Late Innings

With one week left in the season, I wanted to extend my congratulations to Tampa Bay. If they sweep the four game set against Baltimore, and Boston gets swept by Cleveland in their three game series, the Rays will win the AL East. Granted I know that this could be done in Baltimore, and even though it’s unlikely, if it happens I’ll applaud the Rays. If there’s anyone here that should be commended, it’s their fans. They had to suffer through ten years of .400 baseball, being the laughing stock of the AL East. I remember once when some reporter from USA Today referred to the team as the F-Rays (instead of the D-Rays), giving them a failing grade. As a fan, watching this kind of performance is tough to endure (hence me and the Orioles.)

If there’s any other winners with this feel-good story, it’s Baseball Prospectus. This past Winter, they wrote a piece projecting the Rays as an 87 win team for 2008. They were right about the decline of the White Sox in 2007, and they used the same PECOTA mesaures (the algorithm) to project the team’s win totals. I wrote a piece to counter this, saying that Tampa is only a 75 win team. In either case that’s a twenty percent improvement on their 2007 win total. Any ways in either case, the Rays are currently a 92 win team. If they sweep their four-game series in Baltimore, they’re at 96 wins. Being generous, let’s say that Tampa finishes with 95 wins. That’s a 35 win improvement from the year before.

My reasoning with why I thought Tampa would be a 15 win improvement: I expected a ten-win improvement from solid seasons from Matt Garza and James Shields, as well as Scott Kazmir. I expected Evan Longoria’s bat and defensive help (with the addition of Jason Bartlett) to add the additional five wins. Where I was wrong and BP was right:

• The Rays’ defensive is one of the best in the majors. They have the best defensive infield in baseball.
• The team’s relief corps, led by Grant Balfour, Jason Hammel, Troy Percival and Dan Wheeler have been outstanding.
• Longoria has clearly brought the team more than three wins all by himself.
• The backend of the rotation (Andy Sonnanstine and Edwin Jackson) have been surprisingly servicable.

And of course to make matters better, the David Price era has arrived. He makes his first career start this evening against Baltimore, and currently spots a solid 3.00 ERA in six relief innings.

A Run of Excellence

So now that we know how good the Rays are, the next question must be asked, that is how long can their magical run go. Unlike their division rivals Boston and New York, the Rays don’t have an open-ended payroll. Stuart Sternberg and Co. might open the purse strings a little more for Andrew Friedman (who has done a spectacular job with operations), but we can’t expect the team’s payroll to climb past 60MM in the future (given the market that the team plays in.) They’ll need that extra flexibility to sign their other starts not locked up, such as Garza and Price, both of whom could be seeing solid paydays once they hit arbitration.

The Rays can’t be dependent on receiving high draft picks anymore as well. Granted they nabbed Tim Beckham with the first pick this year, however they can’t be relying on that anytime in the future. One option is to select first-round talent that slips down to the later round, like the Yankees, Red Sox and Royals did this year (the Royals took Tim Melville, who fell down to the fourth round this year.) The other option is to increase international scouting, especially overseas in Japan. Personally they’re doing a solid job with their talent scouting.

Am I suggesting that the Rays are due for a falloff in four years? Not exactly. However Friedman will have to operate this team like Billy Beane does in Oakland, or how Bill Smith does with the Twins. The Rays will need to stay young and competitive, and make the key trade whenever they see fit to do so. And if a full-blown rebuilding is needed, so be it (ask Oakland.) The AL East is the toughest of divisions to play in, especially when the other four teams are being run by excellent general managers. Still, I’m impressed with Friedman and I don’t have any doubt in his confidence and leadership. There’s no sense in looking into the future this early. The Rays are going to the playoffs. They should pop that cap and enjoy every minute of that champagne, they deserve it.