The 2020 World Series is a clash of extremes.
The Los Angeles Dodgers are Goliath, armed with high-priced stars such as Mookie Betts, Cody Bellinger, Clayton Kershaw, and the second-highest payroll in baseball.
The Tampa Bay Rays are David, outfitted with a relatively unknown cast of players, the third-lowest payroll, and a philosophy that’s hard-wired to baseball’s age of analytics.
The Rays, who opened the World Series Tuesday night at Globe Life Field in Arlington, Texas, just might have created a blueprint that other teams can follow, including a mid-market team like the Rockies. “Might” is the operative word here, because the Rays present a unique case and one that not all teams will choose to adopt.
“We’re not a team that is built with superstar after superstar,” manager Kevin Cash said after the Rays beat Houston in Game 7 of the American League Championship Series. “We’re a team that maximizes opportunities and tries to get matchups to help us win games, and we did that really, really well this year.”
Tampa Bay, with a payroll of $28.3 million (prorated for the 60-game season, according to spotrac.com) posted a 40-20 record, the best in the American League. The Dodgers, who claimed their eighth consecutive NL West title with a major-league best 43-17 record, had a payroll of $107.9 million. The Rockies spent $61.8 million (15th) for a team that produced a 26-34 record.
The relatively conventional Rockies, who consider themselves a draft-and-development organization, have paid big money for stars and fan favorites such as third Nolan Arenado and right-fielder Charlie Blackmon. Before the 2019 season, Arenado signed an eight-year, $260-million contract, although he can opt out of the deal following the 2021 season. At the beginning of the 2018 season, Blackmon signed a six-year, $108-million contract that includes player options for 2022 and ’23.
Drawing cards such as Arenado and Blackmon, as well as Todd Helton, who spent his entire 17-year career in Colorado, have long been central to the Rockies’ philosophy. And, in terms of attendance, they have succeeded. In 2019, the Rockies drew 2.9 million fans to Coors Field, ranking sixth in the majors, despite a 71-91 record.
Conversely, the Rays, who made the 2019 postseason with a 96-66 record, drew just 1.2 million fans to dingy Tropicana Field, ranking 29th in attendance.
Yet, undeterred by the realities of economics and its lack of popularity at home, Tampa Bay has found a consistent formula for winning baseball. Even Yankees general manager Brian Cashman tipped his cap after the Rays defeated the Yankees in five games in the ALDS, saying, “They are a better franchise than we are right now.” The Yankees’ $109.4 prorated payroll, by the way, was the highest in the majors.
There are a number of pillars in the Rays’ blueprint, chief among them, strict adherence to analytics, frequent roster turnover, reliance on trades and a refusal to hand out big-money contracts, no matter how popular the player might be.
The Rays’ trust in the math whizzes in their front office was on full display in their Game 7 victory over the Astros. Rays ace Charlie Morton, the team’s highest-paid player, was throwing a glorious two-hit shutout in the sixth inning. He had thrown only 66 pitches and looked to be in complete command. Nevertheless, Cash emerged from the dugout with two outs and gave Morton the hook. The strategy, based on analytics rather than gut instincts and baseball tradition, worked perfectly. The relief duo of Nick Anderson and Pete Fairbanks recorded the final 10 outs, sending the Rays to the World Series for the first time since 2008.
All season, the Rays relied heavily on their bullpen, not letting a starter go more than seven innings during the regular season and not beyond six in the playoffs.
“That’s what we do,” Cash explained. “We believe in our process, and we’re going to continue doing that.”
Traditionalists and baseball romantics cringe at what the Rays’ success might mean to the game.
“The Rays are good for parity,” wrote Dan Shaughnessy, the Baseball Hall of Fame columnist for the Boston Globe. “They are good for small markets. They are good for truth, justice, and the American way. But they are bad for baseball. …
“The cutting-edge Rays are all about the three true outcomes: strikeouts, walks, and homers. They make sure no pitcher ever faces a hitter more than twice in any game. Boring.”
Maybe so, but Tampa Bay’s MVP has been the analytics department. The Rays were one of baseball’s first converts to using infield shifts and in 2018 it began using relievers as “openers” to start games, which now has become popular. Above all, the flexible usage of starters and relievers has become the Rays’ goldmine. During the regular season, in just 60 games, 12 Rays pitchers made at least one start and 12 recorded at least one save.
Staying power and star power are not central to the Rays’ core.
Morton, who signed a two-year, $30 million deal before the 2019 season, is one of just two Rays players with annual salaries of $10 million or more this season. The other is center fielder Kevin Kiermaier at $10.16 million. The Dodgers, on the other hand, gave Betts a 12-year, $365-million contract.
Although Tampa Bay has baseball’s fifth-best overall record since 2008, it hasn’t been afraid to trade away its stars. David Price, Ben Zobrist and Chris Archer are just a few of the players who’ve been dealt. Over the past three years, the Rays essentially remade their roster. Only five of the 43 players who appeared in the majors for them this season played for the big-league club in 2017. At the start of the playoffs, half of the players on the Rays’ 28-player roster had been acquired via trade.
Other teams certainly have taken note of Tampa Bay’s path toward success. It’s not a coincidence that both the Red Sox (chief baseball officer Chaim Bloom) and Astros (GM James Click) handed over leadership of their baseball operations departments last winter to former Rays executives.
As Cash said, the “process” is working, much to Shaughnessy’s chagrin.
“I like Cash but hate any manager using the word ‘process,’” he wrote. “Go, Dodgers. Go, Mookie. The innovative, soul-sucking, smarter-than-you-are Rays will only move us one step closer to the death of baseball.”
But for the Rays, and for other teams — maybe even, someday, the Rockies — religious adherence to analytics and small “Moneyball” could be the path to success.
That being said, players still have to perform and the Rays deserve credit.
“We’re a small-market team, not the most popular team out there,” said Kiermaier, the longest-tenured member of the Rays. “But if you do all the little things right consistently, great things can happen, and we’ve shown that this year.”
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