2023 ZiPS Projections: Tampa Bay Rays

For the 18th consecutive season, the ZiPS projection system is unleashing a full set of prognostications. For more information on the ZiPS projections, please consult this year’s introduction and MLB’s glossary entry. The team order is selected by lot. Rounding out the 2023 projections? The Tampa Bay Rays.

Batters

The Rays lineup presents a tale of two offenses. On the good side is a team with one of the best 2B/3B/SS combinations in the majors. Yandy Díaz had a monster 2022 season, basically as offensively amazing as it’s possible for a corner infielder with below-average power to be. ZiPS is low on Díaz relative to Steamer and The Bat, and his projection here is still excellent. It’s a real shame that he’s somehow still underrated in the eyes of fans, even in an age when most people realize on-base percentage is a thing. Díaz isn’t quite Eddie Yost or Eddie Joost in terms of pure walk rate, but he’s a mold-breaker along similar lines. With Isaac Paredes needing at-bats of his own and Curtis Mead aggressively pushing his way up from the minors, the Rays will almost certainly continue to use Díaz at multiple positions. I’d be happy with any of those three as my starting third baseman.

Brandon Lowe had a disappointing, injury-filled season, but it would take some severe recency bias to forgot that he was an elite second baseman in 2021, which wasn’t exactly an eon ago. Wanderkind Franco had his own injury problems in 2022, but he’s still very young, certainly young enough that you shouldn’t fret about it too much (yet). With some luck in terms of health, the Rays will have one of baseball’s best infields even if they get very little out of first base. Unfortunately, the computer doesn’t expect the Rays to get much out of first base. ZiPS has never been in on Jonathan Aranda, even after his most promising minor league season yet. Given the offensive explosion in the minors, ZiPS doesn’t translate his .318/.394/.521, 18-homer season for Durham as well as you might think, only having him at a .276/.341/.420, 12-homer season. Combine that with a poor debut and you can see why ZiPS really hopes that Aranda’s future is at second, not first. The player ZiPS does like is Kyle Manzardo, who gets a translation of .267/.346/.456 for his age-21 season, his first full pro campaign. Manzardo has a very good chance to be the top first baseman on the ZiPS Top 100 Prospects list next month.

The other tale, where ZiPS tells a sadder story, is in the outfield. The computer sees the team’s likely outfield options as acceptable and deep, but far less compelling than the infielders, and without much in the way of star-level upside. It may seem a little mean, especially to Randy Arozarena, but he’s not a massive power hitter outside of his playoff flurry and he makes a good deal of outs without much glove to add value. Both he and Manuel Margot have probably already shown their peaks. The outfield, at least as the projections came out, won’t keep the Rays out of a playoff spot, but it won’t push them into one, either. Assuming none of the extra infielders are traded, I imagine the shuffle there will result in a few of those guys (Mead?) ending up strengthening the outfield.

Pitchers

The rotation starts with Shane McClanahan, who now belongs in the top tier of American League starters, meaning those who enter the season with a realistic chance of winning the Cy Young award. I fully agree with ZiPS that McClanahan is for real, and there’s a long way to go before he gets expensive enough for the Rays to start talking trade. Drew Rasmussen looks solid, but a lot of how good this rotation ends up being may come down to what the Rays gets out of Tyler Glasnow. I think everyone, including the projections, thinks he’ll be good, but how much Glasnow can we realistically expect? He’s been a 200-inning pitcher…over the last four years. The good news is that Jeffrey Springs took very well to starting — he was one of my breakout picks before 2021 — and Zach Eflin is definitely in the top tier of fifth starters.

The rotation isn’t nearly as patchwork as it has been in recent seasons, and losing Glasnow or another projected starter to a serious injury may only drop the Rays to being a top-six rotation instead of, say, a top-three one. And even though Shane Baz will miss the 2023 season, the reinforcements here are solid. ZiPS is optimistic about both Taj Bradley and Mason Montgomery, and likes both as much as any of the starter prospects in the minors, with the possible exception of Grayson Rodriguez. Luis Patiño will be 23 for the entire 2023 season and Josh Fleming is still hanging around as the final firewall, the way Josh Tomlin made his fortune for years.

ZiPS doesn’t see any of the relievers as being in the very top tier of the league (Pete Fairbanks comes the closest, with the 20th-best projected ERA+ among all relievers). But the depth is impressive, both in terms of above-average arms and the guys the Rays specialize in: relievers you’ve never heard of who come out of nowhere in July and perform adequately. In terms of relief depth, I think the Rays are the only team to even come close to the Braves in the projections.

So, where do the Rays end up? Somewhere around 90 wins seems like a fair bet, but I’m not sure they’re on the same level as the Blue Jays or Yankees. Maybe I’d feel differently with a slightly better 1B/OF situation. Whatever happens, the Rays are likely to remain baseball’s most successful low-payroll team. And given how little the Rays have been able to monetize their success, don’t expect their incentives to invest in payroll to change very much. As I’ve argued elsewhere, a system in which the Rays get a lot less money when they win 70 games but a lot more than they currently do when they win 95 is necessary if you want to see more players stay in St. Petersburg.

Next up: Getting ZiPS onto the player pages and into the pre-spring training standings!

Ballpark graphic courtesy Eephus League. Depth charts constructed by way of those listed here.

Players are listed with their most recent teams wherever possible. This includes players who are unsigned or have retired, players who will miss 2023 due to injury, and players who were released in 2022. So yes, if you see Joe Schmoe, who quit baseball back in August to form a Norwegian Death Dixieland Bubblegum Ska-Funk band, he’s still listed here intentionally. ZiPS is assuming a league with an ERA of 4.22, above 2022’s level of offense but lower than other years. Pitchers who appear to have a fairly definite change in the majors from start-to-relief or vice-versa from these projections will receive reconfigured updates in the spring.

Hitters are ranked by zWAR, which is to say, WAR values as calculated by me, Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those that appear in the full release of ZiPS. Finally, I will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on a depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

As always, incorrect projections are either caused by flaws in the physical reality of the universe or by skillful sabotage of our friend and former editor. You can, however, still get mad at me on Twitter.