Pitching and hustling to the top, Rays can survive loss of Glasnow
Updated Wednesday, June 16, 2021
As professional sports began migrating to Florida in the 1970s and ‘80s, a safe bet seemed to be that Major League Baseball would boom in St. Petersburg. Baseball’s fan base is 55 and older. Where’s a better fit than a city whose average age is 42?
Alas, the Tampa Bay Rays won two American League pennants and had 10 winning seasons out of the past 14, without drawing 2 million fans in any of them. This year they’re an MLB-best 18 games over .500. They’re next to last in attendance.
Operating with a payroll that’s less than a third of what the Dodgers and Yankees spend for labor, the Rays’ Way is to draft well, develop well and shop for a few low-priced veterans to guide the young. “We’re a high-transaction team,” Erik Neander, 37-year-old general manager, says of a scatter-shooting approach that assumes as many misses as hits.
This year they spent $6.5 mil — almost 10% of the 2021 payroll — on 32-year-old Chris Archer. Now they’re praying his forearm injury doesn’t lead to Tommy John. They also committed $3 million to Michael Wacha, who has hamstring issues and a 4.54 ERA over 40 innings.
But the Rays scored big in the bargain basement with free-agent pitchers Rich Hill and Collin McHugh.
They signed Hill, 41, for $2.5 million. He’s 5-2 with a 3.38 ERA, 68 strikeouts in 66 innings. Every team would like him as a lefty starter.
Neander paid $1.8 mil for McHugh, 34, so erratic in Houston in 2019 that I referred to him as “McUgh.” Now, he’s the most dynamic middle reliever in baseball. Over his past 11 appearances he’s yielded one run in 17 innings. His slider has such unpredictable swerves that I can’t help but suspect Spider Tack is on board. I haven’t seen anything like it since Mike Scott’s scuffball in the late Eighties.
The Rays’ ace, majestic Tyler Glasnow, 6-foot-8 with billowing auburn hair, is blaming this week’s crackdown on Spider Tack for an elbow injury in Monday’s start against the Chicago White Sox. He admitted he was using stickiness to improve his grip, one result of that being more spin and movement on his changeup, which is a key to his enhanced performance: 5-2 record, 2.66 ERA, 123 strikeouts in 88 innings, batters hitting .156 on their third look at him.
In his first start since the war on Spider Tack, Glasnow complained of the ball being too slick. So he gripped it harder, causing stress on his elbow, resulting in a torn ligament that could put him out for the season.
The Rays will survive. They have an ace up their sleave in Luis Patino. The 21-year-old righty was in the haul of prospects swapped by San Diego for disgruntled World Series star Blake Snell.
Patino has been rehabbing in Triple-A after healing a lacerated middle finger. He has a 3.60 ERA in five games so far. A Rays scout told me Patino “is very mature, comes from Colombian parents who are college-educated. He’s a fast learner.”
Tampa’s arms supply seems endless, making up for a lineup that’s cheap and not too scary. Except for Randy Arozarena and Joey Wendle their players are seriously flawed. But they’re No. 1 in walks, and they run hard and field acrobatically, and manager Kevin Cash is the master of mix-and-match. And the power rises with Monday’s reactivation of Ji-Man Choi: .970 OPS before a strained groin interrupted.
Despite the brilliance of Neander, Cash and their talent scouts, the Rays’ days could be numbered in the retirement capital, owing primarily to a white elephant of a stadium. Tropicana Field is obsolete, the only unretractable dome in the bigs. It was designed to accommodate football (hosting the East-West Shrine Bowl since 2012), which means lots of lousy sight-lines and distant perspectives for baseball.
In 2007 the team proposed a ballpark on the site of Al Lang Stadium, which was my favorite spring-training venue, with its panorama of sailboats skimming the bay. A retractable dome in a steamy, rainy summer makes sense. But too many of the local politicians saw this as good money following bad. So the Rays are considering playing half their home games in Montreal. It’s complicated — legally and otherwise — but who can blame them for looking? They’re weary, not getting any younger. Hey, that’s how it is in St. Pete.
