Archive for Tampa Bay Rays

Taylor Motter isn’t a household name. But he does have a way with words, and there’s a chance he’ll break camp as Tampa Bay’s 25th man. If that happens, the Rays roster will include a jack-of-all-trades dirt-dog whose phrasing is more Yogi Berra than Bull Durham.

Motter has played every position except catcher since being drafted out of Coastal Carolina University in 2011. He’s also swung the bat. Last season, in Triple-A, the former Chanticleer hit .292/.366/.471 with 42 doubles and 14 home runs. His running game was an asset, as he swiped 26 bases.

The self-described “blue collar grinder” will take a walk — he had 57 on the year — but he’s anything but passive.

“If I get something early and hard, I’m going to attack early and hard,” Motter told me. “I don’t like to get to two strikes. If I do, that’s my time to go to battle. It’s time to put on my worker’s cap and go to work. Read the rest of this entry »

Jake Odorizzi is a wanted man. The 25-year-old right-hander is reportedly a trade target for multiple teams this offseason. It’s easy to see why. Last year, in his second full season with the Tampa Bay Rays, Odorizzi logged a 3.35 ERA and a 3.61 FIP over 28 starts. Arbitration eligible after the coming campaign, he’s under team control four more years.

Odorizzi isn’t a power pitcher, nor is he a control artist. He’s certainly not a sinker-baller. What he does is mix-and-match with a full repertoire that includes a riding fastball and a dipping splitter. Thoughtful in his approach, he might be best described as budding craftsman.

Odorizzi, who remains a Ray for the time being — Tampa Bay’s interest in dealing him is of course speculative — discussed his development in the final week of September.

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Odorizzi on his 2015 season: “The biggest change from last year to this year is maturity. I’m learning the league, plus there’s the confidence you gain. As a rookie, everything is kind of an unknown, and now I have a better idea of what to expect. That’s been big, given all of the injuries we had early on. Chris Archer and I have had to grow, and step up to fill the void. Even with as young as we are, we’re kind of the veteran guys in the rotation. Circumstances forced us to have what I guess you could call an older approach. Read the rest of this entry »

A plethora of under-the-radar transactions take place every offseason. One you might have missed happened last week when Stephen Fife signed with the Chicago Cubs. The 29-year-old right-hander, fully recovered from Tommy John surgery, was inked to a minor-league deal that includes a spring training invite to big-league camp.

If you’re not a Dodgers diehard, you probably aren’t aware that Fife was one of six Los Angeles pitchers to start 10-or-more games for the 2013 NL West champions. He finished that year 4-4 with a 3.86 ERA, but was unceremoniously left off the postseason roster. Come playoff time, he was told he wasn’t welcome in the dugout, although he could come to the games and watch from the stands.

Originally in the Red Sox organization, Fife came to LA as part of a three-team trade in July 2011. According to Fife, he turned a corner the following season with the help of Josh Bard. The newly-named Dodgers bullpen coach was one of the club’s catchers that season, and he told Fife that adjustments were in order. Read the rest of this entry »

A lot has been written about the Royals’ hitting approach. Not enough has been written about their hitting coach. A moribund offense became a much more dangerous one after Dale Sveum stepped into the role last May.

As you know, Kansas City hitters don’t strike out very often. Their 15.9 K-date was the lowest in both leagues. Aggressive to a fault, they put more balls in play with no strikes on the batter (1,475 times) than any other team.

Not surprisingly, Sveum likes contact, especially when his team is rallying.

“You get three outs in an inning, and if you strike out for two of those outs, your odds of coming back aren’t going to be very good,” said Sveum. “But if you put three balls in play, something might fall and you keep the line moving.” Read the rest of this entry »

Brandon Guyer homered in his first big league bat. That was in 2011, a year in which he went deep 16 times, in 429 at bats, between Triple-A and Tampa Bay. The following spring, Baseball America wrote that, “Guyer offers and impressive combination of speed and power,” and is “ready to become a big league regular.”

Then he got hurt. In late May, Guyer underwent shoulder surgery and was lost for the balance of the 2012 season. He returned to Durham in 2013, where he batted over .300, but with just seven home runs. A year ago, he left the yard a mere three times, in 259 at bats, in part-time duty with the Rays.

The 29-year-old University of Virginia product appears to be getting his stroke back. The resurgence isn’t dramatic – he finished this year with eight home runs in 332 at bats – but Guyer is looking more and more like his old self. Half of his homers traveled over 400 feet, and all went at least 360 feet. Seven came off lefties, against whom he had an .847 OPS.

Guyer’s glimpses of power came primarily as an often-platooned outfielder and as a lead-off hitter. He slashed .266/.361/.416 overall, and whether he projects as a regular going forward is hard to say. Some of that may depend on his ability to clear fences, which presents a bit of a quandary. Guyer likes to hit home runs – everyone does – but he’s determined that it’s not in his best interest to adopt that mindset. Read the rest of this entry »

Kevin Cash is in the final week of his first season as a big league manager. He’s had quite the learning experience. Working closely with one of baseball’s most progressive front offices, the 37-year-old former catcher has helped keep the Tampa Bay Rays competitive, despite several key injuries and one of the lowest payrolls in the game.

Currently the youngest manager in MLB, Cash was hired to replace Joe Maddon last December. Prior to coming to Tampa, he spent two years as the bullpen coach for the Cleveland Indians, where he worked under Terry Francona.

Cash touched on his first season at the helm – including the importance of communication and collaboration – last week at Fenway Park.

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Cash on what he’s learned: “I’ve learned that it’s a challenging task to stay on top of everything. The communication is a constant that never goes away – communication with the front office, communication with the players. That was a big goal coming in, for all of us – for the entire staff – and we’ve continued to evolve as the season has gone on. It takes time to build relationships. I think we all feel confident that we’re heading in the right direction in that regard.”

Read the rest of this entry »

Logan Forsythe isn’t sure he can explain his breakout. At least not definitively. The Tampa Bay infielder points to consistency, but that’s more byproduct than causation. He indirectly cites BABiP – “I’ve had some balls fall this year” – but it’s not as though his .323 mark is outlandish.

Opportunity might be a bigger factor. His high-water mark for seasonal plate appearances had been 350 – with the Padres in 2012 – and he’s already come to the dish 606 times. He’s taking advantage of the increased playing time. A .235/.343/.303 hitter coming into the campaign, Forsythe is slashing .282/.359/.446, and his 17 home runs are nearly double his career total. He’s been worth 4.1 WAR.

The 28-year-old second baseman was fielding a familiar question when I inquired as to why he’s having a good year. He’s been asked that a lot – not a bad problem to have – and his response suggests it’s largely the regular reps.

“The biggest thing is being consistent,” Forsythe told me. “That’s the recurring word I keep using. I expected to be that super-utility type again, but we had a few guys go down with injuries. That sucked, but it did give me an opportunity. I’ve had stints in my career where I’ve taken a simpler approach – I’ve just stayed in a routine – and the consistency of my play took over. This year reminds me of when I was playing every day in the minor leagues.”

It’s hard to say whether the Rays expected this type of production when they acquired Forsythe from San Diego in a seven-player deal prior to last season. His versatility was his calling card, but he possessed other qualities as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Amid the ever-increasing dominance of pitching this season, Chris Archer has been a singular figure among the leaderboard of best pitchers during 2015: he’s not only a newcomer to the best handful of starters that populate baseball, but he’s also gotten to where he currently is in a rather unique way. In late April, I noticed that Archer was now throwing his slider almost 40% of the time and getting incredible results from it; in May, Carson noted that Archer was in a select group that blended an elite ground-ball rate with an elite strikeout rate; and, in early June, Dave wrote that Archer’s slider was now being thrown much harder, at upwards of 90 mph, making it an almost totally unfair pitch.

Archer has truly found himself as an ace this season, and last night, he turned in the best performance of his young career.

Unsurprisingly, the Rays’ right-hander pitched his complete game, one hit, one walk, 11 strikeout, 98-pitch performance in the method he has come to rely on this season: an overpowering fastball coupled almost exclusively with an unfair slider. Archer threw a Maddux, and he did so in historic fashion, compiling a Bill James game score of 95 along the way. The only other pitchers to throw a complete game with under 100 pitches and a game score of at least 95? I’ll let our friend Kazuto answer that:

Maddux with a 95+ game score: Koufax no-no vs Philly Cone perfect Bunning perfect Humber perfect (LOL) Rogers perfect Archer tonight

— Kazuto Yamazaki (@Kazuto_Yamazaki) August 21, 2015

That’s a lot of perfect games and one no-hitter on that very short list, which tells us just how good Archer was last night. He was this close, in fact, to a no-no:

Read the rest of this entry »

On Saturday, Tampa Bay’s John Jaso went 3 for 5 in an 11-7 loss to the Red Sox at Fenway Park. The left-handed-hitting Rays DH – a former catcher – faced right-hander Joe Kelly in his first three plate appearances. Righty Justin Masterson and lefty Craig Breslow were on the mound in his subsequent at bats. Jaso — hitting .344/.414/.508 since returning from a long stint the DL — broke down his five plate appearances the following day.

LEAD-IN

“My big baseball philosophy changed when I heard something Pete Rose had said. Every at bat he took, he wanted to do the exact same thing. I kind of ran with that. I treat the late-inning clutch situation the same as I do a first-inning at bat. Take the other night when I hit the pinch-hit double to drive in two runs and put us ahead. I was just looking for a pitch to hit and trying to stay short and straight to the ball.”

FIRST AT BAT, VS JOE KELLY Read the rest of this entry »

The MLB Network’s Brian Kenny wants to “Kill the Win.” As a FanGraphs reader, you’re certainly familiar with – and quite possibly supportive of – his stance. The stat is often misleading, and slowly but surely it’s becoming less of a barometer when assessing an individual pitcher’s performance. But should the win be “killed”? I recently posed that question to nine pitchers, two pitching coaches and a pitcher-turned-broadcaster. Here are their responses:

Chris Archer, Rays: “I don’t know if it should be killed. The emphasis behind it isn’t as great as people make it out to be. I think true baseball gurus, and players and management, know. It’s how a lot of fans may judge someone, but we know there’s not so much behind the importance of (an individual pitcher’s) win.”

Craig Breslow, Red Sox: “I don’t think it’s going anywhere. Unless we’re going to kill every single statistic, then we should spare the win. I don’t think you can make a good argument for killing a statistic for not telling the whole story. You just to have to explain it doesn’t give a comprehensive evaluation of the performance of a pitcher.” Read the rest of this entry »