Tampa Bay Rays are constructed to conquer a condensed season

We take a look at how a condensed schedule could benefit the Tampa Bay Rays in 2020.

The Tampa Bay Rays and the rest of the baseball world eagerly await Opening Day 2020.

A glimmer of hope has satisfyingly protruded through the vast surface of sadness that has blanketed the baseball world, allowing a little bit of optimism to ooze like puss out of the giant zit that has been 2020 thus far.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan reported rumblings of an idea to play games in Arizona with seven-inning doubleheaders in an attempt to get the total as close to 162 games as possible.

Now, whether or not that’s how it plays out remains to be seen. This has not been confirmed and it really just seems like preliminary discussions were leaked prematurely.

However, one part that stuck out to me was the idea of running double-headers to squeeze in as many games as possible while expanding the rosters to accommodate the lack of recovery time.

Once the season finally begins (assuming it does) then things are going to look different. Both the players and the league have a financial incentive to play as many games as possible. If they do stack multiple games into one day, then the very makeup of the game will be fundamentally changed.

So, all things considered, here are a few reasons this could play right into the Rays hands.

Pitching

Starting pitchers will not be rolled out every fifth day in a condensed season. Every five days could have them pitching every seven or ten games, depending on how they layout such a hypothetical format.

If that is the case, the Rays will be one of the few teams with a severe advantage. Not only do they have three potential Cy Young candidates at the top of the rotation, but they have soft-contact artists Yonny Chirinos and Ryan Yarbrough at the back end of the rotation. If they need more than five starters, well there’s a guy named Brendan McKay in Durham…I hear he’s pretty good.

Trevor Richards has logged time a solid big-league starter, and the innovators of the Opener could put that plan back into action as the Rays possess one of the most deadly bullpens in the league, in fact, they had the lowest bullpen ERA in all of baseball last year. 

Advantage: Rays

Infield Continued

Second Base

Joey Wendle has been a solid major leaguer, Brandon Lowe exploded onto the scene in 2019 with an All-Star appearance and 17 homers in just 82 games. Daniel Robertson is a solid hand that provides reliable veteran depth, as well.

Catcher

Mike Zunino is what he is. We’ve covered him from every which angle. He hit .165 last season, which, sadly, isn’t that far off from his career average of .202. He has some power but he is trusted behind the plate. Michael Perez was set to be split the duties with Zunino last season before an injury opened the door for Travis d’Arnaud to blow the top of the dome off of Tropicana Field.

d’Arnaud has moved on to greener pastures, but Michael Perez was known in the minors as a top-notch defender and has shown the ability to be a patient and powerful hitter at various stops in the minors.

Add in the addition of veteran Kevan Smith, whose numbers look a lot like Travis d’Arnaud’s prior to his arrival in Tampa, and the Rays look to be in steady hands behind the plate.

Shortstop

Willy Adames led the AL in defensive runs saved at the position in 2019. He added 20 homers and looks to be on an upward trajectory with no end in sight. Robertson and Wendle can slot in behind him for depth, but you have to wonder…Wander?

Some analysts expected to see a sample of Wander Franco at the major-league level this season. The expanded rosters and crunched schedule could create a perfect scenario to bring the wunderkind up.

If the league wants to implement a schedule such as this then they will certainly feel the wrath of the Rays’ depth. This could be fun.