The cause of the Rays' struggles with runners in scoring position and the hopeful resolution

The world is not falling and it's not the end times. Kevin Cash and Erik Neander do not need to be fired. This is not meant to be a piece saying the "Rays' Way" is a total failure and needs to be overhauled because of one season.

Although, as much as it's important to keep an even-keeled approach to looking back on the disappointing 2024 season for the Rays, it's just as vital to still figure out exactly what went wrong
because those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Clearly, one of the biggest problems from the Rays' 2024 season was their lack of offensive production. While offense was down across the board throughout baseball, it was especially problematic for the Rays, who ended up 29th in wOBA for the year. Arguably, one of the biggest reasons run production was such an issue for the Rays was because of their struggles with runners in scoring position.

Is this an issue that can be totally correctable over the offseason and in Spring Training?

Most analytically-inclined baseball people seem to say no, but the Rays' struggles in this area were noteworthy.

According to FanGraphs, their 83 wRC+ in these situations was good (or bad, depending on the point of view) for 28th in baseball, only narrowly beating out the Cardinals for 29th and, well, it's kinder not to talk about the White Sox.

Compare that with a 95 wRC+ and there's reason to wonder why the Rays struggled so mightily in these situations despite only being a below-average offense overall, compared to being arguably the worst non-White-Sox team in baseball at the plate.

There is a plausible explanation based around the Rays' approach and their emphasis on making contact with runners in scoring position, spelled out by Ben Whitelaw on X. He shows a wonderful graph displaying the disparity in contact rates overall and contact rates specifically in these moments for teams in 2024 compared to these same metrics in 2023.

The Rays' drop-off in this category was the largest in baseball. This trend was especially concerning because many of the moves (whether it was keeping more expensive players or trading for others) the Rays made were contact-focused players. Richie Palacios, Jose Caballero, and Yandy Diaz are all contact-over-power players on paper. Yet the Rays were quite bad with bat-to-ball skill in those ever-important "clutch spots."

Regardless of the reasoning, it is something to note. Whether it's the loss of key players at the trade deadline or the change in overall personnel from last season not working out, the Rays struggled enough in this area for the team to even discuss running specific drills in Spring Training to try and curb this trend according to an article by the Tampa Bay Times' Marc Topkin.

The drills span from using batting practice and game situations to try and reward players for doing their job in high-pressure situations such as ones with runners in scoring position in order to avoid another season where fans are forced to watch the Rays strand so many runners on base.

Could this trend just be an aberration?

There are examples of other teams simply underperforming in this area due to sheer luck; the Padres were in the bottom-10 in this category in 2023, yet for 2024 they were ranked 11th in wRC+ with runners in scoring position.

Meanwhile, the Padres added potential rookie of the year, Jackson Merrill and got a great performance from left fielder Jurickson Profar. They also lost Juan Soto, who would likely be an MVP any year that Aaron Judge and Bobby Witt, Jr. aren't having historic seasons.

Of course, it's pretty much impossible to ascertain whether or not this change is truly due to luck or if the Padres implemented changes of their own to their approach.

There's also a Baseball Prospectus article from 2016 (so a bit dated, but still) detailing the idea of hitting performance with RISP versus not, and the findings.

Regardless, either the Rays fix this problem with their Spring Training drills and any potential offseason moves they might make, or the issue course corrects itself and the Rays lead the league in wRC+ with runners in scoring position because that's just baseball. People will claim they're "clutch" and all those other clichés we love to use when trying to explain the potentially unexplainable.

Either way, the Rays should be competent in this category for next season as it would be difficult to be worse in these situations, especially for a well-run organization like the Rays. Therefore, just enjoy the offseason Hot Stove, and try not to despair about the Yankees potentially winning a World Series.