Rays creating new wave in MLB
AL East ‘oddballs’ redefine pitching strategy
BALTIMORE — With one-third of their season remaining, the Rays appear, on paper, the definition of average: 53 wins, 53 losses, six fewer runs scored than allowed, another unremarkable campaign lurching toward conclusion.
Numbers, however, cannot do justice to the controlled chaos of this most remarkable season. The Rays are revolutionizing how the game is played — unless they’re ruining it.
They turn over personnel faster than your local Walmart, all with a brighter future in mind, unless the goal posts move again in a couple of years.
They trade pitchers 90 minutes before they’re supposed to start, creating a perfect excuse for a loss, and then beat the most powerful team in the game.
Baseball history might not render its verdict on these Rays for another decade or so. Yet for the 48 men who have taken the field for them this season, and the manager charged with juggling them all, the disruptive conditions have created a rallying point.
“I have to admit, I think all of us here are finding some sense of gratification being the different team, so to speak,” veteran reliever Sergio Romo says. “Those different guys. The oddballs, so to speak. It’s been incredibly fun.”
Save for his advanced baseball age, Romo, 35, epitomizes the modern Ray: He could be traded at any moment (probably before you read this, in fact).
He has been asked to shelve a role he performed for most of his career, setup reliever and closer, in service of the Rays’ grand pitching experiment.
On some days, it’s a bullpen game, leaning on up to a half-dozen relievers to cover nine innings. Others, it’s what they call The Opener, when a closer such as Romo starts the game, then hands off to a pitcher who’d typically fill a starting role. Thanks to his Opener, that pitcher will likely miss the top of the opposing order, ostensibly reducing his exposure and extending his effectiveness.
And yes, there are times manager Kevin Cash, like all of his major league colleagues, merely hands the ball to a starter such as Chris Archer, recently traded Nathan Eovaldi or 25-year-old All-Star Blake Snell and says, “Go get ’em, big fella.”
Regardless of who’s pitching, the plan concocted by the front office and executed by Cash requires the faith of elite athletes who have been trained a certain way their entire lives and must accept something entirely different.
In any major league clubhouse, total buy-in to any plan is rare; when it in- volves shifting roles that might affect performance, development and future paydays, it’s an even bigger challenge.
“It’s definitely been a transition,” says rookie left-hander Ryan Yarbrough, whose nine wins, 3.67 ERA and 98 innings pitched are starter-like numbers, even though he’s started in just five of 26 games. “I’ve been used in so many different roles, had to mold to so many different things, but it’s become more and more comfortable. At certain times, you have to stay on your toes, for sure.”
That job falls to Cash, 40, who in four seasons has shepherded the Rays through numerous reboots as the budget-conscious club, which opened the year with a $68 million payroll, higher than only Oakland, aims to maximize efficiency.
And that brings turnover — tons of it. In his three-plus seasons, Cash has used 134 players, or almost five-and-ahalf 25-man rosters.
This season, the turnover rumbled through the winter and spring training, with the trade of franchise player Evan Longoria and February deals that sent All-Star Corey Dickerson, outfielder Steven Souza Jr. and rotation stalwart Jake Odorizzi packing.
In June, outfielder Denard Span and closer Jesus Colome were dealt to Seattle. Last week, it was Eovaldi to Boston, swingman Matt Andriese to Arizona and reliever Jonny Venters to Atlanta.
By Tuesday’s non-waivers trade deadline, Romo, catcher Wilson Ramos and the big one — two-time All-Star Archer — could be gone.
Archer and outfielder Kevin Kier- maier are the lone players remaining from the 53 who played for Cash in his
2015 debut season.
The Rays have split 12 games with the Yankees, who opened the season with a
$168 million payroll.
“We don’t get caught up in who’s potentially going to get traded,” says infielder Daniel Robertson, who in keeping with the Rays’ ethos has played four defensive positions and even pitched an inning this year. “Whoever’s in the clubhouse that day, that’s who we’re going to work with. Whoever’s in the lineup, go out and try to win the game that night.
“If you get caught up in who could possibly get traded, that can mess with the psyche of the team. On the other side of it, we have a young core in here, a lot of controllable guys who we know will be around for a little while.”
Robertson lauds Cash’s ability to extract belief from his players, a task admittedly easier when it’s younger, developing talent than veterans.
It doesn’t hurt that the wildest plans have apparently paid off. The Rays rank fifth in the American League with a 3.90 ERA. They’re holding opposing hitters to a .233 average, trailing only Houston, New York and Boston.
They’ve received the fewest innings from their “starting” pitchers than any club, but the amalgam of conventional starters, Openers and swing guys have pitched to a 3.84 ERA, fourth overall and better than the Yankees’ 4.02 mark.
“The only thing that makes it easier is when there’s success behind it,” Cash says. “Will it work every time? No. But we feel we’ve benefited from limiting of- fenses. And I think guys appreciate that.”
Romo, who had previously played for just Giants manager Bruce Bochy and Dodgers manager Dave Roberts, says Cash has a rare ability to take theories from paper to player to the field.
“He’s completely outside the box,” Romo says. “The way he thinks, the way he sees us — it’s almost like he sees a hidden trait in each one of us we didn’t see ourselves. The second we all bought into it, it’s clicked, and I feel it’s helped him manage us and helped him try to put out the picture he has in his head. It’s so off the norm, but he does it in such a confident and aggressive way.”
The moving parts won’t stop anytime soon; the Rays will surely turn over more players before Tuesday’s deadline, perhaps again before the Aug. 31 waivers deadline and all the while will summon and dispatch players on the shuttle to Class AAA Durham (North Carolina).
It is chaotic at times, but for every broken heart or opportunity lost, there can be a dream fulfilled.
Venters, meanwhile, saw another dream fulfilled: A trade back to a pennant race and the Braves in Atlanta, where he flourished before four elbow reconstruction surgeries.
He leaves Tampa Bay largely believing in what the Rays are building, even if he, like so many others, won’t be around to see it through.
“You just have to be open-minded, the game’s changing, and go with it,” Venters says. “They thought this thing through, and they had to get creative, and they did that. It’s been good so far.”