Tampa Bay Rays: OF – Steamer Projections and what to expect in 2020

Steamer Projections is one of the most well-known baseball statistic projection companies around. We take a look at what they foresee for the Tampa Bay Rays in 2020.

The Tampa Bay Rays have made several clever moves this off-season to keep them competitive with the high payrolls of the Yankees and the Red Sox. We’ll take a look at what one of the top projection companies has to say about our current roster construction.

Steamer Projections was developed by a high school science teacher named Jared Cross. He and two students developed a system using past performances and age-based trends to create a statistical projection for Major League Baseball players.

Steamer Projections can be found in all sorts of baseball publications including Fangraphs. Today, we take a look at how Steamer thinks our favorite Rays’ players will do in 2020.

Outfield – 6.8 WAR

Austin Meadows: .272 AVG // .337 OBP // .492 SLG // 624 PA // 559 ABs // 152 H // 30 2B // 5 2B // 28 HR // 87 R // 84 RBI // 51 BB // 127 K // 15 SB // 6 CS // 118  wRC+ // 2.8  WAR

Kevin Kiermaier: .240 AVG // .302 OBP // .410  SLG// 555 PAs // 501 ABs // 120 H // 23 2B // 6 3B // 17 HR // 63 R // 62 RBI // 40 BB // 128 K // 18 SB // 6 CS // 89 wRC+ // 2.2 WAR

Hunter Renfroe: .231 AVG // .293 OBP // .460 SLG // 560 PAs // 508 ABs // 117 H // 23 2B // 1 3B // 30 HR // 69 R // 82 RBI // 41 BB // 72 K // 4 SB // 2 CS // 97 wRC+ // 1.0 WAR

Jose Martinez: .270 AVG // .338 OBP // .426 SLG // 334 PAs // 298 ABs // 80 H // 14 2B // 1 3B // 10 HR // 39 R // 40 RBI // 30 BB // 72 K // 2 SB // 2 CS // 106 wRC+ //  0.5 WAR

Randy Arozarena: .256 // .323 OBP // .410 SLG // 137 PAs // 122 ABs // 31 H // 6 2B // 1 3B // 4 HR // 16 R // 15 RBI // 10 BB // 30 K // 5 SB // 2 CS // 97 wRC+ // 0.3 WAR

Rays Colored Glasses Take

Meadows is the easy offensive star in the outfield. Renfroe’s WAR seems a little low considering how elite his defense was last year. According to Baseball-Reference he posted 22 defensive-runs saved, tied for second in the league…Oh yeah, he hit 33 homers last season.

Steamer has both Meadows and Martinez above average in runs created as they both exceeded the 100-mark.

Steamer only has Martinez playing in 79 games with 334 PAs. It’s understandable due to the potential logjam of OF/1B/DH/3B type players. The Rays have Yoshitomo Tsutsugo, Jose Martinez, Yandy Diaz, Nate Lowe, and Ji-Man Choi competing for time at DH and 1B.

I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of Martinez than Steamer’s projections as he can hit both righties and lefties effectively. However, their concerns over playing time are valid.

Randy Arozarena could easily see time in the outfield with Kiermaier averaging just 113 games a year over his six full seasons with the Rays.

What are your expectations for the Rays’ 2020 outfield production?