Tampa Bay Rays vs. New York Yankees: Who Has the Best No. 3 Starter?

The Tampa Bay Rays have one of the best sets of top-three starting pitchers in the league. We compare them to the revamped Yankees top-three starters.

The Tampa Bay Rays biggest obstacle to a division title in 2020 is the New York Yankees. The Yankees committed $324 on Gerrit Cole and will begin the season as heavy favorites to win the World Series.

The Rays are listed at +450 odds of winning the AL East while the Yankees are +350 to win the World Series.

The Rays have focused some of their offseason efforts on reinforcing the offensive firepower because they have great confidence in their starting pitching depth.

They wield a rotation that features three of the best the game has to offer. Today we run a side by side comparison with the New York Yankees to see how they compare.

Tampa Bay Rays Top Three

1. Charlie Morton
2. Blake Snell
3. Tyler Glasnow

Now, the Yankees top three is not so clear with news breaking yesterday that their big left-hander James Paxton will be out for three to four months after having back surgery.

Paxton is a big loss for the Yankees as he will be replaced with Jordan Montgomery. For the sake of this comparison, Montgomery will be inserted on the back end of the rotation.

New York Yankees

1. Gerrit Cole
2. Luis Severino
3. Masahiro Tanaka

Just skimming through the names, it looks like this should be a pretty tight race. The comparisons will be intriguing.

Do the Tampa Bay Rays have a better Opening Day rotation than the mighty New York Yankees? If the Rays can out-duel the Yankees on the mound then it will go a long way to out-dueling them in the standings.

They certainly have a strong case to be made. Let’s dig in and take a look at a side-by-side breakdown of each team’s number three pitchers in the following slides.