Tampa Bay Rays: 2020 Preview, Predictions
The Bullpen and More!
That pen starts with the trio of Nick Anderson, Diego Castillo, and Jose Alvarado. All three guys throw consistently in the upper 90s and can touch triple digits with ease. Castillo and Alvarado are novelties of their own with unbelievable stuff and spin rate as they both average 98-99 mph on their sinkers and Alvarado averages nearly 93 mph on his slider. But one of the best relief pitchers in all of baseball right now is Nick Anderson.
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Anderson pitched in 23 games for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2019 after coming over from Miami mid-year, but he managed to fan 41 of 78 batters in 21.1 innings and pitched to a 2.11 ERA. After the performance he put on at the tail end of 2019 and into the postseason, the Rays seemingly had no trouble whisking Emilio Pagan (who was hitting his own stride) away to slide Anderson into their closer’s role.
I think Nick Anderson has himself a huge year now that he’ll be under the Rays’ control from day one. He’ll get the brunt of the save opportunities, and judging by what he was able to do in 23 games with all of those strikeouts, we may very well see another Josh Hader-like performance out of Anderson where he absolutely dominates the field like Hader did two years ago.
The Ray bullpen has a trio of some of the best relievers in all of baseball at the back end, but what makes the entire pen so great is the variation in types of pitchers it’ll feature. Yes, it has the three fireballers, but we also have Oliver Drake who throws a deceptive two-seam fastball over the top that tails into righties. Chaz Roe is primarily a slider guy; what some would call a “crafty righty,” so he’ll be a great setup to the carnage lurking in Anderson, Alvarado, and Castillo. And Colin Poche is an underrated guy to watch who had a spectacular K-rate a year ago.
I really love the mix of the Rays bullpen, and combined with how dominant I believe their starting rotation will be this year, the pitching on this Rays team alone will carry them further than they were able to go last year.
I think the Tampa Bay Rays win the AL East (with a little help from the Yankees being beat up with injuries). I had them at 104-58 before the start of the season got suspended, but I still very much like them to win the division with whatever record that would take.
Not only that, but I believe they’ll get to the World Series. They have supreme pitching and their lineup will take a step forward from last year and supply the team with a combination of contact and power that they’ll need in order to put them over the top. It’s about time this under-the-radar gold standard organization gets the payoff it deserves. Tampa is going to the World Series in 2020.