There was a moment during this season where the Rays were convincing me that somehow, in some way, this was going to work. For a month between May 21st and June 28th, the Rays were one of the best teams in baseball, and embedded themselves in what was initially considered a two-horse race in the AL East. With star turns from Junior Caminero, Jonathan Aranda, Drew Rasmussen, Zach Littell and Brandon Lowe, the Rays finally began picking things back up and surprising people again. Cash-ball just kept on working.
And then Aranda and Lowe got hurt, the team took a downturn and the true spoilers in the AL East, the Blue Jays, made it so the Rays didn't even need to be there. And thus they sold at the deadline [despite picking up Adrian Houser for some reason], calmed down significantly and took the L. And despite one last spike in late August, the Rays will once again be missing the playoffs this year, and are back under .500 despite how tricky they were in the heart of the season. And so next year, the Rays will reset once again, with new and different fan-favorites taking the place of many of the old ones.
Right now, there's not a ton left to do but play the music, yet there's still some decent performances to be found. Junior Caminero has 44 homers and 108 RBIs, and has cemented himself as a major power figure in the AL. Yandy Diaz and Pete Fairbanks have been putting in excellent free agency cases after the Rays will probably refuse to pick up their options. Josh Lowe's doing the same mid-lineup stuff he usually does, with 11 homers and 40 RBIs in 100 games. Chandler Simpson has 40 steals but not much else. Judging by his last start, Joe Boyle seems to be, at last, getting the hang of this MLB pitching thing. At this rate, the Rays will have 3 good starters that'll have made all 32 starts, and that's something to take with them to 2025, unless they decide to trade any of them before having to pay them.
If I sound cynical about the Rays' strategy, it's because it's decidedly anti-player and cheap in the name of stingy ownership. The Rays want good teams but they don't care if they last. So even if there's promising steps towards the future, who's to say they won't break that up if it saves them money. Maybe I'm wrong, but the Rays, under the current Manfred MLB regime, have no incentive to truly try. It remains to be seen if this will change.
Coming Tomorrow- In the last two months of every season, this guy starts going on a crazy power tear at the plate, and despite the complete inefficiency of his play during the first four months of this season, 2025 is no exception.
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