Rays Look To Rebound From Poor 2016

The 2016 season was one that the Tampa Bay Rays would love to put in the rear view mirror never to again revisit. A last place finish in the AL East with a record of 68-94 marking their third straight losing season. It was their worst record since dropping the ‘Devil’ from their name in 2008 and their fewest wins since finishing 66-96 in 2007.

The front office, players, and coaches have a lot to learn from last seasons failure. A New Year’s resolution is a promise to do an act of self-improvement beginning from New Year’s Day. This self-improvement is usually undertaken to correct something that is dissatisfying and holding the individual back from success.

Make Dome Sweet Dome Their Home Sweet Home:

The Tampa Bay Rays finished the 2016 season with a losing record of 32-49 at home. It’s their second straight season posting a non-winning record at Tropicana Field (42-42 in 2015). How does a team resolve to win at home? It’s one thing to say “We need to win at home” but what action will the team take to make it a reality?

Win At Home By Design:

First, design your roster to take advantage of your home park. For the Rays this means outfielders that can cover a lot of ground and hitters that can take advantage of balls in the gap.

Kevin Kiermaier fills both of these needs and his type of player should be targeted to add to the roster. Rajai Davis in free agency, Jarrod Dyson or Travis Jankowski via trade are just a couple of names that fit the mold. There are many more. Of course, the player won’t have to have a million defensive runs saved, have blinding speed, or be the incarnate of Charlie Hustle on the bases but certainly a combination of skills that combine some adept baserunning and at least league average defense would help.

Kevin Cash can also manage each home game with more emphasis on winning at home. This seems like an odd statement and it’s certain that Kevin Cash would certainly look at me like I had three heads if I asked him if he could manage with more emphasis on any game.

His most likely response would be something along the lines of, “we want to win all our games and don’t ever take our foot off the gas. No one game is any more important that another.”

That’s probably close to true but how often do we have to watch players get rest at home because they need rest due to playing 10 or 11 straight games on the dreaded turf. I understand the need to rest players who do get snared by the turf monster, but maybe, if they have to get rest, do it on the road?

Finally, use that ‘pen to seal victories. Regardless of score in the ninth, go ahead and use your “A” bullpen to seal the victory. Maybe, just maybe, I’m still a little shell shocked from the Detroit Tigers eight run ninth inning outburst to turn a 7-2 Rays lead into a 10-7 Tiger victory.

That day neither Alex Colome or Brad Boxberger were available due to injury, but there were other games where the A pen was rested. If you have used your closer in back to back days, don’t fear using him a third day in a row. Even with a 3-run lead. Just seal the win at home.

Learn To Run Smarter:

Fangraphs rated the Rays as a sub-average baserunning team and ranked 7th in the AL in their base running metric (BsR). One area that needs improvement is in the stolen base category. Kevin Kiermaier stole a career-high 21 base in 24 attempts (87.5-percent).

The rest of the Rays? A putrid 53.4-percent (39-of-73) success rate. This team effort on the bases has to improve or they have to be tethered to the bases more often. Stealing bases isn’t all about speed. It’s a skill that can be learned. Let’s hope the coaching staff puts in the extra time this spring.

If the problem is trying to force the action by sending runners early in counts and the hitter not making contact leaving the runner out to dry then there is an issue other than base running. This could be an area that new hitting coach Chad Mattola can help more than former batting coach Derek Shelton.

Experience Pays Off:

The Rays front office needs to have a better ilk of players to bring up to the majors in the event of injury/poor performance. Turning to Jaff Decker in 2016 or Allan Dykstra in 2015 aren’t the type of players that a major league team should be pulling up to the roster when help is needed due to injury. They certainly aren’t the type of players that a manager is going to turn to when a player on the big league roster is under performing.

Rookies are always exciting for the fans, but seldom do they produce right out of the gate. We saw first hand the issues with Taylor Motter, Richie Shaffer, Ryan Garton, Dylan Floro, etc. just to name a few. They usually play hard but their faults are quickly exposed or the pressure gets to them and they need to go back to the minors before settling in.

The front office has already signed two players this winter with MLB experience. Catcher Michael McKenry, who has spent parts of seven season in the majors, along with outfielder Shane Peterson, who spent a large part of the 2015 season in the bigs, have been signed to minor league deals. I’ll hedge that McKenry opens the season behind Luke Maile on the big league roster while Curt Casali goes to Triple-A to serve as depth with experience.

As we approach spring training the front office should look to add as many veteran pieces to the Durham Bulls roster as possible. Give Kevin Cash and the front office the luxury to use them when injury happens or when someone on the MLB roster isn’t pulling their weight. Competitive through increased competition is a phrase that the front office and manager have used this winter.

Get Em On, Get Em Over, Get Em In:

The Rays struggled getting runners on base. Their .307 on-base percentage ranked 14th out of 15 American League teams and 26th out of 30 teams in MLB. To make matters worse, if we strip out 15 of Brandon Guyer‘s hit by pitches, which would still put him at 8 tying Logan Forsythe for the team lead, the on-base percentage drops two points to .305.

Draw Some Walks:

The front office needs to find a way to improve their on-base skill either through better players or through better coaching. The Rays drew the fourth fewest walks in the American League and sixth fewest in MLB.

It is possible for a player to begin to change their approach at the plate. Ichiro Suzuki spent most of his carer sitting between a 5-6-percent walk rate. Over the last two years he’s been between 7-8-percent.

Kevin Kiermaier’s walk rate went from 4.3-percent in 2015 to 9.7-percent in 2016. It is possible for a player to make an effort to draw more walks and thus get on base more often.

Contact:

More base runners generally leads to more runs. A few areas of improvement need to happen once runners are on base. Little things that Chad Mattola will be tasked on improving. First, the team struck out a franchise record 1,482 times, 2nd mostin AL history behind the 2013 Astros (1,535).

Now, striking out is a more accepted part of the game but the Rays failure to make contact on many of their swings during the at-bats was record setting. They failed to make contact on 27.5 percent of their swings which is highest by any team since the stat has been tracked by Stats LLC in 1988. This may explain some of the base running woes (starting runners) noted above.

An out is an out is an argument that many will say when defending a team’s strikeouts. It’s typical in today’s game to have strikeouts as long as the team produces power. The Rays did set a club record with 216 homers (their first 200 homer season) but 24th in runs scored at 4.15 runs/game. They hit 136 solo homers which ranked tied for 3rd in MLB with the Rangers.

The all or nothing approach didn’t work. The team couldn’t get runners on base and when they did they weren’t able to move them around the diamond. According to Baseball Reference, Rays’ hitters recorded only 119 productive outs, second fewest in the majors behind the Oakland Athletics (116). (A productive out is defeined as advancing any runner with none out, driving in a run with the second out of the inning, or a sac bunt by a pitcher with one out.

Runners In Scoring Position:

Not only did the Rays struggle to get runners on base, move them around the bases, but they also failed to hit well with runners in scoring position. The Rays finished 13th in the AL with a .246 average with runners in scoring position. They finished ahead of only the Minnesota Twins (.239) and New York Yankees (.228). They had the third fewest plate appearances with runners in scoring position (1381) ahead of the Oakland Athletics (1345) and the Baltimore Orioles (1307). They also had the fewest sacrifice flies (28) in the AL.

Home runs are nice but the philosophy of working a pitcher and putting the ball in play should lead to more base runners, more productive outs, and thus more opportunities with runners in scoring position. Chad Mattola has his work cut out for him.

Get Back To The Chicken:

Every year at MLB’s Winter Meetings a luncheon is held with all the managers and the media members. Every year there will be some sort of chicken breast served as the main course.

Kevin Cash owns a 148-176 mark (.457) over his first two seasons as Rays’ manager. That is 15 games better than any Rays’ Manager before him after the first two seasons. Lou Piniella was 133-190, Larry Rothschild was 132-192, and Joe Maddon was 127-197. Depite this, Kevin Cash and the Rays needs to make great strides in 2017, maybe even post a winning record, in order for him to get back to the chicken at the luncheon next December in Orlando.