2024 MLB Season Preview: Tampa Bay Rays

Heading into the franchise’s 27th season — and the 10th under the leadership of manager Kevin Cash — the Tampa Bay Rays will attempt to make the postseason for the sixth consecutive season, one year after finishing second in the American League East by two games behind the Baltimore Orioles despite winning 99 games.

Tampa Bay Rays

2023 Season Record: 99-63

AL East Rank: 2nd

SB Nation Team Site: DRays Bay

2024 Schedule

Friday, June 14 - 7:20 p.m. ET - Truist Park

Saturday, June 15 - 4:10 p.m. ET - Truist Park

Sunday, June 16 - 1:35 p.m. ET - Truist Park

Where were they in 2023?

To their home fans, the Rays were seemingly nowhere to be found, as team failed to top 1.5 million in attendance for the tenth year in a row. Snarkiness aside, the Rays did see an increase of more than 300,000 fans from 2022 to move them into 13th place in the American League in attendance. Not since their inaugural season in 1998 has the team drawn as many as two million fans, but despite playing in a building most often full of empty seats, the organization has thrived for the last 15 years or so despite consistently fielding one the sport’s lowest payrolls.

The team had success again in 2023, winning 99 games in the regular season before being swept by the eventual World Series Champion Texas Rangers in the AL Wild Card Series. It wasn’t the early exit from the postseason that was the biggest cloud over the organization — rather it was the criminal charges brought against former Rays phenom Wander Franco during the regular season.

The severity of the accusations against Franco can’t be underscored, but from a baseball-only perspective, the Rays lost both their best position player and also the one that the team had financially committed to through at least his age-31 season in 2032, thanks to a monster 11-year, $182 million contract signed after the 2021 season. For an organization whose team payroll has rarely exceeded $100 million in a season (just four times, including 2022-2023, but only if you count the luxury tax-eligible payroll and never the Opening Day, 26-man roster payroll), there are huge ramifications for the Rays as the team looks into the future — even one that could see them move to a new stadium before the end of this decade.

Despite the issues with Franco, who had posted 4.6 fWAR in just 112 games in 2023, the Rays excelled as a whole on offense despite the relative anonymity of roster outside of first-time All-Star, and 2021 AL Rookie of the Year Randy Arozarena. Of the 10 position players who saw action in 100 or more games, all but former Braves top prospect, catcher Christian Bethancourt, posted an wRC+ of 106 or better.

The offense was led by 31-year-old first baseman Yandy Diaz, who won the AL batting title with a .330 batting average while winning a Silver Slugger award and being named to his first All-Star Game. In 137 games, Diaz slugged at a .522 clip with a wRC+ of 164, along with 22 home runs and 35 doubles. The sixth-overall vote-getter for the 2023 AL Most Valuable Player Award collected 173 hits while topping the .400 OBP mark for the second consecutive season for the Rays.

Photo by Julio Aguilar/Getty Images

The team was led in home runs by former Tigers’ prospect Isaac Paredes, who blasted 31 home runs as the team’s primary third baseman, and massively outhit his xwOBA in the process. The 24-year-old finished second behind Diaz in wRC+ with 137 for the season.

Five other regulars finished with an wRC+ of 120 or better, including Josh Lowe, Franco, Luke Raley, Harold Ramirez and Arozarena. Second baseman Brandon Lowe and centerfield Jose Siri also ended the season with an wRC+ besting 100 and each also hit 20-plus round-trippers for Tampa Bay.

And unlike other AL teams who stole a lot of bases despite not making the playoffs, the Rays stole 160 as a team, led by Josh Lowe’s 32. Put it together and the Rays finished second in MLB in wRC+ (118, behind the Braves’ 125). They were fourth in position player value overall.

The pitching staff was led by free agent signee Zach Eflin, who gave the team 31 starts — 10 more than his closest rotation-mate — good for an 86 ERA-, 73 FIP-, and 73 xFIP- in 177.2 innings. The former Phillies starter finished sixth in the AL Cy Young Award thanks in part to a sturdy 7.75 SO/W ratio that saw him while striking out a total of 186 batters.

The team also got 21 starts each from Tyler Glasnow and Shane McClanahan, although Glasnow has been traded and McClanahan is expected to miss the 2024 season after undergoing Tommy John Surgery on his elbow last fall. Glasnow was phenomenal, compiling over 3 fWAR in his 120 innings, while McClanahan managed under 2 fWAR in his 115 frames. As usual, the Rays got a ton of pitching quality from under-the-radar additions, and then also saw a bunch of those additions get injured. Drew Rasmussen was disgustingly good in eight starts, and then went down with elbow problems. Zack Littell, midseason acquisition Aaron Civale, and Taj Bradley all did pretty much what you expect little-heralded pitchers the Rays acquire to do in the rotation.

The team’s bullpen was also a strength, as it seems to be most seasons, with seven pitchers who appeared in 32 or more games in relief all putting up at least 0.4 fWAR, and none of them having an FIP of 4.00 or higher. Four of them managed 1.1 fWAR or more, including Robert Stephenson, who did so in just 38 ¹⁄₃ innings. Pete Fairbanks, along with Stephenson, had an ERA, FIP, and xFIP all below 3.00. Overall, the Rays finished with MLB’s second-most-productive pitching staff by fWAR, including its third-best rotation and eighth-best bullpen.

With an above average offense and pitching staff, it's easy to see how the team just missed winning 100 games and spent 114 days leading the AL East before succumbing to Baltimore in September.

What did they do in the offseason?

The Rays were busy reshaping their roster - including trading several players from their active roster to restock the team’s minor league system. The most notable trade involved sending Glasnow, the highly talented but oft-injured pitcher, to the Los Angeles Dodgers, along with outfielder Manuel Margot, for Jonny DeLuca and Ryan Pepiot in a move that cleared payroll from the team’s 2024 books.

The team also dealt infielder Vidal Brujan in a five-player deal with the Marlins and sent outfielder/first baseman Luke Raley to Seattle for infielder Jose Caballero, who could spend a big chunk of time at shortstop for the Rays.

The team added some depth with low-cost free agents like pitcher Chris Devenski, but added former Astros pitcher Phil Maton to a deal that could be worth $14M over two years if the second-year option is picked up by the Rays.

After the start of Spring Training, the team signed Amed Rosario to a one-year, $1.5 million deal that saw the former starting shortstop add depth to the team’s infield depth.

Where are they hoping to go?

The Rays will be in the mix for the AL East title in what should be, again, a highly competitive division with all teams in the division on a quest to overtake the defending champion Orioles. FanGraphs’ current projections place them second in the division behind the Yankees but fifth in MLB. Their division odds are one-in-four, but they have a greater than 60 percent shot of making the playoffs.

They’ll look to again be driven by a combination of Diaz, Parades, Arozarena, and the Lowes offensively, and a lockdown bullpen. The only real concern on the roster could be catcher, where it’s not clear that Rene Pinto can hit enough to be a regular, but he should provide sufficient defensive value to mitigate any semblance of disaster. It feels almost useless at this point to even comment on the pitching with specifics, since the Rays will, irrespective of incipient injury or other challenges, almost certainly somehow yank well-above-average performance from some arms they pluck from other organizations.

For Cash, he will look to become the winningest manager in franchise history in April as the 46-year-old is only 15 wins from tying Joe Maddon’s 754 wins for most as Rays manager.

Braves 2023 head-to-head

Last season, the Atlanta Braves and Tampa Bay Rays locked-up for a three-game series from July 7 through July 9 at the Dome in St. Petersburgh. Atlanta took two of three games, winning the first two games of the matchup behind former Ray Charlie Morton and Spencer Strider — who both held the Rays to only one run per game — before dropping the series finally to the Rays as Tampa Bay roughed-up Atlanta starter Bryce Elder with seven earned runs in 3 ¹⁄₃ innings while Rays’ starter Eflin held the Braves to two runs in five inning to earn his tenth win of the season.

In 2024, the Braves will host the Rays for three games from June 14-June 16 for a weekend series in Atlanta.