Can the peskiest team in the AL East get back into the mix in 2025?
Our annual series of previewing the Boston Red Sox’s foes continues with everybody’s favorite Junior Circuit relocation candidate and the peskiest team the AL East has to offer: the Tampa Bay Rays.
What’s This Team’s Deal?
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To loosely quote the shirt adorned by a certain pop star — whose name I will not type since I don’t want to risk being put in the crosshairs of anyone who happens to be a fan of theirs as well as this baseball team — the Rays have a lot going on at the moment.
After perpetually being in the mix for nearly a decade, Tampa took a considerable step backwards last season. Their win total fell from 99 in 2023 to 80 in 2024, as the Rays missed the postseason for the first time since 2018 and failed to crack the .500 mark for the first time since 2017.
Sure, Tampa Bay boasted a top-10 pitching staff last year in regards to collective stats like ERA (3.77, ninth in MLB), WHIP (1.20, fourth in MLB), and opponents batting average (.236, eighth in MLB). There was good pitching in the Gulf of Mexico America Canada, what else is new?
But on the flip side, the club’s Achilles heel was offense. Only four teams last season had fewer than the Rays’ 1,241 hits, just two clubs hit fewer than their 147 home runs, and only one team could say they had fewer than Tampa’s 604 runs scored and a worse team OPS than the Rays’ mark of .669. In all of those instances, one of the teams worse than the Rays at the plate was the 2024 Chicago White Sox, perhaps the single worst team that any of us has ever seen in our entire lives.
All of this came in the middle of a tug-of-war between the leaders of the Rays organization and local political officials over the future of the team’s presence in the gulf region. I’m not well-versed enough to give you the entire rundown, but as of late January the club has yet to make a decision on whether or not they’ll proceed with developing a new $1.3 billion ballpark in St. Petersburg; a decision has to be made by the end of March.
That decision seems especially pertinent now, considering that the Rays’ primary home is literally torn and frayed. Hurricane Milton’s devastating landfall back in October destroyed the roof of Tropicana Field and made the venue untenable for the upcoming campaign. While the Trop could be back to hosting games in time for Opening Day 2026, the Rays will be playing their home games a half hour north from St. Pete at Steinbrenner Field—the spring training home of the New York Yankees in Tampa proper. No trips to Ferg’s this year, unfortunately.
(Side note since we’re on the topic: I sort of understand why the Trop has had plenty of empty seats over the years. I used to believe it was as simple as the locals not going out to support the team and the Trop being a bit of a mess, but it’s not so simple. Have you ever seen a game there in person? If you have, then you’d know that St. Pete’s way out of the way from the actual city of Tampa. Imagine if Fenway and Gillette swapped spots. Gillette is fine for Pats games since they only host a handful of them a year, but it would be a huge pain in the ass for fans to go out to Foxboro 81-plus times a year. I’ll give Rays fans some slack for that.)
So the question of what their deal is boils down to this: while the 26 guys on Tampa’s roster try to turn things around in the short term, the long-term future of the organization is in flux. That’s quite the situation indeed.
How Good Are They?
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………..ehhhhhhhhhhhh.
Look, I’ve been burned by the Rays enough time in my life to never count them out. They’re a constant pain in the ass and thorn in our collective side, an entity that was seemingly made just to piss off the Red Sox and their fans. The names change but the annoyance remains the same.
With that said, I’m not entirely convinced that Tampa Bay has done enough this offseason to vault them back into contention in the American League.
The pitching staff should remain steady, at the very least. Two of the classic blunders you could fall victim to are to never get involved in a land war in Asia and never doubt the Rays’ pitching lab. Southpaw ace Shane McClanahanahanahanahanahanahanahanan is back at the top of the rotation after undergoing Tommy John surgery and sitting out for the entirety of 2024. When he’s at his best—like when he posted a 144 ERA+ over 166.1 innings in 2022—there aren’t a whole lot of guys who are better than him on the bump. Bouncing back from TJ is no gimmie, and maybe the Rays limit his innings a bit (manager Kevin Cash has a track record of doing that with his lefty aces), but McClanahan is good enough to make a difference even with limited volume.
McClanahan is one of three Rays starters projected to have over nine strikeouts per nine innings, according to Fangraphs. You can expect the pitchers in both the rotation and the bullpen to miss more than their fair share of bats. Taj Bradley has a chance to take a leap forward if he can keep the loud contact at (Tampa) bay—his average exit velocity surrendered of 91.2 MPH was in the second percentile last year—while Ryan Pepiot has shown some nice flashes during his young career and can be a strong contributor if he can keep the walks to a minimum.
The two Rays starters I’m most curious to see in 2025 are Drew Rasmussen and Shane Baz.
After undergoing internal brace surgery about halfway through the 2023 season, Rasmussen was sidelined until August of 2024. He only threw 28.2 frames to finish out last season (28.2 quality frames at that), but he’s been very impressive for the Rays ever since coming over from Milwaukee in May 2021 thanks to the Willy Adames trade. In 278.1 innings with Tampa Bay, Rasmussen has posted a 2.72 ERA, a 1.03 WHIP, a 2.86 FIP, and a 143 ERA+. He had been one of the league’s most underrated pitchers prior to his injury; I’m interested in seeing if he can get back to that form.
Baz, meanwhile, had a ton of pedigree as he was coming up through the Rays’ farm system. Brought in through the infamous 2018 Chris Archer deal with Pittsburgh, Baz was considered one of the premier pitching prospects (TINSTAAPP, I know, don’t yell at me) just a few short years ago. Elbow issues since early 2022 have stunted his career progression, but FanGraphs does have him slotted into a rotational spot as of now. He’s still able to pump the fastball in at around 95-96 MPH and his curveball was pretty reliable, resulting in a productive 79.1 innings with the Rays in 2024. If he can get that slider back as a strong put away pitch (his slider had a 43.5% whiff rate in 2022 compared to just 22.2% in 2024), you’re suddenly talking about a 25-year-old starter with multiple plus offerings in the back half of the rotation.
While Pete Fairbanks wasn’t as great as he had been last season or the year prior (his xERA of 4.08 in 2024 is a far fry from his marks of 2.62 in 2023 and 1.03 in his injury-stricken 2022), I’m not going to sit here and tell you that Tampa’s bullpen will be worse in 2025. You know as well as I do that they’ll find someone to take those high leverage innings late in ball games, whether it’s Fairbanks of not. If they have to, they’ll conjure up some flame thrower out of thin air like they’re creating a player in a video game. Death, taxes, and some rando reliever for the Rays that you’ve never heard of dominating your favorite team.
But, I’m still a bit hung up on the offense.
First baseman Yandy Diaz will be solid. He’s an on-base machine who makes every AB competitive. Second baseman Brandon Lowe can still be very formidable in the box even if he’s been known to strike out quite a bit. Third baseman and jewel of the farm system Junior Caminero has shown some flashes in his brief tenure at the highest level; still just 21 years of age, he has the potential to become a star.
After that, though, there are some considerable question marks.
Jonathan Aranda had some impressive quality of contact numbers across 128 at-bats in 2024, but those metrics are far better than the ones he had put up across roughly 175 ABs in 2022 and 2023 and he only got on base at a .308 clip last season. Is there a tangible change he’s made in his approach where he’s able to consistently hit the ball with authority, and will that be enough if he’s the primary DH for the Rays in 2025? Christopher Morel has legitimate 30-homer potential, but my GOD does he have some massive holes in his bat. Can he do enough to keep the noncompetitive plate appearances at a minimum? Josh Lowe went 20-30 with an .835 OPS in 2023 before his tangible numbers on the surface and expected numbers under the hood went belly up in 2024 (all triple slash figures—both expected and actual—were down considerably, while his 31.8% strikeout rate was in the bottom 4% in MLB). Can he improve his quality of contact and get back to being a solid power-speed threat that deepens Tampa’s lineup?
That’s a lot of things up in the air. Of course they could swing in the Rays’ favor, but they just as easily could go the other way.
Infielder Ha-Seong Kim signed with Tampa Bay this winter, by the way. I feel like that’s worth mentioning. He’s known to have his moments at the dish, but he’s primarily renowned for his defense. He’s an interesting fit on the defensive side of the game considering that Tampa Bay induced ground balls at a slightly-below-league-average rate in 2024; it’s not like their pitching staff is known for producing weak contact as opposed to trying to overpower guys with strikeout stuff. He’s gonna be on the IL to start the year, but he should still be a fine contributor for a team that was about middle of the road when it came to collective outs above average last season.
Most Likable Player: Junior Caminero
Photo by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
As mentioned earlier: this kid has the potential to be a star in our game. Extremely talented youngster. I just hope he doesn’t kill the Sox for years to come.
Least Likable Player: Wander Franco
Photo by Douglas P. DeFelice/Getty Images
Sure he’s not playing, and sure the team has stopped paying him money from their contract extension a few years back, but Franco’s contract still counts against Tampa Bay’s payroll. That’s enough for me to count him for this exercise. Wander Franco can go fuck himself forever.
Schedule Against the Red Sox
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The season isnearly bookended by road games against the Rays, as the Sox head down to Tampa from April 14 through 16, as well as from September 19 through 21. Meanwhile, the Rays will pay a visit to Fenway Park from June 9 through 11 and from July 11 through 13.
Season Prediction
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I think Tampa Bay has the arms to hold up and stay competitive across 162 games, but their success or failure in 2025 is dependent on the bats. Things can certainly go their way, but those breaks are going to have to come in bunches.
Maybe Caminero emerges as a stud. Maybe dudes like Josh Lowe or Aranda really do step up and provide depth to the lineup. All of that is on the table, yet we shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that much of this offensive cast is the same group that were only able to outscore a team that won 41 games last season.
A playoff birth is within the range of outcomes for Tampa Bay this season, even if it’s not entirely obvious—nor what I’m predicting. I think Boston, New York, and Baltimore will end up ahead of the Rays.
PREDICTION: 83-79, 4TH IN THE AMERICAN LEAGUE EAST