24 things to know about the Rays’ 2024 season

Here are 24 things to know about the Rays’ 2024 season, from the absurd (move over, DJ Kitty; Flappy Boi is ready to take your throne) to the significant (approval for a new stadium has a pair of important votes coming up in May):

The company you keep

The Rays head into 2024 with a streak of five consecutive playoff appearances, matched by only the Astros (seven straight), Braves (six) and Dodgers (11). Further, the Rays have advanced to the postseason nine times since 2008. The only teams with more appearances in that span are the Dodgers (13), Yankees (11) and Cardinals (10). The Braves also have nine.

Will Yandy steal a base?

Yandy Diaz did a lot last season hitting leadoff, what with the AL batting title, a Silver Slugger award, his first All-Star appearance and a sixth-place finish in the AL MVP voting, matching the team high.

One thing he did not do was steal a base — caught in his only attempt July 7.

How rare is that? Only one other player in major-league history had more plate appearances in the leadoff spot during a season than Diaz’s 598 last year without stealing a base. Pete Rose. As a 34-year-old for the 1975 Reds, Rose made 764 plate appearances at the top of the order without a theft.

Only four other players have had even 400 leadoff plate appearances without a steal: Eddie Waitkus, 1951 Phillies; Kyle Schwarber, 2023 Phillies; Vic Power, 1955 A’s; and Wade Boggs, 1990 Red Sox.

Diaz has eight career steals, last on Sept. 7, 2022.

A new home?

Obviously a World Series championship is the biggest goal for the Rays this season, but you can posit that the most important accomplishment for the franchise overall will be getting approval to build the new stadium, planned as part of a massive redevelopment of the Historic Gas Plant District at and around the current site.

Votes by the St. Petersburg City Council and Pinellas County Commission are expected by May. The head Ray, principal owner Stuart Sternberg, said the project has been his primary point of attention. “Nobody’s letting me focus on the baseball this year,” he said. “I have to focus on getting the stadium approved.”

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One of the Rays’ projected benefits from a new stadium is larger crowds. Between how they played on the field, the introduction of lower-priced tickets (some for $10 a game and an all-games, standing-room-only pass for $49 a month/$249 all season) and other factors, they saw a nearly 30% increase last season from 2022. That was one of their largest year-over-year hikes, and the total of 1,440,301 was their best since 2014.

Arozarena’s 20-20 vision

He takes different paths to get there, but Randy Arozarena has been a model of consistency since joining the Rays to stay in 2021, reaching the 20-homer, 20-steal mark in each of his three full seasons. He was the first player to do so as a rookie and in each of his next two seasons, and is one of only three players majors-wide to go 20-20 the last three seasons, joining Cleveland’s Jose Ramirez and Philadelphia’s Trea Turner. The MLB record for consecutive 20-20 seasons is nine, by Barry Bonds (1990-98).

10-minute warning

After moving weekday game times up from the previously standard 7:10 to 6:40 last year, the Rays are splitting the difference for this season, shifting to 6:50. Team officials are hoping the extra 10 minutes on the front end help people coming from Tampa and elsewhere, but doesn’t impact the early return home that fans said they enjoyed.

Cash is king

Kevin Cash is only 46, and on good days doesn’t look it, prompting some of his colleagues to joke that he must have had work done.

But Cash is an old man by standards of his job. By entering his 10th season, he is the longest-tenured manager with his current team in the majors.

Come Thursday’s opener, he also will have managed the Rays longer than Joe Maddon, who went 754-705 (.517) and made four trips to the postseason in his nine seasons.

Cash has a better record — 739-617 (.545), and five postseason appearances — though he has managed 103 fewer games, primarily due to the abbreviated 2020 season.

With his 16th win this season, Cash will surpass Maddon as the winningest manager in franchise history. The other three are Lou Piniella, Hal McRae and Larry Rothschild.

And you are?

There are a couple of new faces in the Rays dugout. Michael Johns takes over as first base coach, after one year as Triple-A manager, as Chris Prieto was let go. Also new are Bobby Kinne, who moved from advanced scouting to the new position of pitching strategist, and Kris Goodman, who moves up from the minors to become process and development coach and handle mental performance matters. Missing are process and analytics coach Jonathan Erlichman, who moved back to the front office, and assistant hitting coach Dan DeMent, who was let go.

Help on the way

Taj Bradley’s spring pectoral muscle strain didn’t help, but a narrative for the Rays pitching staff through the first half or so of the season will be to try to hang on. That’s because the Rays are expecting — with surgery rehabs there always has to be a qualifier — to get three pretty good pitchers back during the second half of the season: Shane Baz, Drew Rasmussen and Jeffrey Springs. If so, it will be similar to a bountiful trade deadline haul.

The world’s team

Depending on the roster moves during the season, the Rays could have players from 11 countries besides the United States. Among them:

Australia: Curtis Mead

Canada: Trevor Brigden, Tristan Peters

Colombia: Harold Ramirez

Cuba: Randy Arozarena, Yandy Diaz

Dominican Republic: Junior Caminero, Francisco Mejia, Amed Rosario, Ronny Simon, Jose Siri

Japan: Naoyuki Uwasawa

Mexico: Jonathan Aranda, Isaac Paredes, Manuel Rodriguez

Nicaragua: Erasmo Ramirez

Panama: Jose Caballero

Taiwan: Yu Chang

Venezuela: Osleivis Basabe, Rene Pinto

For openers

Zach Eflin will be the 16th different opening day starter the Rays have used in 27 seasons. Here’s the list, with the number of times they did it:

4: Chris Archer, James Shields

3: David Price

2: Wilson Alvarez, Scott Kazmir, Shane McClanahan

1: Dewon Brazelton, Tyler Glasnow, Joe Kennedy, Albie Lopez, Charlie Morton, Blake Snell, Tanyon Sturtze, Steve Trachsel, Victor Zambrano

For more openers

Brandon Lowe is in line to make his fourth straight opening day start at second base, which would be the most in franchise history. Only a handful of players have made more (and not necessarily consecutively) at any position: Evan Longoria, third base, nine; Carl Crawford, leftfield, eight; Kevin Kiermaier, centerfield, seven; Toby Hall, catcher, five.

Whither Wander

In an ideal world, Wander Franco would be heading, at just 23, into his third full season, seeking to make a second straight All-Star appearance and establish himself as one of the game’s best all-around players. Instead, his status for this season, and maybe any season, remains uncertain. He faces legal issues in his native Dominican Republic stemming from an alleged relationship with a 14-year-old girl, and there’s the potential for a suspension by MLB pending the outcome of the case.

Off and running

Though they will be missing a few speedsters at the start of the season due to injury, the Rays plan to spend a lot of time on the run. They stole 160 bases last season — fourth most in the majors, third best in franchise history behind a couple of the Carl Crawford/BJ Upton years — with a 79.6 success rate that was their second best ever.

With Arozarena, Jose Siri and Amed Rosario ready to run, and Josh Lowe, Taylor Walls and Jonny DeLuca expected back from injuries relatively soon, they should be on the fly.

Junior partner

The Rays have one of the game’s next potentially great young players in Junior Caminero, a 20-year-old infielder with an explosive bat. Caminero was sent down in mid March to get ready for the Triple-A season, having been called up in September straight from Double A, with a focus on improving his defense.

His timeline to return to the majors will be based on injuries at the big-league level as well as performance — his and the current Rays. Whenever he does come up, the Rays will expect him to stay for a long time

Lucky 13

Every team talks about getting off to a good start each season. The Rays turned action into words last year — despite the disruption of splitting spring training among four sites — in winning their first 13 games. That tied the 1982 Braves and 1987 Brewers for the best start in modern major-league history, and was behind only the 20-0 performance by the 1884 St. Louis Maroons.

New York, New York

The Rays won’t see the Yankees (or the Red Sox for that matter) at the Trop in April, which is kind of unusual. But then it will be New York, New York time as the Mets visit May 3-5 and the Bronx Bombers May 10-13.

Back loaded

The Rays’ early-season schedule doesn’t seem too taxing — except for the packing conundrum of an early April trip to Denver and Anaheim — getting 13 days off while playing 96 games before the All-Star break.

But they had better be rested from there, playing their final 66 games in 73 days, including their final 42 in 45 days (plus any potential makeups). That stretch includes back-to-back three-city trips, to Oakland-Los Angeles-Seattle Aug. 19-28, then to Baltimore-Philadelphia-Cleveland on Sept. 6-15.

Welcome back

The Rays will make their first visits to face the Dodgers and Rockies since 2019. With the advent of the schedule format last season, there will no longer be any such extended gaps, as teams will visit opposing-league cities every other year.

Expansion battles

This will be the 27th season of Rays baseball. Through 26 seasons they are 2,011-2,097 (.490) with nine playoff appearances (most of any expansion team during that span) and two American League pennants but no World Series championships.

Boi’s club

Among 17 promotional giveaways planned this season, the highlight looks to be the Flappy Boi zip-up hoodie. It’s easier to see than explain, but it has that cult following vibe like when the Rays gave out DJ Kitty onesies.

Fame game

In celebrating their first 25 seasons, the Rays last year launched a team Hall of Fame, inducting an inaugural class of Don Zimmer, Carl Crawford and Wade Boggs. They will add two more members this year: former radio broadcaster Dave Wills, who died last year, on April 14, and original Ray and Tampa native Fred McGriff, who was inducted into Cooperstown last year, on Sept. 1.

Familiar faces in new places

Among former Rays who were traded or left otherwise, here is a list with their new teams (as of March 19): Jalen Beeks, Rockies; Christian Bethancourt, Marlins; Vidal Brujan, Marlins; Yonny Chirinos, Marlins; Jake Diekman, Mets; Calvin Faucher, Marlins; Josh Fleming, Pirates; Tyler Glasnow, Dodgers; Andrew Kittredge, Cardinals; Manuel Margot, Twins; Luke Raley, Mariners; Robert Stephenson, Angels.

‘We hope you enjoyed the broadcast …'

Though there has been discussion about a future deal with Amazon Prime, Rays games will be shown on TV and streaming this year just as they have in the past, via Bally Sports Sun cable and the Bally app. And the faces doing the talking will be pretty much the same, with the crew led by Dewayne Staats, who is heading into his 49th season in the majors, and Brian Anderson.

Also on TV will be Tricia Whitaker, Doug Waechter, Rich Hollenberg, Matt Joyce, Denard Span and Ryan Bass. The radio teams returns intact, with Andy Freed, Neil Solondz and Chris Adams-Wall on the call. The Spanish radio team is also the same, with Enrique Oliu and Ricardo Taveras.

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