The Rays Are Trading Away Everything That Isn’t Nailed Down
Tampa Bay doesn't usually sell at the deadline — but when it does, it sells BIG.
For a team that few people watch in person, the Tampa Bay Rays are one of the weirdest and most fascinating franchises in baseball. In their early incarnation as the Devil Rays, their .399 winning percentage was the worst in baseball; ever since dropping the “Devil” for the heavenly rays of light in 2008, their .547 winning percentage ranks third-best.1 Along the way, they sort of did Moneyball better than the Oakland A’s, helped re-introduce the infield shift to the sport (which later led to the death of the infield shift) and built two distinct eras of World Series squads despite averaging the No. 26-ranked payroll per season over that span.
But the Rays have been extra weird these past few seasons. After starting the 2023 season in historically dominant fashion — they were 13-0, 20-3 and 29-7 at various points — Tampa Bay cooled down from that 130+ win early pace to finish with just 99 wins, then were swept out of the postseason in the wild-card round by the Texas Rangers. And despite a neutral offseason and the eighth-most projected wins of any team in preseason, the Rays have been uneven at best in 2024 — and outright mediocre at worst. Their 54-52 record entering play Monday masked a -0.47 runs-per-game differential, seventh-worst of any team.
And so, with just an 11 percent chance to make the playoffs, the Rays seem to have pulled the plug on this season and started looking ahead to the future. OK, that’s actually a bit of an understatement. Here’s a comparison of net 2024 Wins Above Replacement added minus subtracted at the deadline so far, per 162 team games:
The Rays are in another galaxy from the rest of MLB in terms of dismantling their roster at the deadline so far. They have sent away the top producer involved in any deadline deal — 3B Isaac Paredes, who took his 4.2 WAR per 162 to the Chicago Cubs on Sunday — along with four of the top 10, a list that also includes pitchers Zach Eflin and Jason Adam and OF Randy Arozarena. Altogether, the Rays have sent away 8.9 WAR per 162 from this season; no other team has subtracted more than the Nationals at 3.1.
In that way, the Rays may end up rivaling other notable volume-sellers in recent seasons, including the…
2021 Nationals (who dealt Trea Turner, Max Scherzer, Kyle Schwarber, Josh Harrison and Brad Hand)
2021 Cubs (Kris Bryant, Javier Baez, Craig Kimbrel, Anthony Rizzo, Jake Arrieta)
2018 Orioles (Manny Machado, Jonathan Schoop, Kevin Gausman)
2017 White Sox (Anthony Swarzak, Todd Frazier, Jose Quintana, Tommy Kahnle, Miguel Gonzalez, Melky Cabrera)
2017 Tigers (Justin Upton, Justin Verlander, J.D. Martinez, Justin Wilson)
2015 Tigers (David Price, Yoenis Cespedes, Joakim Soria)
What’s strange about Tampa Bay being such a massive seller this year is that they are far more often on the other side of the ledger, as buyers. Recall the 2018 deadline, when the Rays acquired Tommy Pham, Jiman Choi, Tyler Glasnow and Austin Meadows (for Chris Archer), and others. Those types of deals solidified the Rays’ reputation as a team you shouldn’t trade with, because they will fleece you.
Perhaps surprisingly for a team viewed as small-market2 and scrappy, the 2020 Rays’ World Series team had the seventh-lowest share of playing time3 given to homegrown players. The Rays build their success in part by starting the season strong and then plucking talent from other teams during the season… which makes it jarring to see them sell it all away this week.
But they also succeed by embracing the churn, and Tampa Bay has done that — and then some! — at this deadline already. As part of the deals, they’ve added 10 prospects plus two major-leaguers in Christopher Morel and Hunter Bigge. Those pieces, on top of a farm system that Baseball America ranked No. 7 going into the 2024 season, could form the basis for the Rays’ next World Series team, either by playing for it or providing the trade fuel to help otherwise build it. If the lesson of our research on deadline dealing is that a team needs to fully commit to the strategy it picks, no team has been more committed to the seller role than the Rays so far.
Filed under: Baseball
Moreover, if we treat those teams as if they were separate franchises, the Devil Rays would be the worst team in MLB history, while the regular Rays would be the second-best.
Despite Tampa being middle of the pack in terms of market size.
Between plate appearances and (leverage-weighted) innings pitched.
A great follow-up to my just posted comment. This feels so smart to me. Understand where you realistically are vis-a-vis the World Series and proceed accordingly instead of placating the merchants of false hope.
The Rays are nothing if not shrewd stock options traders - selling option calls for their entire roster to desperate delusional buyers who are overly bullish on the future for a high strike price and with the trade deadline acting as the time to maturity. If they get their price and the option is called (a trade) - great. They had a nice ride up with the asset and are exiting the security at a very good price to invest elsewhere.
To my last comment on the trade deadline, options investors use algorithms (e.g. Black-Scholes) to analytically look at a security's performance and figure out buying, selling and on what terms. No reason that baseball shouldn't be doing the same with trades instead of making calls at the deadline and seeing what they can get.
At a higher level, what Tampa Bay seems to be doing is viewing their players as securities on the stock market and building their portfolio as investments over a specified time horizon. This is a terrific way to analyze at these deals and way more than I see with other teams who have no strategy or philosophy at all other than "gosh, ESPN says we should be buyers."
Now, just like the stock market, you need to make sure your next securities are good ones with growth, or you'll end up with a portfolio looking like the Oakland A's.