Tampa Bay Rays: Top 8 Candidates for 2020 Rotation

The Tampa Bay Rays have a superfluity of starting pitching heading into 2020. Today we take a look at eight candidates for the five rotation spots within the Rays’ system.

For the first time in a while, the Tampa Bay Rays appear to have loads of starting pitching depth. We take a look at the top eight rotation candidates for 2020. There are three locks at the top and some interesting decisions to be made on the back end.

It’s likely we will see most of these guys start a game at some point this season, due to injuries or ineffectiveness. Let’s take a look at who the Rays have in line.

8. Brent Honeywell

Honeywell was ranked as the 11th best prospect prior to the 2018 season by Baseball Prospectus. He was coming off a season in which he pitched 123 innings at Triple A-Durham, going 12-8 with a 3.64 ERA. Honeywell struck out 11.3 batters per nine and walked only 2.3 hitters every nine frames.

Honeywell missed all of 2018 after undergoing Tommy John surgery. In April of last season, during his recovery, he fractured a bone in his elbow causing him to miss a second-straight complete season.

Honeywell has been progressing and despite missing each of the past two seasons, he still found himself ranked inside Baseball Prospectus’ annual Top 100 Prospects, taking the 80th overall spot.

Brent began playing catch last month and hopes to progress to the point of throwing off the mound by the end of February.

Honeywell was thought to be ready to make an impact at the major league level in 2018. Of course, injuries derailed that notion. If he is able to regain his health and prove to the organization that he’s ready with a solid performance – likely in Durham – there’s a chance we see him at Tropicana field later this year.

It could be a year or two before he’s back to full health. It is asking a lot of a player to come off of two very serious injuries in consecutive years, and suddenly be the star everyone thought he would be a couple of years ago.

While it’s possible that Honeywell could end up a rotation candidate later in the season, the Rays will exercise plenty of caution with the prized prospect.

Prior to the injuries, Honeywell projected to be a frontline pitcher. Should he make a full recovery and find that form again, it would make the Rays four-deep with frontline pitchers.

Best case scenario: We see him late this year.

Tempered Expectation: He’s ready to take over for a potentially departing Charlie Morton in 2021.

The next guy has a chance to battle for a backend position out of spring training. He could be a dark horse to win a spot.

7. Trevor Richards

Trevor Richards was acquired by the Rays at the trade deadline of last season. The Rays exchanged Jesus Sanchez and Ryne Stanek across the state to Miami in exchange for Richards and reliever Nick Anderson.

Anderson has put up stunning numbers in a Rays’ uniform, but Richards has also proven to be a solid acquisition as well.

Richards dominated the Marlins’ minor league system between 2016-2018, never posting more than a 2.53 ERA. That included his final stop in Triple-A where he held opposing hitters to a 2.06 earned run average.

During his rookie season in 2018 with the Marlins, he got some hopes up for what was to come. He started 25 games and posted a 4.42 ERA with the fish. He had more strikeouts (130) than innings pitched (126.1).

On April 14th Richards threw a seven-inning shutout, using just 82 pitches against the Pirates, becoming the first Marlins’ rookie to pitch seven frames while allowing two or fewer hits since 2015.

Later in the month, he struck out 10 Dodgers in 4.2 innings, becoming only the sixth rookie to pull off 10Ks in less than five innings since 1913.

Richards was pegged as a potential breakout player for the Marlins as the 2019 season approached. His performance was headed in the opposite direction of the Marlins’ expectations. He started 20 games with the Marlins and made three relief appearances, posting a 4.50 ERA.

He saw his strikeout rates go down and his walks per nine go up. He was moved to a bullpen role just days before being traded to the Rays. Richards had put together an eight-start run in which he posted a 6.33 ERA with an 0-7 record.

Prior to that rough stretch, he had a 3.53 ERA. The Rays must have still liked the potential in the 6-2 righty, as they pulled the trigger before the trade deadline.

A change of scenery and the reinvigoration of being in a playoff race might have done the trick for Richards. He finished up the season with a 1.93 ERA making three starts and four relief appearances for Tampa Bay.

Strikeouts per nine went back north of nine and his walks per nine reached an all-time low of 1.9 batters.

If you remove the eight-game stretch with the Marlins, Richards had some impressive numbers last season.

If he continues to improve upon the solid foundation he’s built thus far, he could force his way into the back end of the rotation this year. The competition is stiff with players like the one on the next slide standing in the way.

6. Brendan McKay

Brendan McKay made his debut with the big club last season. Mckay is loaded with talent and potential, bringing his near 90mph cutter and 82mph curveball to the Rays.

There are some questions as to whether or not there’ll be a spot in the rotation for him on Opening Day as the Rays have one of the deepest starting pitching arsenals they’ve had in recent memory.

Brendan McKay was recently rated as the third-best left-handed pitching prospect in all of baseball by MLB.com.

That same article listed McKay as the favorite among the group to win the Rookie of the Year honors. Despite the starting pitching depth, prognosticators seem to think that McKay’s talent is too good to be overlooked in 2020.

Whether it’s an injury or poor performance, an opportunity to be presented to McKay in 2020. He didn’t quite make the debut he wanted last year, but he showed the Rays he had nothing more to prove in the minors. McKay pitched between AA-AAA last season and was a man among boys.

Over 73.2 innings, McKay posted a 1.10 ERA, 0.81 WHIP, 102 Ks, 2.2 BB9, and a measly 0.4 HR9.

McKay’s major-league debut was dynamite. He pitched 5.1 perfect innings and ended with six innings, three strikeouts, one walk, and one hit.

Looking at his numbers from last season with the Rays, in his 49.0 innings, he struck out 10.29 per nine while walking less than three hitters per nine. He was more prone to homers than he has ever been as a professional pitcher, but his 1.47 mark was high enough in that small sample size we can assume there was some bad luck involved. McKay’s 5.14 ERA was over a full point higher than his FIP in 2019.

He ended the season one inning short of exceeding his rookie eligibility limits. There’s a chance he could open the season back in Triple-A Durham and come up later in the year when needed.

Steamer currently has McKay projected for just 16 starts and 92.0 innings in 2020.

Will the Rays send him down for more seasoning to begin the year while players like the one on our next slide open the season at the backend of the rotation?

4. Ryan Yarbrough

Ryan Yarbrough finished fifth in Rookie of the Year voting in 2018 going 16-6 with 147.1 IP, 1.29 WHIP, 3.1 BB9, and a 3.91 ERA.

Yarbrough’s rookie season was an interesting, one to say the least. Despite winning 16 games he only started six. He assumed the role of the “bulk guy” (as he put it).

The Rays employed the “opener strategy” in which they began the game with a relief pitcher and followed him up with a long-relief pitcher, before handing the game over to the backend of the bullpen.

Yarbrough would often be the guy to come in second and deliver a lead to the backend guys. This would put Yarbrough in a position to earn the Win.

Yarbrough was an integral part of the success of the opener strategy and is also a reason the Rays appear to be abandoning it. Their philosophy was rather than sending out an innings-eating starting pitcher to provide low-quality results, they utilized a series of relievers stacked on top of each other.

Yarbrough was so effective in his role that he has evidently earned the trust of the front office as a starter. Last season he earned eight more starts than he did the previous year.

Yarbrough ranked in the 100th percentile in average exit velocity among pitchers in 2019, according to Statcast. He also ranked in the 99th percentile in hard-hit percentage. Yarbrough keeps hitters well-off balance with his cutter/changeup/sinker combination, with the cutter being his primary weapon at 36.3%.

His fastest average pitch is his sinker at 88.1 mph with an average vertical break of 24 inches. Yarbrough used his four-seamer 0.1% of the time in 2019.

Heading into 2020, Yarbrough is currently slated for a fourth or fifth rotation spot with the Rays. With the vast amount of starting pitching talent in the Rays’ organization, it appears there is no need for the opener this year, and that can be attributed in large part to Ryan Yarbrough’s emergence.

3. Tyler Glasnow

Tyler Glasnow was acquired by the Tampa Bay Rays in the Chris Archer-2018 trade. The Rays sent Archer to the Pirates for Tyler Glasnow, Austin Meadows, and Shane Baz.

Glasnow took the next step as a frontline starter in 2019, in 12 starts he pitched to the tune of a 1.78 ERA

His 2.3 WAR over 60.2 innings averages out to a 7.6 WAR over 200 innings. That would have been good for number one in the league, 0.2 points better than Gerrit Cole.

Of all starting pitchers who pitched at least 60 innings in 2019, Glasnow had had the following ranks:

12th in K/9
1st in HR/9
1st in HR/FB%
1st in ERA
1st in FIP

His four-seamer can reach 100mph, which makes his 90mph changeup look ridiculously hard to hit coming out of his hand. It looks like a fastball, it is as fast as a lot of fastballs, and yet… it’s not a fastball!

Steamer Projections doesn’t quite have him vying for the Cy Young in 2020, although these are fairly solid projections considering the emphasis on past performances.

Glasnow 2020 Steamer Projections

3.70 ERA,163.0 IP, 202 Ks, 66 BBs, 29 Starts

Glasnow had a career-best 2.08 walks per nine in 2019. His curveball earned a 55% swing and miss rate in 2019, according to Fangraphs. 

According to Statcast, his fastball velocity ranked among the 95th percentile in the league, his curve spin rate is in the 95th percentile, Glasnow was in the 99th percentile in xwOBA, and 98th percentile in xBA and xSLG.

If Glasnow can continue the path he started down in 2019, he could be next up for the Rays to challenge for the AL Cy Young. He’ll be following two guys who did so the previous two seasons.

2. Charlie Morton

Charlie Morton finished last season as third in the American League Cy Young voting. He finished behind two Houston Astros, Gerrit Cole and Justin Verlander.

Morton went 16-6 with a 3.05 ERA and 240 Ks in 194.67 innings last season.

Uncle Charlie relied heavily on his curveball last season, throwing it 37.3% of the time. Rightly so, as he ranked in the 95th percentile in the league in spin rate on the curveball.

Here are a few categories in which Morton ranked inside the top ten in Major League Baseball.

Home Runs Per Nine (1st in MLB)
Adjusted ERA+ (10th in MLB)
FIP (4th in MLB)
Strikeouts Per Nine (9th in MLB)
Fewest Hits Per Nine (10th in MLB)
Wins (T-8th in MLB)
Games Started (T-8th in MLB)
Situational Wins Saved (6th in MLB)

Morton was tied for 15th in the Major Leagues in quality starts with 19 outings of at least six innings and three or fewer earned runs.

Morton is entering the second year of two-year, $30 million contract. He has stated that he expects this to be his last contract. We are likely looking at Morton’s final major-league season unless he changes his mind.

Morton was worth 5.0 rWAR last season but he did fade a little in the second half of 2019.

He finished the first half of last season with a 2.32 ERA and 142 Ks in 112.2 innings pitched. Opponents only hit .196/.271/.314 against him in the first half. In the second half, he registered a 4.06 ERA with a .239/.298/.375 slash. Morton struck out 98 batters in his 82.0 second-half innings.

Clearly worse numbers, but still not terrible. The Rays may try and manage his workload a little more this year to ensure he stays fresh for a late-season run. If this is Morton’s swan-song, hopefully, it ends with a deep post-season run.

1. Blake Snell

After finishing 2018 with a 1.89 ERA and a CY Young Award, Blake Snell inked a five-year extension with the Tampa Bay Rays. His follow up season didn’t go quite as everyone would have hoped, but the underlying numbers indicate he’s in store for a big bounceback.

Blake Snell struggled with injuries and ineffectiveness last season, producing a 4.29 ERA in 2019. Some of that likely due to bad luck as his FIP was nearly a point lower than his ERA in 2019.

Snell maintained his elite strikeout rate as he punched out 147 batters in 107 innings pitched. Those numbers were good for a career-best 12.4 strikeouts per nine. That’s 1.4 batters better than his 2018 Cy Young season.

His FIP between the past two seasons indicates a much more similar performance than his ERA differential. In 2018, he posted a 2.94 FIP and a 3.32 FIP last season.

He posted a 2.89 ERA at home in 11 starts and a 5.82 ERA on the road in 12 starts. He walked exactly 20 batters and gave up seven homers both at home and on the road last season.

According to Statcast, Snell was in the top ten in the league in Barrel % (4.7), xBA (.205), and xSLG (.327).

Snell was in the 83rd percentile in hard-hit rate and 92nd percentile in strikeout percentage.

At just 27-years-old, Snell is primed and healthy for a bounce-back season. He’s surrounded by elite pitching talent in Tampa Bay, and he should lead the charge for the 2020 Tampa Bay Rays.

What sort of surprises or dark horses do you think we might see in the rotation in 2020?