What happened to the Rays??

[Fear The Chorizo]

What many believed to be the best team in the AL before the season started has become a complete pile of flaming garbage. The pitching injuries and other injuries obviously hurt them tremendously, but they've completely cratered. They can't hit for power, their bullpen is a suckfest, and their starting pitching has been decimated by injuries. Other than that, I guess they're alright. Joe Madden might be looking around wondering if there are greener pastures in different MLB dugouts right about now.

 

I've been watching Jake O as he's gotten his first extended look at facing big league hitters this season, too...not going very well so far, although his K rate is quite good. Pitch counts and working much past the 5th inning in games has been a big problem for him, though.

 

If the Rays don't have a fantastic next 4 weeks, and everything indicates they're not turning this sinking ship around, they do have some good players to shop by the trade deadline. Their minor league system has lost quite a bit of luster in recent years, and their management may be looking to try and add some pieces via trade. Price will probably command too much, but it depends how many are actively trying to acquire him. Zobrist would be a nice player that could significantly upgrade the flexibility of the Brewers roster, and I've always rooted for him since playing him in college a few times.

[TheCrew07]

Mostly just a bad year which has been skewed by this horrible losing streak they are on. Most of their hitters are currently playing below their career norms. Longoria barely has an OPS over .700, Wil Myers is sophomore slumping badly, and Desmond Jennings just won't start to ascend.

 

Outside of Odorizzi their pitching hasn't been too bad, just not elite. Price isn't dominating but Archer is doing well and is starting his second full season now from a games started standpoint, he's at 40 for his career. Bedard is doing what he does... never goes 6 innings but is fairly effective. Alex Cobb isn't pitching as well as he had previously but he's just 7 starts into his season.

 

Odorizzi and Bedard specifically are killing the bullpen, but the whole starting staff is leaving a ton of innings out there.

 

They've never drafted exceedingly well from a precision standpoint, they've just mixed in a ton of high upside players and usually hit on about 1 draft. They haven't had much luck lately in that department, though they've alternated in some higher floor college players as well.

 

I don't think there's anyway they are actually this bad, things are just spiraling out of control on them.

[danzig6767]

What happened?

 

Well, they are last in the AL in runs scored and 10th in ERA.

 

As crazy as this is to say, not a single everyday player has an OPS above .800 and nobody has more than 7 home runs. It's really hard to score a lot of runs with so little power.

 

Baseball like all sports can be both predictable and very unpredictable from year to year for a variety of reasons. Here the Brewers sit with the 2nd best record in the NL and Tampa has the worst record in the league. Miami has a better record than Texas, even with Jose Fernandez out injured. Boston is 28-35, a slightly worse record than Houston.

 

Stuff like this happens every year and it's the beauty of sports IMO. As each new season begins, fans can honestly hope to exceed national and local expectations, while other fans will have their hopes crushed early on by a terrible start, kinds like how that brutal May last year sunk the Brewers.

[igor67]

Certainly bad luck on a variety of fronts, but also very significantly the gravy train of talent they had built up as a result of so many high draft picks and some savvy trades ran out. There is so much variance in the drafting a development process, we over attribute that variance to skill.

[jjfanec]

They havent gotten a top 5 pick in a while.

[DoubleSwitch]

They havent gotten a top 5 pick in a while.

 

They also ran into some bad luck with off the field stuff for Tim Beckham and Josh Sale. It's a good reminder how difficult it is to draft well consistently, and that even 'smart' teams run into tough stretches.

[LouisEly]

They also ran into some bad luck with off the field stuff for Tim Beckham and Josh Sale. It's a good reminder how difficult it is to draft well consistently, and that even 'smart' teams run into tough stretches.

I wouldn't call it bad luck. HS players are a greater risk for lack-of-maturity/poor decision-making issues than college players. Always have been, always will be.

[JohnBriggs12]

The distance between the penthouse and the outhouse isn't that great. It can happen to almost any team. A couple injuries, a couple key players slumping and what looks like a contender is a last place team. It's part of the reason I just don't get a team like the Cubs completely tanking 4-5 seasons in a row intentionally.

[HiAndTight]

The distance between the penthouse and the outhouse isn't that great. It can happen to almost any team. A couple injuries, a couple key players slumping and what looks like a contender is a last place team. It's part of the reason I just don't get a team like the Cubs completely tanking 4-5 seasons in a row intentionally.

 

 

Agree with the first part of your post. Totally disagree with the second. The Rays became contenders by doing what the Cubs are doing. Building their farm system up with high value early round picks and trading off their good players and building a great farm system.

 

The difference being the Cubs will be able to add 5 20 million dollar a year players to what their current payroll is when they're ready to win.