Tampa Bay Rays: Team preview and prediction for 2020 season

The quietest franchise in baseball has built a pitching empire and 2020 may indeed be the year the Tampa Bay Rays break through the seal.

The Tampa Bay Rays have quietly turned their small market, poorly-attended franchise into a legitimate powerhouse built upon pitching and an innovative managerial style that will surely be in the conversation this year as a favorite to win the World Series.

When we look top to bottom, it’s hard to find holes in this Rays roster, so not only do they have a solid foundation in the front office and a coaching staff that is one of the best in the game at getting the most out of its players, but now the Rays have the actual talent to fulfill the game plan.

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This team is not a particularly offensively gifted group on paper, and with the losses of both Avisail Garcia and Tommy Pham in the offseason, you would think that makes them even weaker. But look at what they’ve gained as well.

They added one of the premier Japanese players in Yoshitomo Tsutsugo who is a power left-handed bat that can also play the corner infield and outfield positions. Tsutsugo has over 200 home runs in his international career with 139 of those coming in the last four seasons.

The Rays lost two power sources at the top of their lineup, but they might have actually replaced the both of them with Tsutsugo alone and have hauled in a nice return from San Diego in the Tommy Pham trade of Hunter Renfroe (as well as Manuel Margot in a separate deal for Emilio Pagan).

Renfroe leaves some to be desired in terms of contact hitting, speed, and overall win value in comparison to a player like Pham, but at the same time, I believe he will benefit from the fact that he could serve as the DH of this team and focus primarily on the hitting aspect of the game- much like a player such as Kyle Schwarber who has great pop in the bat but would benefit from a more focused at the plate role.

Rounding out the Tampa Bay Rays lineup is the duo of Brandon Lowe and Austin Meadows who have power bats as well as the ability to hit for average. Meadows had a huge 2019 slugging 33 home runs and hitting for an average of .291.

Lowe was on pace for a year close to that if he had stayed healthy. Both of these guys are just scratching the surface of their potential and if they stay healthy in 2020, both will take tremendous strides in their development.