The Rays Are Falling Apart

Injuries are testing Tampa Bay’s depth. Can the club hang on in a crowded wild card race?

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On Friday night in Cincinnati, the Rays lost to the last-place Reds on a walk-off balk by pitcher Matt Wisler. It was the 23rd instance of a balk-off in the past century, making it a feat nearly as rare as a perfect game. In the days that have followed, Tampa Bay’s injury luck seems to be following a similarly bleak and unlikely trend.

The Rays will be without shortstop Wander Franco and center fielder Kevin Kiermaier for the foreseeable future. Franco, the 21-year-old phenom, will undergo surgery on his right wrist and miss up to two months. Kiermaier, a three-time Gold Glove winner and longest-tenured Ray, is out indefinitely with a hip injury that might also require surgery.

Franco and Kiermaier join a Tampa Bay injured list that already includes second baseman Brandon Lowe, right fielder Manuel Margot, catcher Mike Zunino and pitchers Jeffrey Springs, Andrew Kittredge and J.P. Feyereisen. The Rays took the field against the Red Sox on Tuesday with a lineup that featured just three players who were among the Opening Day starting nine. The organization has long been lauded for its unmatched depth, but that strength will be tested to its limits given the current state of the roster.

Entering play Wednesday, the Rays were the only team in the majors to have 15 batters make at least 100 plate appearances this season, while no club has used more pitchers than Tampa Bay’s 30. Playing in a small market with the sixth-lowest Opening Day payroll makes for a lot of relatively anonymous Rays for the casual fan. So, too, does the fact that there are simply so many names and faces to know. 

Of course, roster churning is nothing new for the organization. Tampa Bay has operated this way for years. It may not be the most entertaining way to run a baseball team, but the Rays have had a lot of success doing so. They have made the playoffs in each of the last three seasons, twice winning the loaded AL East, and went to the World Series in 2020. Depth is the reason the Rays still retain possession of one of three AL wild-card spots, despite all of the injuries and recent poor form. Even after beating the Red Sox in their two most recent games, the Rays have have lost eight of their last 15 games and 15 of their last 27 entering play Wednesday.

Injuries have limited Franco to just 58 games on the season, and he wasn’t exactly lighting the world on fire with his .260/.308/.396 slash line. Yet he still ranked sixth on the team in fWAR (1.2) and third in plate appearances (247), with the potential to produce so much more. And the primary options to replace him aren’t ideal.

Taylor Walls has been given a lot of playing time this season all over the diamond, but has spent most of his time at shortstop. A third-round pick in 2017 with a strong pedigree as a prospect, thus far his bat has not developed as the organization hoped. In 252 plate appearances, Walls has an abysmal .164/.246/.261 slash line. That’s good for a 52 wRC+, which is the fifth-lowest among players with at least 200 plate appearances. Utility infielder Isaac Paredes, who leads the team with 13 home runs and a .550 slugging percentage, has been a revelation after coming over from the Tigers in the Austin Meadows trade two days before the season started. The one infield position Paredes hasn’t played this year is shortstop, so he isn’t the answer to replace Franco, either. Tampa Bay’s starting second baseman Monday, Jonathan Aranda, was playing in just his fourth career game. All of this indicates the Rays should target adding a middle infielder ahead of the Aug. 2 trade deadline.

The same goes for the outfield, where the Rays will be without Kiermaier and Margot for much of the summer, leaving left fielder Randy Arozarena as the only healthy starter. Each of the three outfielders in Monday’s lineup—Luke Raley, Brett Phillips and Josh Lowe—are batting under .200. Harold Ramírez, who has been one of the top Tampa Bay hitters this season, has seen time as a corner outfielder, but he’s been used as the team’s primary designated hitter for most of the season.

Last week, the Rays acquired catcher and first baseman Christian Bethancourt from the A’s in exchange for two minor leaguers to get some level of production behind the dish. Zunino, who was an All-Star last year and hit 33 home runs, has missed the last 33 days with shoulder inflammation, which had ailed him for much of the first two months before he landed on the IL. He had a .499 OPS and five homers in 36 games. One-time top prospect Francisco Mejía has actually started to heat up after a sluggish May and June. There could still be some hope for Mejía, who got off to a strong start before testing positive for COVID-19 two weeks into the season. Over his last 18 games, he’s slashing .298/.310/.474.

Bethancourt was a former top catching prospect with the Braves before he was traded to the Padres in December 2015. He spent two seasons in San Diego before spending the next four years in minor league organizations, the Dominican Winter League and the Korean Baseball Organization, before finally returning to the bigs this season with Oakland. Since June 1, he’s batting .263 with four home runs and a .475 slugging percentage. He has never been able to hit at the major league level, but the Rays have been known to get the better end of trades for fringe guys, so maybe the best is still to come for him. Either way, Bethancourt isn’t the missing piece.

But just because they should trade for a middle infielder and outfielder, not to mention another bullpen arm or two, doesn’t mean they will. Last year, the Rays traded for Nelson Cruz to help fortify the lineup en route to another division title, and they could look to make a similar move for a veteran player on an expiring contract. That said, they are in a completely different situation now than they were a year ago, mainly because of the AL East standings. Entering Wednesday, Tampa Bay is 14 games behind the Yankees in the AL East. FanGraphs gives the Rays a 0.3% chance to win the division and a 66.6% chance to clinch a wild-card berth. So, they have a pretty decent shot at making the playoffs with their current group of players, but no deadline move is going to help them run down New York. For an organization that is all about risk aversion and playing the odds, the front office could decide the safer option for this season is to make minimal changes to the roster and hope that Franco, Lowe, Kiermaier and at least some of the other injured players return in time to help the Rays make a run in the postseason. If not, well then they didn’t give up a future star for an early October exit. Don’t forget that in the Cruz trade, the Rays had to give up righthanded pitching prospect Joe Ryan, who is now the ace of the Twins’ rotation.

A lot could change over the next three weeks before the deadline. The AL wild card race is crowded with more teams than just the Rays, Red Sox and Blue Jays. The Orioles have won nine in a row and suddenly are just two games out of a playoff spot. The Mariners are winners of eight straight and could have an easier path to a wild card berth down the stretch playing some of the lesser clubs in the AL West. The Guardians and the White Sox aren’t going away, either.

All of this makes it unlikely the Rays will make aggressive moves to win now at the cost of future depth. Then again, so is losing a game on a balk-off. The Rays have leaned on an anonymous cast of characters before and thrived, but that will be much more difficult this year with their many notable absences.

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