Among the biggest changes in on-field strategy this year is the Rays’ use of an “opener,” or a starting pitcher who isn’t a traditional starter in style and is expected to throw only an inning or two. While certainly notable, the role itself isn’t my interest here. Rather, I’d like to consider how Tampa Bay has cobbled together a staff from Blake Snell and a cast of misfit toys.

From talking to sources in and around the Rays, the use of an “opener” wasn’t a purposeful strategic shift on the organization’s part, but rather an attempt by the club to deploy the talent present on the roster in the most effective way possible. Snell is the only pitcher who won’t get an opener in front of him, while the rest varies game-to-game based on matchups and other factors. Much like the best coach in the NFL, the Rays are using a player’s strengths and building a scheme around it rather than building a roster around a scheme.

Consider this characterization of Bill Belichick’s coaching philosophy by Greg Bedard of SI in the context of Tampa Bay and their pitching strategy:

On both sides of the ball, the scheme is multiple and adaptable both to personnel and to specific opponents. The Patriots are never a team that just ‘does what it does’ on either side of the ball. There must be a level of unpredictability.

Recently acquired former top prospect Tyler Glasnow has been notably better in his 12 innings with the Rays, but the role the right-hander typically fills (the longest outing on his pitching day, usually after the opener) is a one that could create a competitive advantage for the Rays in player procurement.

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Tyler Glasnow allowed a solo home run on Tuesday, but outside of that, he was nearly untouchable. Over four innings, he allowed two hits, with, importantly, zero walks, and, importantly, nine strikeouts. Now, I know what some of you will say, because I’ve already seen it on Twitter. “Who cares? It was the Orioles.” And indeed, the Orioles suck. But when Glasnow made his Rays debut against the Angels the week before, he was similarly effective. There was a solo homer, but also a bunch of strikes and whiffs over three solid innings. Glasnow is two (semi-)starts into his Rays career, and he’s made an outstanding first impression.

It should go without saying that we’ll need a lot more data. With Tampa Bay, Glasnow has taken the mound all of two times, and that’s only two times more than zero. The Rays need to see Glasnow pitch a lot more often, and that’s what’s going to happen from here on out. We can’t say whether Glasnow already is better. But he *looks* better, and this kind of topic is right in my wheelhouse, since Glasnow is a pitcher whose results haven’t yet matched up with his stuff. Let me quickly walk you through what I find encouraging.

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What kind of pitcher did the Reds get when they acquired Lucas Sims in the deadline deal that sent Adam Duvall to the Braves? By and large, they got a former first-rounder who has had spotty results in his smattering of big-league outings, yet little left to prove at the minor-league level. Blessed with plus stuff, he remains a tantalizing young talent.

The 24-year-old is getting smarter about his craft. Aware that he should “always be looking for that next step to stay ahead of the curve,” Sims has begun dabbling in analytics. He’s not diving in head first, but his toes are definitely in the water.

“I’ve recently gotten into it, but not to the point where I’m getting overwhelmed with it,” Sims explained earlier this summer. “I’m taking a couple of things here and there, basically whatever resonates with me. I’ve started getting into the spin-rate stuff, and which types of pitches are most effective in certain situations.”

The young right-hander had a colorful answer when asked if his four-seam spin rate is above-average.

“Yeah, but I don’t know exactly what it is,” Sims admitted. “I saw that it was green, and he said green is good.”

The ‘he’ in question was Alex Tamin — “one of our analytics guys” — whose official title with the Braves is director of major league operations. Color-coded assessments weren’t all that Tamin passed along. Sims has also begun “looking into effective spin, and trying to make sure I get true spin.”

Just how much further he dives in with his new team remains a question. Read the rest of this entry »

I think of the Pirates and Rays as being similar to one another. The A’s belong to the same small group. There are differences, obviously, and the organizations each have their own specific approaches, but these are smaller-budget operations that adhere to similar roster-building philosophies. They try not to ever completely tear down, accumulating years of team control while aiming for something close to .500. Constant churn is an unavoidable reality. It’s almost a feature instead of a bug. In a case like this year’s A’s, a club can get hot, but I’m used to seeing these teams in similar positions. So I wouldn’t expect them to swing major trades with one another.

Less than a month ago, the Rays were 11 games back of the second wild-card slot. In the other league, the Pirates were 10 games back of the second wild-card slot. Both of the teams were expected to sell, because competing down the stretch was unrealistic. Since then, the Rays have won nine times and lost nine times. The Pirates, however, have gone 15-4. The Rays are still very much out of the hunt, but the Pirates are within 3.5 games of the playoffs. That imbalance in the short-term outlooks has led us to a blockbuster. This is the time of year when a very small sample can dramatically change a team’s course. Because they caught fire at just the right time, the Pirates have decided to go for it.

Pirates get:

• Chris Archer

Rays get:

• Austin Meadows
• Tyler Glasnow
• (some player to be named later)

Both the Rays and Pirates already thought they could be close in the future. The Pirates’ last 19 games have made all the difference. They’ve opened up a shot in 2018, which was enough to tip all the necessary scales.

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Weeks ago, Wilson Ramos appeared to be the ideal trade target for the catching-deficient Nationals given his previous experience with the team (2010-16) and their current Replacement-Level Killer-esque production, but a funny thing happened on the way to Washington, DC. A left hamstring strain forced Ramos to bow out from the All-Star Game, the Nationals continued their descent into disarray, and now the Rays have traded the nearly 31-year-old backstop to the Phillies in exchange for a player to be named later or cash considerations.

Ramos, who also missed the first 76 games of last season due to a torn ACL, has been doing catching drills and is likely to begin a rehab assignment soon. He’s enjoyed a strong season at the plate, hitting .297/.346/.488 with 14 homers in 315 PA, good for a career-best 130 wRC+. That’s a significant upgrade over what the Phillies have gotten from the 25-year-old Jorge Alfaro (.254/.305/.398, 85 wRC+) or 26-year-old Andrew Knapp (.223/.318/.372, 87 wRC+) on the offensive side, no small matter for a team whose 92 wRC+ ranks 10th in the NL.

Assuming that Ramos replaces Knapp in some kind of pairing with Alfaro, who has started 70 of the Phillies’ 106 games behind the plate, this looks like a defensive upgrade, as well. Via the version of Defensive Runs Saved that doesn’t include pitch framing, Ramos has been average this year, Alfaro two runs below average, and Knapp five below average, while via the framing-inclusive version, the numbers are -1, 0, and -10 runs, respectively. According to Baseball Prospectus’ numbers, Ramos has been 0.9 runs below average overall but dead even on framing, not as good as Alfaro (7.4 runs above average overall, 8.5 above average via framing) but significantly better than Knapp (-5.7 runs overall, -4.3 via framing), who’s gotten about half as much playing time.

As for the return to Tampa Bay, obviously, there’s no scouting report to offer on PTBNL. Ramos’s $10.5 million salary made him the highest-paid Ray, but as with Denard Span earlier this year and Evan Longoria and David Price previously, that title is always a temporary one. Like the mortality rates among those crowned the oldest living human, there’s no mystery about the turnover.

At 53-53, the Rays aren’t bad, but they’re also not anywhere close to the race. At 54-52, the Cardinals aren’t much better, but a wild-card slot remains within reach. Given that, you’d think, if anything, the Cardinals would be improving, while the Rays would be selling. Instead, we have a trade that goes in the other direction. It’s a little bit of a surprising deadline maneuver, yet the Rays are gearing up for a run next season. And the Cardinals are just making more room for Harrison Bader and Tyler O’Neill. I’ll give you the specifics:

Rays get:

• Tommy Pham
• $500,000 international bonus-pool money

Cardinals get:

• Justin Williams
• Genesis Cabrera
• Roel Ramirez

On the surface, you can understand the Cardinals’ perspective here. Pham is 30 years old, and his numbers don’t look like they did last season. Pham and the organization haven’t always seen eye-to-eye, and besides, Bader looks like one of the better defensive outfielders in either league, so it makes sense to play him more often. I can see why they might’ve wanted to make a trade. Still, it feels like they’ve sold Pham low. The Rays are getting a possible difference-maker here, and you don’t have to dig too far into the numbers to see it.

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In somewhat of a surprise move, the Cardinals have traded outfielder Tommy Pham this morning. In somewhat of another surprise, the team acquiring Pham hasn’t added him for the purposes of contending this season. While the Tampa Bay Rays haven’t been mathematically eliminated from a place in the playoffs, their chances of earning even a Wild Card berth are effectively zero at this point. Pham has value to the organization beyond 2018, though.

Even as rumors continue to circle around Chris Archer, the Rays have added a much needed outfielder not only for the remainder of the season, but also for the future. In trading away Pham, the Cardinals appear to be receiving multiple minor-league depth pieces.

Rays receive:

• Tommy Pham
• $500K international bonus-pool money

Cardinals receive:

• OF Justin Williams
• LHP Genesis Cabrera
• RHP Roel Ramirez

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Wednesday was a busy day for the Rays front office. First, they traded starter Nathan Eovaldi to the rival Red Sox. Then, they traded versatile righty Matt Andriese to the Diamondbacks. As I write this, Wednesday still has another few hours to go, so it’s possible they have even more in store, something you’ll have heard about by the time this post is published. Though the Rays are still incredibly north of .500, they’re not really in the hunt, so they’re shifting their priorities to the future. The nearer-term future, but the future nevertheless.

In the middle of the Rays’ busy Wednesday, there was a baseball game. It was a baseball game Eovaldi was scheduled to start. Based on that fact alone, the game was out of the ordinary, but it got stranger still. The Rays, of course, are the team that brought you the opener. They’re the team that used a catcher to protect a late lead. They’re the team that played a pitcher at first base. And now they’re also the team that played a pitcher at third base. These weren’t emergency circumstances the Rays were playing under. It was the same strategy as it was before, with Jose Alvarado. This time, it was Sergio Romo’s turn to head to a corner.

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The Rays traded RHP Matt Andriese to the Diamondbacks this afternoon for minor leaguers Michael Perez and Brian Shaffer.

Tampa Bay has targeted basically two kinds of player in trades over the past few years — specifically, big-league-ready types who either (a) could function as a starting pitcher or (b) feature contact skills and the capacity to play an up-the-middle defensive position. Perez, a catcher, fits the latter category and has made strides this year defensively, moving from a 50 to a 55 behind the plate, driven by his improvement metrically in the framing department. There isn’t much in the way of publicly available minor-league framing numbers, and there’s some variance even with the big leagues ones, but multiple front-office sources described Perez’s figures this year as “elite.” He’s a definite hit-over-power type offensively and is seen as a future backup with just mistake power, but sometimes these types can turn into low-end regulars for a few years. He will likely be a 40+ FV in the coming update to THE BOARD, adding to Tampa Bay’s embarrassment of minor-league depth that was already supplemented earlier today.

Perez was the headliner here. Shaffer, meanwhile, is more of a generic depth arm. He was a sixth-rounder in 2017 out of Maryland and would occasionally show fringey stuff (87-91 mph) and sometimes more than that (90-93 mph with above-average life). His 6-foot-5, 220-pound frame is durable and he throws strikes, so any kind of improvement in the stuff department would make him a solid bet to turn into a back-end starter. He’s been mostly 89-92, touching 94 mph, this year with a slider that’s fringey to average and a changeup that’s a little better but mostly average. In today’s game, this is somewhere in the range of a sixth starter, swing man, innings-eating middle reliever or up/down fill arm, as indicated by the fact that Shaffer is still pitching in Low-A at nearly 22 years old. Shaffer will likely be a 35 or 35+ FV.

Here are my very brief thoughts on Jalen Beeks, who was acquired by Tampa Bay from Boston in exchange for Nathan Eovaldi:

Beeks was ranked 6th in a bad Red Sox system entering the year and received a 45 FV grade from us as we thought he had passable control and a deep enough pitch mix to start. He proceeded to dominate the International League and had accumulated 117 strikeouts in 87.1 innings at the time of the trade.

We still have a 45 FV on Beeks, who has a fringe fastball in the 89-93-mph range, an above-average curveball, and an average changeup and cutter. Finding some way for the fastball to play is of paramount importance to Beeks’ ability to start, and it’s probably going to take heavier in-zone use of his curveball to keep hitters from sitting on a relatively hittable fastball. Tampa Bay’s pitchers have used their fastballs less than all other big leagues teams aside from the Yankees, so this seems likely to occur. Beeks projects as a No. 4 or No. 5 starter, and because we’re talking about a lefty with a good breaking ball, his injury-independent floor is that of a good bullpen piece.

You could argue this was Boston’s best realistic trade chip as none of the other 45 FV prospects in the org have really performed this year, and 50 FV prospects Michael Chavis (PED suspension) and Jay Groome (Tommy John) have other issues impacting their value.