Are We Sleeping on the Tampa Bay Rays... Again?

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The Tampa Bay Rays are the one team people love to sleep on. However, this season, pundits should be wary of giving up on the Rays too soon.

It’s not easy being the Tampa Bay Rays. There’s being underrated, there are twenty feet of nothing, and then there’s the Rays having to explain why maybe playing half their home games in Montreal is somehow a good idea.

When it comes to getting attention, the team from Tampa strikes out with alarming regularity.

And yet…. here we are. Looking at a team that is almost silently making a case for the postseason. Currently, Baseball-Reference places their odds at making the playoffs at 47.4%, and their World Series win chances at an extremely bleak 2.5%.

….. So you’re saying there’s a chance?

I am, and I’m also saying it might be a little better than you think. Why?…

Because they’re Stupid Good at Preventing Runs

Like, second in all of baseball, behind only the much-covered Los Angeles Dodgers. In fact, those two clubs are the only ones that have allowed less than four runs per game.

The Astros, Twins, Yankees, Braves, or Nationals can’t prevent the other team from scoring as well as the Rays. This is largely attributed to their lights out bullpen, who has posted the second-best ERA (3.68) and reliever WAR (5.7) in the Major Leagues.

Couple this with solid defense, and suddenly you have a team that can match up (and really, has already) with any of the other powerhouses in the American League.

Want more?

The Tampa Bay Rays are what pundits have called “Built for October”

More from Call to the Pen

It’s true, and has been for years now. Teams that win in October have to have two critical facets to their roster in order to win.

A great bullpen
A deep bench

Well, we’ve just discussed how number one is already proving itself out. Number two is a little less obvious, but if you look at players like Jesus Aguilar, Travis D’arneau, Matt Duffy, and Eric Sogard, and compliment them with the glut of defensively capable outfielders like Tommy Pham and perennial Gold Glove lock Kevin Kiermaier, then you’ve got as powerful a bench as any team in the league, which gives multiple platoon and matchup capabilities in the postseason, where there are more opportunities to display them. S

o why aren’t they getting any coverage for it? I mean, isn’t this what guys like Joe Buck and John Smoltz have been saying for years? That teams win in the postseason with a strong bullpen? I have no quote to reference that with but I feel like I’ve heard it said… I’m not crazy, right?

They Could actually be BETTER than They Appear…

Taking a look at Fangraphs’ BaseRuns stat, (which uses a context-neutral formula to evaluate a teams win/loss record based on runs scored) the Rays have actually underperformed their metrics by about 4 games. This is, of course, a hypothetical stat, but let’s just say that this particular metric were to have played out in real life, we’d be looking at the top of the NL East a little differently…

TAMPA BAY RAYS (80-51)
NEW YORK YANKEES (74-57)

Fascinating, isn’t it? I know what you’re thinking “well, it’s just another made up silly nerd-metric that doesn’t mean anything”….. Well, I mean, you’re not wrong in the sense where it doesn’t apply to what has actually happened and is simply a projection, but if you take a second what it’s really telling us is…..

Next. Indians: Jose Ramirez Placed on 10-Day IL. dark

Don’t sleep on the Tampa Bay Rays… They might sting.

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