Suffice it to say, the offense has never been the Tampa Bay Rays’ strong suit, as solid defense and excellent pitching have been emphasized since their turnaround. Though a pair of breakout players — Joey Butler and Logan Forsythe — have made strides in keeping the Rays competitive, the other 23 players have performed much as they were projected, if not under. While the team has struggled to score runs, especially of late, they’ve managed to rack up a surprising number of wins (outperforming their Pythagorean Expectation of 46-51). A week into the ceremonial second half of the season, Tampa Bay finds itself a game under .500 and tied for third place of the AL East.
Let’s take a look at the Rays’ offensive output at the first half of the season, and compare it to each of the previous two seasons — 2014 when they posted a disappointing 77-85 record, and 2013 when they made their last postseason appearance.
First and foremost, the team has fallen off dramatically. They aren’t getting on base as often — a combined .240 batting average, .305 on base percentage, .682 OPS, .290 batting average on balls in play, and .300 weighted on base average speak to that — and even though they have a greater power potential this season over last (.138 ISO vs. .130), they just aren’t doing anything with it. Furthermore, the team has struck out more and walked less. The oversimplified result is 117 fewer runs and 115 fewer RBI than in 2013, and 45 fewer runs and 50 fewer RBI than the previous season, which was considered to be one of the worst in franchise history.
More disturbing, only 13% of base runners have scored on balls in play (14% is the league average), while they’ve stranded, on average, 3.34 runners in scoring position* per game.
To put things into perspective, if the Rays converted just .58 more of those runners in scoring position** into runs, they would have entered the All-Star Break having scored 385 runs; somewhere in-between their 2013 and 2014 midpoint totals. At this rate, Tampa Bay is projected score 591 runs by season’s end — some 21 fewer than in 2014, and 109 fewer than in 2013.
Marc Topkin (Tampa Bay Times) spoke with Rays principal owner Stu Sternberg at the start of the series in Philadelphia. Sternberg made it clear that they would not be buyers at the trade deadline:
Right now, even though we might not be performing as we’d like to be, or as others would like us to be, I can’t point to anything so glaring, or any of our players so glaring, that we could, or would, replace them…
People say, ‘Buyer? Seller?’ It will be no different than we’ve done in years past. I think we’re in almost precisely the same spot we’ve been in every year since ’08. Which is, we’re close, we feel we have a really good team. We’d like to see our team on the field all at once. And we’ll try to be opportunistic.
He also said they “absolutely” could trade away pieces if they were to drop out of the race over the next 10 days, but “we’re anticipating that we’re going to be in the hunt come the end of July.’
That is, don’t expect the Rays to look for offensive help on the market. Two things could bode well for the team:
— While it appears the other teams in the AL East are starting to pull away, there is the idea that if they can collectively tighten up their game, the six game chasm the Rays currently find themselves in might not be too wide to bridge. Evan Longoria hinted as much after Sunday’s disappointing extra innings loss:
Obviously, if we keep playing the way we’re playing, it’s going to fall apart pretty fast, our chances of competing for a playoff spot, and the teams in our division have started to play better. It’s not like early in the year where we’re getting opportunities because other teams are losing. We’re burying ourselves.
— The team could promote a player or two within the organization, and the most logical candidates would be INF Richie Shaffer and 1B/C JP Arencebia
Shaffer has hit 23 home runs in the minors, though since his experience is limited to first and third, he’d likely be a DH candidate in the least, or a right-handed platoon candidate with James Loney at most. Unless the brain-trust is willing to part ways with either Loney or John Jaso, I have my doubts this idea would gain traction
Arencebia also has 20 homers, which compliment his 42 runs and 47 RBI nicely. However, his overall .223 BA/.254 OBP/.464 SLG/.323 OPS line doesn’t look too appealing.
Whatever the case, Tampa Bay is slated for 32 more games against the AL East in the second half — 22 competitive games if you subtract Boston from the equation. And while the division lead and wild-card spots are getting further from view, there is the hope that if they could perform like they had in the first 70 games, as opposed to the last 27, the team could find itself playing relevant baseball in September.
*Note: that’s better than 2014 and 2013, when they stranded 3.63 and 3.60 respectively.
** The difference between the Rays and Orioles runners left in scoring position.