A sunny spring so far by Tampa Bay Rays
The American League East standings have many scratching their heads. As fans know, you have the Baltimore Orioles, Boston Red Sox, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays as well as the Tampa Bay Rays. Fans, as well as baseball experts, can list positives for each team. If the fans can look at their team objectively, they should be able to list negatives against their teams too.
Two months into the 2015 season, the Rays have to be the pleasant surprise of the division. After a series of moves and injuries, fans in Tampa could have thrown their hands back and given up, conservatively projecting over 100 losses this coming season.
This past winter former manager Joe Maddon, left the sunshine of Tampa for the Chicago Cubs. Questions were out there as to whether the boys in Florida could maintain the success they had when Maddon was at the helm. They also lost Andrew Friedman to the Los Angeles Dodgers, who became their President of Baseball Operations. Rookie manager Kevin Cash, 24-years Maddon’s junior, became the new bench boss and the club replaced Friedman with Matthew Silverman, a former Goldman Sachs employee.
The Rays have managed to strip their veteran talent for prospects and heading into this season was not any different. Some of the talent they traded away was INF Ben Zobrist, SS Yunel Escobar, OF Wil Myers, OF Matt Joyce, C Ryan Hanigan, SP Jeremy Hellickson, and relievers Joel Peralta with Cesar Ramos. They also released catcher Jose Molina.
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The biggest trade came last summer between Tampa and the Detroit Tigers, where left handed ace David Price left for Michigan. Left on their current 25-man roster for a real position player of substance with a proven track record in their lineup was third baseman Evan Longoria, and to a lesser extent, veteran journeyman David DeJesus.
When the Rays dealt Price to Detroit, the players who came back to Tampa were pitcher Drew Smyly as well as shortstops Willy Adames and Nick Franklin (via Seattle) in the three team trade also involving the Mariners. Another big trade occurred between the San Diego Padres and Tampa. They traded Myers, Hanigan and two pitchers for catcher Rene Rivera, outfielder Steven Souza, pitcher Burch Smith as well as two prospects. Tampa traded Hellickson to the Arizona Diamondbacks for Andrew Velazquez and Justin Williams. Early evidence would show that the new Rays management are no fools with Souza leading the team in home runs.
Pitching wise, Chris Archer, Nate Karns and Jake Odorizzi are proving a starting rotation that can win and survive without Price and more presently, injuries to Alex Cobb and Smyly.
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Back in January of 2014, the Rays made another trade where they sent Alex Torres and Jesse Hahn to the San Diego Padres for Brad Boxberger, Logan Forsythe, Matt Lollis, Matt Andriese and Maxx Tissenbaum. Boxberger has moved into the closer role for the team and did a nice job for the most part. Forsythe has move into a middle infield role supplanting fan favorite Zobrist and is second on the team with a .298 batting average.
Winning the American League East title has never been more wide open than right now during the 2015 season and the Tampa Bay Rays are currently in an optimistic position to capture that honor. The Rays are a very intriguing team to get behind. They are the Cinderella team of the AL East, have next to zilch in terms of payroll to the other four teams in the division but yet have an envious starting rotation and rookies who are turning heads.
The club might be drawing flies at Tropicana Field for the most part, but they are ‘the little engine that could’ surprise MLB and unexpectedly win a division. They can be a team that America could get behind, because American’s love an underdog.
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