To say this has been an awkward run up to the 2020 season would be the understatement of all understatements. But with six days remaining until the start of the Tampa Bay Rays 60-game sprint campaign, I’d reckon it’s safe to assume that the season will start after all. With that in mind, I answered Daniel Shoptaw’s (C-70 At the Bat) six questions about the Rays…yes, even though I missed the deadline to get it published over at his site. Let’s consider this a 2020 season primer of sorts.
An ex-Cardinal outfielder leaves, two more come in. What was the reasoning behind the Tommy Pham trade and how excited are you about Jose Martínez and Randy Arozarena?
To my knowledge, there wasn’t a stated reason the Rays traded Tommy Pham. Be that as it may, Tampa Bay did receive a controllable, elite defender (Hunter Renfroe) in the deal while shedding a projected $8.6-Million in salary. The additions of Martínez Arozarena are pretty exciting.
Martínez boasts a career .298 OPS/.363 OBP/.458 SLG/.821 OPS slash line with a 122 wRC+. He, however, is coming off a career-worst .269 BA/.340 OBP/.410 SLG/.750 OPS campaign with a 101 wRC+ across 373 plate appearances — just 1% better than the league average. Yet, Steamer projects a bounceback season for the right-handed hitter in 2020, closer to his career line, with the projection system expecting a .280 BA/.346 OBP/.440 SLG/.786 OPS over 243 plate appearances, and a modest 108 wRC+.
It fails to be seen how the Rays will adjust the lineup to include Martínez, although his primary role seems fairly cut and dry: he will likely be called upon to face left-handed pitching. He has slashed a beastly .331 BA/.405 OBP/.570 SLG/1.175 OPS line with 15 homers over 298 career plate appearances against southpaws.
Another reason the Rays targeted Martínez: he is known to hit the ball on the screws, owning an impressive career-average exit velocity of 90.0 mph.
With fielding no longer a concern, the Rays are hoping that Martinez can concentrate fully on being a productive force at the plate.
Arozarena looks to take over the platoon role vacated by Guillermo Heredia. He enters having collected some strong hitting numbers in Cuba, the minor leagues, and in his brief 19-game/23-plate appearance cameo with St. Louis last season (and three more plate appearances in the National League Division Series).
A 2016 international signing, Arozarena has accrued an impressive .292 BA/.377 OBP/.477 SLG/.855 OPS line across 1302 minor league plate appearances, with 38 home runs.
Dominik Vega (DRaysBay) took a look at Arozarena following news of the trade, writing:
Arozarena’s MLB exit velocity in 2019 averaged 90.7 mph, but with only 16 batted balls, that number should not be taken at face value. Instead, his 15 home runs between Double-A and Triple-A in 2019 should do the talking. While not known as a prospect with power, Arozarena has shown the ability to hit line drives and stretch them into extra-base-hits while in the minors.
When he does hit the ball in the air, Arozarena has shown some sneaky raw power to his pull side, and he hit all 12 of his home runs to left field in 2018.
— MLB Pipeline
Since 2017, Arozarena has a career OPS of 1.004 against lefties in the minors, spanning over 300 PAs. The Cardinals’ outfield is full of young players and finding Arozarena time was going to be difficult for them in 2020, making him expendable.
A strong spring put Arozarena in mind with the big league staff, and the team has long viewed him as a fourth or fifth outfielder in the majors. Now they’re seeing even more.
— Derrick Goold, BaseballAmerica
Even with concerns about Arozarena’s aggressiveness at the plate and on the base paths, he has the ability to make swift adjustments in the box which clearly has shown to bear fruit at every level. His plate approach, paired with an elite 29.4 feet per second speed, makes him an apt centerfield option on days when Kevin Kiermaier needs some time off his feet.
Given the COVID-19 shortened season and the threat of the highly transmissible virus, both players will be leaned upon if another player goes down; bear in mind that Austin Meadows could miss Opening Day because of the Coronavirus. To that end, considering that Martínez is returning from his own bout with COVID-19, which forced him to miss all of Summer Camp, it may take the slugger a little while to get back to game speed. Arozarena has also missed Summer Camp, so it fails to be seen how quickly he will be able to ramp things up when he returns.
Charlie Morton has had a very solid three-year run. Is there any concern that he’ll start to falter in his age 36 season or should it be more of the same?
Under normal circumstances, it would reasonable to assume that Morton could falter in this, his age 36 season. However, these are not normal circumstances, and given the current situation, Morton and the Rays pitching staff could be at an advantage.
The 60-game sprint could benefit the Rays pitching staff. Neither Kevin Cash nor Kyle Snyder will need to worry about limiting the number of bullets fired by Morton, Blake Snell, Yonny Chirinos, Tyler Glasnow, and Brendan McKay. Neil Solondz put things succinctly, saying, “In a 60-game season, even if a player makes 12 starts and averages seven innings (highly unlikely based on the buildup time and the depth of the Rays staff), that’s only 84 innings.”
Moreover, depth favors Tampa Bay. The Rays used 57 position players in 2019, and 33 pitchers. The pitching staff likely won’t be stretched out by the end of July, making relievers or bulk pitchers that can throw 50-to-60 pitches incredibly valuable. If, for example, Morton can toss four-to-five innings in his first few starts, the Rays should have enough pitching depth to fill the middle innings before Cash can turn to the back end of the bullpen.
Who is the next Rays prospect that will make an impact at the big league level?
While Shane Baz, Shane McClanahan, Vidal Brujan, Wander Franco, and Josh Lowe are all on the 60-man player pool roster, not all of them will impact the big-league squad in 2020.
However, Cash did hint that Baz and McClanahan could make their big-league debuts in 2020.
That’s pretty exciting stuff to watch. Every hitter came out of the box with their eyes open wide, because that’s as good of stuff as you’ll see from 20 or 22-year-old young men.
— Kevin Cash
What are your expectations for 2020? Where do you think they’ll finish in the division?
Tampa Bay was pinned as a contending team back in October just after they fell a few runs shy of moving on to the American League Championship Series. Yet when the Yankees acquired Gerrit Cole in the offseason, they became the favorite of many to win the AL East; the presumed World Series champs before the first pitch has even been thrown.
Then something strange happened: both ESPN — the ultimate haters of small-market teams — and Sports Illustrated predicted the Rays to win it all.
Whichever side of the coin you fall on, both PECOTA (Baseball Prospectus) and Steamer (FanGraphs) project the Rays to, in the very least, make the playoffs for the second consecutive season. Baseball Prospectus gives Tampa Bay an overall 49.6% chance of a postseason berth (31.3% chance of a Wildcard berth, 18.3% chance of winning the AL East), and Fangraphs gives them an overall 62% chance of a postseason berth (27.9% chance of a Wildcard berth, 34.1% chance of winning the AL East). I like those odds!
What’s the main topic Rays fans are discussing that maybe isn’t obvious to other teams?
That’s a difficult question given the nature of the pandemic and how disconnected all of us have become from the world at large. Since Tampa Bay still has a few players missing in action from Summer Camp — Austin Meadows, Randy Arozarena, Yonny Chirinos and Brendan McKay — a good question to ask is whether any of them will be back before the start of the 2020 season, or will the start the 60-game sprint campaign on the shelf?
What are you looking forward to most about the coming season?
Personally, I’m just excited that there will be a season even though it’s only 1/3 the length of a traditional campaign. I’m also looking forward to the Rays making it to their second consecutive postseason.
Noteworthiness
— Charlie Morton has officially been named as the Rays Opening Day starter as expected.
— All 60 games this season will appear on FoxSportsSun. 60 games of BA and DeWayne > no games at all.
