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A Below Average Rays Fan Blog

Bloom to be hired by the Red Sox, Cash and Neander earn hardware, Kiermaier nominated for a Gold Glove

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Rays VP of baseball operations Chaim Bloom is “likely” to be hired by the Red Sox.

In a few days, once the World Series comes to pass, the Tampa Bay Rays interesting offseason plans will begin to take shape ⁠— we’ll have more on that starting next week. Unfortunately for a front office tasked with adding to the young core of players which won 96 games in 2019, the Rays will likely be without VP of baseball operations Chaim Bloom, who will be coronated as Boston’s head of baseball operations.

Bloom interviewed for the Red Sox GM opening, according to Chad Jennings and Ken Rosenthal (both of The Athletic). Jennings noted the process “seems to be coming to an end,” while Marc Topkin (Tampa Bay Times) added, “Bloom is “likely” to be hired by the Red Sox.”

Bloom, 36, had been in the mix for several high-profile executive jobs in recent years, most notably he was the runner-up to Brodie Van Wagenen in the Mets search for a new GM last season. The Twins and Phillies were also said to have considered Bloom for a GM role in recent years.

Bloom is a front office veteran with 15+ seasons of experience in the Rays front office. After starting his career as an intern in 2005, Bloom was promoted to the role of VP of baseball operations in 2014, with a “senior” title being attached to that role in 2016 when the club also promoted Erik Neander to GM.

Bloom doesn’t just have intimate knowledge of the Rays front office, he’s added his own ingredients to their secret sauce over the years. He now will bring some of those cutting edge concepts to Boston, one of the Tampa Bay’s fiercest opponents.

Even so, the Rays should be able to absorb his departure.

Based on the talent on the roster, as well as the clubhouse culture that’s been cultivated, there’s more than enough evidence that Tampa Bay will still be a threat in the American League for the foreseeable future. The problem is whether that will be enough with a Boston franchise that’s about to get a serious boost in Bloom.

Kevin Cash and Erik Neander are the recipients of a pair of awards

Speaking of the front office, Kevin Cash was honored as one of Sporting News’ award recipients, naming the Rays skipper American League Manager of the Year. Meanwhile, Erik Neander was named MLB Executive of the Year by the same publication. Cash and Neander were tasked with a roster chock-full of trade acquisitions and overlooked players, and ultimately led Tampa Bay to a 96-win season and an American League Division Series berth. Cash also deserves credit for guiding through an injury-plagued campaign — just two Rays appeared in over 140 games.

The Sporting News Manager of the Year award is not to be confused with the BBWAA awards which receive more coverage and recognition.

Kevin Kiermaier is a finalist for Gold Glove award

On Thursday, centerfielder Kevin Kiermaier was named a finalist for the AL Gold Glove award for American League centerfielders. He will compete against Jackie Bradley Jr. and Mike Trout.

Kiermiaer previously won the Gold Glove twice, in 2015 and 2016.

Having a shot at winning another Gold Glove is one of the best feelings for me from a personal standpoint. I always say I feel like I can control a game from centerfield as well as anyone in the game. Being a nominee gives me a shot at winning and I hope I’m fortunate enough to win a third Gold Glove.

— Kevin Kiermaier

Kiermaier appeared in 125 games this season (117 starts), and made just four errors in 260 chances, while also collecting six assists.

The SABR defensive index (SDI) has Kiermaier ranked highest of the three candidates at 6.3, with Trout at 4.4 and Bradley at -6.2. He also ranks first in defensive runs saved (DRS) with an AL most 13; Trout and Bradley were both -1.

Tampa Bay did not have any other finalists. While deserving, shortstop Willy Adames was overshadowed by Francisco Lindor, Marcus Semien, Andrelton Simmons. Adames was the top-ranked shortstop per the SDI at 9.9, with Semien following at 7.8, and Lindor at 2.9. Simmons was not ranked.

Tampa Bay Rays Spring Training, day four

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Daniel Robertson (pictured), Brandon Lowe, and Kevin Kiermaier arrived at camp on Thursday and Friday (respectively). (Photo Credit: Tampa Bay Rays)

Daniel Robertson, Brandon Lowe, and Kevin Kiermaier arrived in Tampa Bay Rays camp on Thursday and Friday (respectively), as 61 of 66 players are now present. Still to arrive are Ji-Man Choi, Yandy Diaz, Lucius Fox, Tommy Pham, and Jesus Sanchez.

Meanwhile, Ryne Stanek, Austin Pruitt, Oliver Drake, and Ian Gibaut threw their regularly scheduled bullpen sessions on the fourth day of Spring Training.

Kiermaier, who entered camp even more in shape than usual, was eager to get on the field.

Last year, we look at it, it was a broken year for KK in the fact that it’s not easy to come out of spring training, get banged up, miss time, try to re-start everything. It was like he was playing catchup, swimming uphill the entire time.

— Rays manager Kevin Cash

Last season, Kiermaier tore a right thumb ligament in what was called freak injury — his third in as many years

As Marc Topkin (Tampa Bay Times) wrote, the challenge for the team is keeping him there.

We’re a different team when KK is on the field. When he’s not, we miss him. Obviously, our defense is different. Our offense, when he’s going right, he’s got the ability to really ignite us.

— Kevin Cash

Robertson arrived yesterday but spoke with the media this morning. The utility player was one of the more consistent position players last season before he missed the final two months of 2018 with a thumb injury.

Before his injury, Robertson was arguably Tampa Bay’s most consistent position player last year. The infielder reportedly had no issues or limitations during the offseason and is excited to get back on the field.

Obviously the injury was a bummer but I got a solid foundation and feel I’m even more equipped for this year. Just got to stay healthy.

— Daniel Robertson

Cash will look at Lowe and Ji-Man Choi, both southpaw swingers, to see who will pair best with Yandy Diaz at first base. The Rays skipper expects the infielder/outfielder to be a quick study based on the athleticism he exhibited last season.

We’ve got to give him a little bit of time to work on the little nuances, the footwork and stuff like that.

— Kevin Cash

Because of it, Lowe prepared to play on the right side of the infield (first and second base) as well as both corner outfield spots. He ordered his own first baseman glove, sought advice from Justin Smoak — who shares the same representation — and studied the fundamentals of playing at first.

Lowe, who last played first base in youth baseball, welcomed the opportunity to expand on his expertise.

If it gets me on the field and it gets me at-bats, I’m all for it.

— Brandon Lowe

Chaz Roe, who had been delayed after suffering through a tweaked back, played catch and is expected to start throwing with the other pitchers soon.

No concern whatsoever.


— Kevin Cash

PECOTA projections are in, and the Rays should contend in 2019

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SS Willy Adames is projected to regress according to the 2019 PECOTA projections.

A little more than a week before the start of Spring Training, Baseball Prospectus released its PECOTA projections for the 2019 season. The Rays have been active this offseason, adding a bevy of new players to the fold, such as Yandy Diaz, Avisail Garcia, and Charlie Morton. Because of the acquisitions, PECOTA forecasts Tampa Bay as the fifth best team in the American League, and the third best team in the AL East with a mean average of 86 wins against 76 losses. Should the Rays end the season as the fifth best team in the AL, they would find themselves in the playoffs for the first time since 2013.

Here are a few highlights, as the full projection is available at the Baseball Prospectus site (linked above) with a paid subscription. Note: Any additions or subtractions to or from the roster will affect the mean projection.

Projected 2019 American League Standings. (Credit: Baseball Prospectus)

  • PECOTA projects the Rays to be, well…the Rays in 2018. Their projected 710 runs are fewer than they plated in 2018, yet three runs better than the Royals, who are projected to end the upcoming season 20 games under .500. The projected .246 BA/.319 OBP/.399 SLG slash line is similar to that of the .258 BA/.333 OBP/.406 SLG line collected by the team last season.
  • PECOTA projects Tampa Bay to allow the fourth fewest runs in the American League at 661 ― 25 fewer than the reigning World Series champions, and one more than the Yankees, Tampa Bay’s closest competitor in that category.

Rays player position summary (Credit: Baseball Prospectus)

PECOTA sees Matt Duffy spending the most time at third base, with Joey Wendle getting the majority of reps at second base, Yandy Diaz at first, and Willy Adames at shortstop. Ji-Man Choi could be the primary designated hitter (45% of the time) with Daniel Robertson also slated to see a significant amount of time at the position as well as all over the infield.

Rays player position summary (Credit: Baseball Prospectus)

  • Not surprisingly, Mike Zunino will get the majority of playing time over Michael Perez (65% vs 35%) behind the plate.
  • Kevin Kiermaier is projected to post the highest position player WARp (2.9) in center, and could slash a .252 BA/.322 OBP/.414 SLG line with 14 home runs and 68 runs across 516 plate appearances. His projected WARp, however, is down from a projected 4.0 a season ago.
  • The ever consistent Matt Duffy is projected to be the best hitter on the team, just ahead of Yandy Diaz and Avisail Garcia, who looks to bounce back from a lackluster 2018 campaign.
  • Tommy Pham and Mike Zunino are projected to combine for 39 homers.

Rays pitching summary (Credit: Baseball Prospectus)

  • PECOTA projects the starting rotation to be Blake Snell (165 IP, 3.3 WARp), Charlie Morton (148 IP, 2.5 WARp), Tyler Glasnow (130 IP, 2.1 WARp), with a casting call of “openers” ahead of Ryan Yarbrough (118 IP, 0.6 WARp), Jacon Faria (71 IP, 0.2 WARp), and Jalen Beeks (70 IP, 0.8 WARp) among others.

  • PECOTA projects the key Rays bullpen pieces as the following: Jose Alvarado (closer), Chaz Roe and Diego Castillo (setup), Oliver Drake, Adam Kolarek, Hunter Wood, Emilio Pagan, Austin Pruitt, Ian Gibaut, Andrew Moore, and Colin Poche — in some variation of the Durham Taxi — as middle-relief.

  • There is one category that I haven’t touched upon yet, and that’s FRAA — fielding runs above average. According to  Baseball Prospectus, FRAA is an “individual defensive metric created using play-by-play data with adjustments made based on plays made, the expected numbers of plays per position, the handedness of the batter, the park, and base-out states.” In other words, the biggest difference between FRAA and similar defensive metrics is the data and philosophy used. While other metrics analyze zone-based fielding data, FRAA focuses on play-by-play data, focusing on the number of plays made compared to the average number of plays made by a player at said position.

  • PECOTA (by way of FRAA) pegs Tampa Bay’s defense to save 20 runs above average — third best in the American League. When compared with the other teams in the AL East, the Rays sit in second place behind the Red Sox (27.6 FRAA). Look on the bright side, the Baltimore Orioles and are projected for a -28.2 FRAA — worst in the American League.

Conclusion

Projecting an upcoming season is not an exact science. Neil Paine (538 blog) said it best:

There’s a statistical limit to how accurate any projection about a team can be in the long run. Years ago, sabermetrician Tom Tango researched the amount of talent and luck that go into team winning percentages and found that chance explains one-third of the difference between two teams’ records. That makes it hard to predict how many times a team will win over a season. The smallest possible root-mean-square error (a mathematical way of testing a prediction’s accuracy) for any projection system over an extended period of time is 6.4 wins. In a single season, forecasters can — and do — beat an RMSE of 6.4. But whenever that happens, it’s due to luck. The amount of random variance that goes into team records makes the 6.4 barrier literally impossible to beat over a large number of seasons. Over time, no forecaster’s system can ever do better.

The Rays ended last season with 90 wins and 72 losses. Their projected 86 win season — 92 or 80, thanks to a six-game margin of error — has got to make us incredibly optimistic for a postseason run.

Tropicana Field to go cashless, Rays host optional workout, and Noteworthiness

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Tropicana Field is set to become the first cashless sports facility in North America.

Following news that the Tampa Bay Rays will reduce the seating capacity of Tropicana Field in 2019, the team announced the stadium will become the first cashless sports facility in North America.

According to the press release below, Tropicana Field’s concessions, team stores, box office, and all other points–of–sale will operate cash–free in 2019:

The Tampa Bay Rays announced today that, in collaboration with hospitality partner Levy and analytics and emerging tech firm E15, Tropicana Field will become the first cash–free sports venue in North America.

Tropicana Field’s concessions, team stores, box office, and all other points–of–sale will operate cash–free in 2019. The move follows extensive pilot testing engineered and led by E15 at Tropicana Field and venues nationwide to measure the effects of cash–free transactions. These tests found that transitioning to cash–free environments results in an average transaction time of up to half that of traditional environments that accept cash, resulting in faster moving lines and increased fan satisfaction.

Forms of payment accepted at concession stands and retail stores inside the ballpark will include major credit cards, Rays gift cards, NFC mobile payments such as Apple Pay and Samsung Pay, and Season Ticket Holder Rays Cards. For fans without electronic forms of payment, cash can be exchanged for gift cards in any amount at all retail locations and in $10 or $20 increments through roaming gift card vendors. Tropicana Field’s parking operations will also be cash–free, as they were for the 2018 season.

“We have made significant investments each year to improve the ballpark experience for fans, including an overhaul of our approach to food and beverage since the beginning of our partnership with Levy,” said Rays Vice President of Strategy & Development William Walsh. “This change will increase speed of service and reduce lines throughout the ballpark.”

“Throughout our testing last season at Tropicana Field, we saw thatfans quickly adapted to cash–free environments and loved the resulting benefits to the game–day experience,” said Jaime Faulkner, CEO of E15. “By offering fans a variety of forms of electronic payment, coupled with the ability to exchange cash for gift cards, we can ensure that fans are having frictionless experiences and getting back to enjoy the game.”

Fan Fest on February 9 will be the first cash–free event at Tropicana Field in 2019. A free event, fans are invited to shop at the Rays Baseball Foundation’s Yard Sale, as well as the Rays Republic Team Store and auxiliary shops during Fan Fest. Several concession stands will also be open and will accept digital payments.

Concerned fans have been quick to push back on the new policy. And while the team intends to create a frictionless experience that allows fans to get back the game, the decision ignores how restrictive this can be for low-income households that do not have access to credit cards or are not in a position to load cards with cash they won’t get back later.

Or, in the words of John Romano (Tampa Bay Times), “Going cashless at Tropicana Field carries the unmistakable whiff of arrogance.”

It’s a bold idea, and the Rays say plenty of research indicates it will lead to a better, more streamlined fan experience at the stadium. That may be true in theory. And it may be the wave of the future.

But it ignores the reality that a lot of people, for whatever reason, prefer to use cash. Even worse, this unilateral decision carries an unmistakable whiff of arrogance.

We know what’s best for you.

Essentially, that’s what the Rays are saying. And that’s a horrible message to send when you’re in the business of trying to attract more customers. Especially when you’re the worst in the league at that skill.

Rays Winter Meetings recap, day one: Cash presser, trade rumors

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Rays manager Kevin Cash addressed the media on the first official day of the 2018 Winter Meetings, in Las Vegas.

Tampa Bay Rays manager Kevin Cash addressed the media on a variety of subjects Monday, the first official day of the Winter Meetings.

Here are some highlights from the media session:

The first six questions, unsurprisingly, involved the opener strategy, which the Rays pioneered in 2018. Cash reiterated that the strategy will again be utilized in 2019, and its usage will adjust based on who he has at his disposal.

Part of the reason Cash is sticking with the opener plan is that it worked on the field, and helped Tampa Bay notch its first winning season since 2013. It also helped acclimate some of the younger hurlers to the big leagues.

We watched guys develop and it allowed them an easier path to develop at the big league level which we all know is very challenging, Cash said. When you first introduce your career to the big leagues for us to be able to have young pitchers and put them in different roles, maybe be protective of them a little bit more than that traditional starter, we really saw the benefits of that.

Cash indicated his preference would be to have three starters and two openers, which, ideally, would find the team adding a veteran this off-season — someone who “can really log some innings,” said Cash.

(The opener strategy) puts a lot of pressure on Blake (Snell), It puts pressure on Tyler (Glasnow), their workload. We don’t want those guys to feel that they’ve got to do more than what they’re capable of. And I know Blake (had a) tremendous year. I don’t want him going into a game thinking I’ve got to pitch seven, eight innings so tomorrow’s day works out well.

On the subject of pitching, Cash spoke about Brent Honeywell’s rehab, which is progressing. Even though Honeywell would like to be ready to go by the end of Spring Training, the skipper said a late-May, early-June return to game action would be more reasonable. Ultimately they’ll wait until Honeywell is 100% and be smart about his rehab.

We know how special Brent is, and how valuable and what we view in our organization. But if we’re going to do Brent right, we have to let him go through the rehab process, not rush him. Knowing his personality, he’s going to want to make a club out of spring training. That’s not going to happen. We’ve got to do it right. Our medical staff is second to none. And I know Brent understands that. But he’s a motivated player, and he wants to be a part of something that we all view as pretty special right now.

We’ll do everything we can to calm him down, let him go through the process to make sure he’s a hundred percent healthy and get him through his rehabs and get him to affiliate, get some innings, and hopefully, he is helping us.

What we’ve talked about is some time May, June. But that’s not set in stone. We adjusted really well given the player. We have a bunch of players coming back from Tommy John and they all have different — they all have some good weeks to the rehab and they all have some slowdown weeks. Everybody is different.

Cash was asked about what Jake Bauers needs to do to make the next step after his bout with late-season struggles. Cash countered, saying that Bauers has always dealt with some struggles during his initial promotions, but always rebounded.

You know, I think Jake, of all of our young players that came up, Jake was as talked about as anybody, rightfully so. I think just experience and maturity, he was the youngest guy in the league. He’s been the youngest at every level he’s performed at. And he figured it out. He’s always struggled and started to stabilize himself a little bit and then he gets hot and he puts together some pretty good numbers offensively.

I think that’s what we saw this year at the big league level. He struggled, he probably didn’t have the right time to figure it. It was the right time for Jake to go home and gather his thoughts. But he was a little bit of an anomaly when you watch his at-bats, his swing looked the same, everything looked the same. He wasn’t getting his hits.

And I’m confident, Jake has hit everywhere, he’s going to hit. Defensively, our defense got a heck of a lot better when he was out there. And the confidence that he gave our infielders and the things that he can do around the bag were really impressive. I hope Jake is enjoying himself, letting his mind take a break and come in fresh this Spring training and ready to compete.

Even though the team had “some concern” of injury, Cash said OF Tommy Pham wanted to go play winter ball and was “motivated and driven” to want to make his swing better.

Tommy is a very driven player, very motivated. He was just outstanding for us when he came over. And at the end of the year we sat down and talked and he said he wanted to go play winter ball to work on his swing. And I said, How much more do you need to work? You hit .350 the last two months for us, hit all the home runs. When he was healthy, we had a different lineup because he was in it.

So there was some concern. But he felt there was more tinkering that needed to be done. He plays all out. I asked him, please don’t run into any walls on the Dominican baseball fields. Be careful. We called his manager and asked the same thing. But he’s motivated and driven to get his swing where he wants it. And I think that speaks volumes to a guy that has had the last two or three years of success that he still wants to get better.

You can watch the press conference in its entirety at the Twitter link above.

Noteworthiness

— Per Marc Topkin (Tampa Bay Times), the Rays continue to have a dialog with free-agent right-hander Charlie Morton. Chaim Bloom and company have also maintained a “running dialogue,” and discussed some parameters, with free-agent DH Nelson Cruz. Cruz’s agent, Bryce Dixon, said the slugger is very much interested and called it “a perfect fit,” although Cruz has 3-4 other teams interested. Because of it, the Rays are looking at other options besides a DH-only bat.