Tampa Bay Rays: Willy Adames 2020 Season Review

Kicking off a new series of articles covering Tampa Bay Rays players’ performance that will take into account each player’s defensive and offensive production, plus overall play using analytics and our perceptions to determine each player’s impact and value to the Rays this season.

The first player on our list is Rays’ shortstop Willy Adames.

In 20 postseason games this year, Adames batted .136. If you were to watch Adames in the dugout or at shortstop, you wouldn’t know he’s struggled to find hits during the postseason because he always brings life and positivity to the Rays’ dugout. That is something valued heavily by management and higher-ups.

Adames is known as an emotional leader, he shows his emotions on the field and in the dugout but also doesn’t let his struggles get to him. Rays manager Kevin Cash was asked about Adames and the character he is,

“It’s rare for a player his age, but once you get to know Willy, his personality’s pretty infectious, there’s just people that have those traits where people just kind of flock to them, and Willy’s at the top of the list in our clubhouse, in our organization.”

Regular Season In Review

In my mind, Brandon Lowe and Willy Adames were the two best Rays’ offensive players of the regular season.

Adames played 53 games this season out of his teams 60. In those 53 games, he slashed a .259 BA with a .813 OPS (23rd in AL).

The Rays’ shortstop also slugged eight home runs (2nd on TB) and 23 RBI’s (3rd on TB).

Adames also led the Rays with 15 doubles and was 2nd in hits with 48. Adames’ 24 XBH and 89 Total Bases ranks him 2nd on the Rays behind Brandon Lowe.

The Dominican Republic native had himself a solid defensive season as well. Carrying himself a .953 fielding % with 9 errors and 53 putouts. Adames is more of a flashy shortstop making diving catches and run-saving plays which, unfortunately, doesn’t show up on the stat line but doesn’t go unrecognized.

Advanced Analysis

Adames had himself a pretty stellar 2020 season and these advanced stats certainly back it up. The Rays’ shortstop was tied for 12th in the MLB in Wins Above Replacement at 1.5.

Also, being in the 100th percentile in the MLB with a .388 BABIP, which calculates his batting average on balls in play. This measures how many of a batter’s balls in play go for hits.

Adames’ .354 wOBA put him in the 69th percentile in the MLB. wOBA stands for weighted on-base average which measures a player’s overall offensive contributions per plate appearance. wOBA combines all the different aspects of hitting into one metric, weighting each of them in proportion to their actual run value.

Adames’ .222 ISO puts him in the 71th percentile in the MLB. ISO takes a player’s slugging percentage and minuses it by his batting average. ISO is a computation used to measure a batter’s raw power.

Final Grade

Stay tuned for more Rays players’ season reviews. As always let us know what you think in the comments. All stats courtesy of MLB.com and Rotowire.com.