Unlike the NBA and NFL, the MLB hasn’t felt the need to designate a salary cap. This is because in baseball, spending money doesn’t necessarily make you better. In baseball, you must use your brain and smartly construct your roster. For a fact, in 2023, the three teams with the highest payroll all missed the playoffs. One team is far and away the best at taking advantage of the above. This team is the Tampa Bay Rays.
Logically, even if a team develops a good young core, their stars’ contacts will eventually end and they’ll demand pay raises. After a couple of years, the team will either have to spend money or else they’ll fall off. However, this concept doesn’t seem to apply to the Tampa Bay Rays. From 2018 until 2023, the Tampa Bay Rays finished 10 at least games above .500 every year. Tampa Bay even made the World Series in 2020 but lost to the Los Angeles Dodgers. These accomplishments are impressive, but on the surface, they’re not unordinary. What makes this run so special is the fact that the Tampa Bay Rays rarely sign established free agents, they’re all home-grown. In 2018, with the lowest payroll in the MLB, the Rays had the 9th-best record in the MLB. In 2019, with the lowest payroll again, the Rays put up the 7th-best record in professional baseball. In 2020, with the 2nd-lowest payroll in the American League, the Rays won the American League Pennant and reached the World Series. In 2021, with the 3rd-lowest payroll in the American League, the Rays were the only team in the American League to reach 100 wins. In 2022, they fell off a bit. With the 8th-lowest payroll, Tampa Bay posted the 12th-best record in the MLB, still impressive. In 2023, they bounced back by putting the 4th-best record in the MLB while having the 4th-lowest payroll. In theory, it makes no sense, unless they’re statistical and analytical geniuses. Let’s take a deeper look and try to understand how they’re doing this:
THE PITCHING GENIUS:
In 2012, the Rays hired a new pitching coach for their A-level affiliate, the Hudson Valley Renegades. This coach was Kyle Snyder. The Rays slowly but surely noticed that everything Snyder touched turned to gold, and began to move him up their ranks. Entering the 2018 season, Tampa Bay made Snyder the pitching coach for their big league club.
Blake Snell:
Snyder chose Blake Snell as his first project. Snell was a 25-year-old kid with unhittable stuff but was held back by serious struggles with command. In 2017, Snell put up a 4.04 ERA with 7.9 hits-per-9, 4.1 walks-per-9, and only 8.3 strikeouts-per-9. In his first year under Snyder Snell instantly became an elite pitcher and won the American League Cy Young Award. In 2018 Snell put up a 1.89 ERA (53% improvement) with only 5.6 hits-per-9 (29% improvement), 3.2 walks-per-9 (22% improvement), and 11.0 strikeouts-per-9 (33% improvement)! Snell struggled with injuries in 2019 but had a decent 2020 season. Then, out of nowhere, the Rays traded Snell to the San Diego Padres for Francisco Mejia and 3 prospects.
Tyler Glasnow:
In 2019, with Blake Snell missing the majority of the season, Snyder started working on his next project. This was the 25-year-old Tyler Glasnow. In two and a half seasons with the Pittsburgh Pirates, Tyler Glasnow struggled. He put a 5.79 ERA, allowed 9.6 hits-per-9, 5.8 walks-per-9, and only 9.7 strikeouts-per-9. At the 2018 trade deadline, the Rays recognized Glasnow’s potential and traded for him. After one offseason with Kyle Snyder, he was a completely new pitcher. In 2019, Glasnow put up a 1.78 ERA (69% improvement), only allowed 5.9 hits-per-9 (39% improvement), 2.1 walks-per-9 (64% improvement), and had 11.3 strikeouts-per-9 (17% improvement)! Glasnow wasn’t great in the 2020 shortened season but was one of the best pitchers in the league for the next three years. Then, since he was almost up for a new contract, the Rays traded Glasnow to the Los Angeles Dodgers for 26-year-old starting pitcher Ryan Pepiot and 25-year-old outfielder Jonny DeLuca. The Dodgers immediately signed Glasnow to a 5-year 136.5-million-dollar deal.
Nick Anderson:
Kyle Snyder’s 2020 project was the closer, Nick Anderson. Anderson made his professional debut with the Miami Marlins as a 28-year-old rookie in 2019. That very season, before the trade deadline, the Rays recognized Anderson’s potential and traded for him. In 45 appearances with the Marlins, Anderson posted a 3.92 ERA, allowed 8.2 hits-per-9 and 3.3 walks-per-9. After only one offseason under Snyder, Anderson became one of the top closers in the game. In 2020, Anderson put up a 0.55 ERA (86% improvement) while allowing only 2.8 hits-per-9 (66% improvement) and 1.7 walks-per-9 (48% improvement)! After only 6 appearances in 2021, Nick Anderson tore up his elbow and underwent Tommy John surgery. After a year and a half recovery, Anderson signed with the Atlanta Braves. Anderson wasn’t nearly the same and put up similar numbers to his Marlins days. It’s hard to tell if his arm was affected by the surgery or if he was missing Snyder. After the 2023 season, Anderson was traded to the Kansas City Royals. Through 16 appearances in 2024, Nick Anderson is having the worst season of his career.
Shane McClanahan:
In 2021, the Rays called up one of their top pitching prospects, the 24-year-old Shane McClanahan. McClanahan was the 4th-best prospect in the Rays system, and 83rd in all of baseball. In accordance, he was expected to be solid but not a superstar. McClanahan immediately became a “Snyder Special”. In three seasons with the Rays, McClanahan has been incredible despite struggling with injuries. Starting pitchers are very dependent on routine and proper habits. Therefore, when they are often injured, they won’t be as good even when they’re healthy. Yet, that doesn’t seem to bother Shane McClanahan. McClanahan has suffered multiple injuries to his throwing arm early in his career. Nevertheless, he’s posted sub 3.5 ERAs in all three seasons and has been elected to two All-Star games. The Rays have avoided arbitration and agreed with McClanahan on salaries for 2024 and 2025. McClanahan is still only 27, so he has plenty of time to eventually get healthy and become one of the top pitchers in the MLB. The only question is if the Rays will trade him before he gets the chance.
These four pitchers were all greatly impacted by Kyle Snyder’s coaching. There are a lot more examples of pitchers that improved upon contact with Snyder. However, I can’t break down 25+ pitchers in one article, so I chose the four most extreme cases.
THE BATTING LINEUP STRATEGY:
The Rays have earned themselves a reputation for letting star position players walk and getting away with it. They develop great hitters, then get rid of them when their up for new contracts, and then replace them with a fresh batch of players they developed. The craziest part is that often the players won’t be good anymore after leaving Tampa. For example Austin Meadows and Mallex Smith. In Meadows’ last year in Tampa, he posted a .772 OPS, and then saw his OPS drop by almost 100 points, to .675, in his first season with the Detroit Tigers. Mallex Smith posted a .773 OPS in his last season with the Rays and then saw it drop by over 100 points, to .635, in his first season with the Seattle Mariners.
While the Rays’ pitching success can be credited to Kyle Snyder and his staff, it was more difficult to explain their lineup’s success. Based on what I said above about Meadows and Smith, it almost seemed as if being in the Rays’ lineup was what made these players good. So, I took a look at the Rays’ lineups, starting with their 2018 lineup. The three players whose numbers impressed me the most were CJ Cron, Joey Wendle, and the previously mentioned Mallex Smith. I opened their 2018 Baseball Savant pages and noticed an intriguing pattern. 2 out of CJ Cron’s worst metrics were whiff percentage (30%) and strikeout percentage (26%). Meanwhile, 2 out of Joey Wendle’s 3 best metrics were whiff percentage (20%) and strikeout percentage (18%). One of Joey Wendle’s worst metrics was chase percentage (35%). In accordance, Mallex Smith’s 2nd-best metric was his chase percentage(26%). Furthermore, Smith’s best metric was his strikeout percentage (18%), which was Cron’s 2nd-worst metric(26%). Smith’s worst metric was his barrel rate, and as you can probably guess, that was Cron’s best metric. Every batter’s strengths matched the other batters’ weaknesses. This way opponents can’t bring in specialists to get guys out. If you bring in a pitcher who relies on getting players to swing and miss in the zone to face Cron, he’ll have trouble with Wendle. If you bring in a pitcher who relies on getting batters to chase pitches outside the zone to face Wendle, he’ll have trouble with Smith. This continues throughout their entire lineup. Ever since their breakout season in 2018, the Rays have carefully built their lineup around this concept.
It goes even further. As we all know, when the pitcher and batter have the same strong arm, it favors the pitcher, and vice versa. Out of the 10 players on the Rays’ 2018 roster that had the most plate appearances, 5 are right-handed hitters and 5 are left-handed hitters. If a lineup strategically switches off their righties and lefties, opponents will either be forced to let the Rays’ hitters get many favorable matchups or burn through their bullpen way too quickly. Either option extremely benefits Tampa Bay. In the Rays’ 2020 World Series run, their best hitter in the playoffs was Randy Arozarena. The right-handed Arozarena was strategically placed in the lineup between three left-handed hitters, Austin Meadows, Brandon Lowe, and Ji-Man Choi. As a result Randy faced left-handed pitchers 35 times in the playoffs and as a result of that, he put up a 1.273 OPS in the 2020 playoffs. The perfect example of this and an answer to one of the previous questions is the way the Rays placed Austin Meadows in their lineup in 2021. The left-handed Meadows would almost always be surrounded by the dangerous right-handed sluggers, Nelson Cruz and Randy Arozarena. In 2021 with Tampa Bay, Meadows put up a strong .872 OPS against righties and a poor .563 OPS against lefties. In 2022 with Detroit, Meadows put up similar splits, the difference was that he saw a significant drop in his number of plate appearances against righties. In games 1 and 2 of the 2021 ALDS, the Red Sox started the left-handed Eduardo Rodriguez, so the Rays simply didn’t start Meadows. In game 3, Boston started the right-handed Nathan Eovaldi. In accordance, the Rays started Meadows in the 3 sport, and he hit a home run and a double.
There are an insane amount of examples of both strategies. However, I can’t sit here and break down 25+ hitters. Therefore, to wrap up the article, I chose 3 examples of hitters who left the Rays and then were outperformed by their replacements:
Tommy Pham - Randy Arozarena:
Tommy Pham was the starting left fielder for the Rays in 2019. After putting up an impressive .818 OPS on one of the last years of his contract, Pham was hoping for a pay raise. In accordance, the Rays traded him to the San Diego Padres, who gave Pham an 8-million-dollar arbitration contract. In 2020, his first season in San Diego, Pham saw his OPS drop from .818 to a career-low .624. Meanwhile, the Rays replaced Pham in left field with a 25-year-old Cuban prospect with a 0.56-million-dollar yearly salary. That prospect was Randy Arozarena, the same guy who put up a 1.273 OPS and 10 home runs in the 2020 playoffs.
Austin Meadows - Harold Ramirez:
In 2021, Tampa Bay had 4 good outfielders and had to rotate them. The 4 were Randy Arozarena, Kevin Kiermaier, Manuel Margot, and Austin Meadows. After the season, since Meadows was nearing the end of his contract, the Rays decided that he was the odd man out and traded him to the Detroit Tigers. Between 2022 and 2023, the Tigers paid Meadows 8.3 million dollars on arbitration deals. As I previously mentioned, Meadows stunk in Detroit. Meanwhile, the Rays replaced Meadows by trading for Harold Ramirez. Ramirez put up a poor .703 OPS in 2021, so he was easy to trade for and had a cheap contract of 0.58 million dollars per year. Unsurprisingly, Ramirez saw his OPS increase by almost 50 points in his first season in Tampa, and then it increased by another 60 in his second year there. As of today, Ramirez bats in the heart of the Rays’ lineup, and Meadows is out of the MLB.
Willy Adames - Wander Franco:
From 2018 through 2020, Willy Adames was Tampa Bay’s starting shortstop. Adames was consistently an above average starter, and was expected to receive a large contract at some point. In 2021, Adames got off to a relatively weak start, but he was expected to get back on track soon. However, before he could do so, the Rays traded Adames to the Milwaukee Brewers for a pair of young arms, J.P. Feyereisen and Drew Rasmussen. Over the next two years, the Brewers paid Adames 13.3 million dollars worth of arbitration deals. The Rays replaced Willy Adames by calling up their 21-year-old super-prospect, Wander Franco. Franco was impressive in 2022 and earned himself a contract extension. At the time, it was seen as a great move for the Rays, until Franco got into legal trouble last year. However, the Rays’ statisticians couldn’t have predicted that, so we can’t blame them. Nevertheless, in the 112 games Franco played in 2023, he put up an .819 OPS, while being paid 2.4 million dollars. Much more cost-effective than the .717 OPS Willy Adames put up in 2023, while being paid 8 million dollars by the Brewers.
The Tampa Bay Rays are currently 22W-22L, which seems less good than what they’ve grown accustomed to. Don’t let this average record fool you. The Rays have been an average team despite half of their rotation being on the shelf. When Ryan Pepiot, Shane Baz, and Shane McClanahan return from their injuries, Tampa’s pitching staff will be lethal. In addition, Tampa’s lineup will shortly be receiving reinforcements from their farm system. Carson Williams, the 17th-best prospect in baseball, and Junior Caminero, the 3rd-best prospect in baseball, are both 20-year-old infielders, who are expected to join the big league club within the next year. The Tampa Bay Rays have found the perfect system and they’re going to continue being contenders for a very long time.
RELEVANT BASEBALL-REFERENCE PAGES:
RELEVANT BASEBALL SAVANT PAGES:
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