The biggest worries at this point are Glasnow and the lack of a proven closer—all in all though, we’re as ready as we’ll ever be. 

But take a breath and slow down.  Baseball, is the long, slow game, remember?  the one that takes a full six months to sort itself out.  Enjoying the day-to-day ups and downs is the games’ greatest pleasure, the fans’ greatest joy.  So, let's get started.