How the rays are again surprising



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The Tampa Bay Rays are not expected to be in first place in eastern LA. Since 2008, Rays have never ranked higher than the 20th of the payroll. This season, Rays began with a payroll of $ 176 million lower than the Red Sox and $ 144 million lower than the Yankees. There are the underdogs and then there are the rays.

The 2019 season is just beginning in a few weeks and Ray is still in first place. And our forecasts predict that they will form a team for the playoffs. Of course, it is still too early and the Rays' hot start could cool as more games are played – and they collapsed this weekend against the Red Sox. But they were so successful: at the start of the weekend, their pitching staff had the best score possible and independent throws in the majors, and no training did more. quality contactFor example, it is interesting to try to understand how the rays defy the probabilities. It's not just the local talent and innovative strategies that motivate them this year, although defensive changes and up-and-comers continue to happen. Instead, they found another way to win: they take advantage of players from other clubs.

Their two and three of the six best players this season have been acquired from teams via trade during the last calendar year, and the 2.5 wins above the replacement (WAR), according to FanGraphs' measurements, of these three accounts for almost half of the total number of players in the ray position. And their best pitcher to date, Tyler Glasnow, was acquired during the deal with the Pittsburgh Pirates on July 31, which earned them to be their best player, Austin Meadows.

"We are very confident of our ability to get the best of guys," said Chaim Bloom, vice president of Tampa Baseball Operations, at FiveThirtyEight last summer.

Two of these players – third base player Yandy Diaz, acquired in a trade in December, and Glasnow – give a glimpse of what the Ray might do well and why this surprising start could be lasting.

Before arriving in Tampa, Diaz was known for his excellent ground shot and his elite exit speed. As of 2017-18, among the batters to put at least 200 balls into play, Diaz is ranked 13th in average exit speed (91.7 mph). But that does not translate to power as well as expected. He scored only one success in 299 baseline games in Cleveland and earned the fourth goal.the lowest launch angle among the same cohort at 1.9 degrees. (The MLB average this season is 12.3 degrees.) Diaz too often hammered ground balls into the turf.

Another problem last season: Diaz hit 57.1% of the balls in the air towards the opposite pitch, the fourth highest mark in the league. This is not conducive to power: in the league overall this season, 33.4% of stolen bullets hit the draw side were used for the circuits, but only 5.2% of those hit on the opposite side.

The profile of the struck ball is not ideal for a player who has muscles like these:

But the Rays had a plan to make the most of all their batters, especially those who had the Diaz tendencies. During the spring training this year in Port Charlotte, Fla., Coach Chad Mottola and the Rays proposed a coaching constraint: they were going to build a wall on the ground.

They did not have what they needed at the spring base, so they sent a 90-mile truck on I-75 to Tropicana Field, their main place of residence in the Major League, to requisition the net generally used to protect players and coaches during batting trials. The next morning, during baton training, ray hitters found a net barrier on the infield. They were asked to hit them – to lift and shoot the ball.

"I saw it on the Internet," Mottola said of the practice, similar to what the University of Iowa has called The Great Wall of Groundball Prevention in 2016. "I said," Why do not we do it? At the major league level, it was nothing more than a starter for conversion. For the younger ones, it was a way of stimulating thoughts more than anything.

This spring, the Great Wall of Rays Groundball Prevention has evolved to focus not only on getting the ball into the air, but also on the batting side. The team also used throwing machines to produce velocity and effects similar to those that the batters would see in the actual matches.

The Rays wanted to move the point where the batters touched the ball to put it in front of the plate, which would allow them to better shoot the ball, said Mottola. After all, that's where the most power is generated. When Mottola began his coaching career in the Toronto organization in the late 2000s, he saw how Jose Bautista was taught to change direction and try to shoot everything. . He became a star.

Whether it's because of the wall or something else, Diaz has changed his way of hitting this season. After a dead season in contact with the Rays, he is now shooting 41.4% of the balls hit, up from 28.9% last season – the 26th highest increase in the sport. He scored five circuits in 89 selections.

Diaz never made a home run in Cleveland. He did it three times in Tampa.


"He has never had the opportunity with Cleveland in any way that he thought he deserved," Mottola said. "Let him know that he will be in training, no matter how he plays today, it makes you a better player immediately."

This season, Rays have the second lowest bullets hit in the opposite field. (They had the highest share last season.) The Rays are in second place at the average speed of 90.3 mph, up from 26th last season (87.0 mph). It is still early, of course, but these are marked changes.

The wall – or something – seems to work.

With the Pirates last season, Glasnow, a once-popular prospect, found himself in a long-standing role. He had lost his command and confidence. What the Rays acquired on the trade deadline was a struggling pitcher, but with intriguing underlying skills: a brittle ball and a fastball that had been at the top of the "perceived speed" ranking since its inception. Glasnow's average 96.7 mph fastball seems to be 99.3 mph, as he drops the ball an average 7.6 feet in front of the throwing ball. (He's in the top spot of major speed tournaments this season.)

The rays containing a lot of data started with a simple message to Glasnow: Trust that your fastball will always work in the hitting area.

"I tried to tell him that he could be very aggressive in the hitting zone," said Rays pitching coach Kyle Snyder. "The guy is 6 feet 8 inches tall. He throws the ball 52 feet and a half [from home plate]. He's a guy from the 90's. It's an all-power, artless approach. I just think that the more he would understand that the batter in the box had to respect the fastball and cheat, the brittle the ball would be. "

Glasnow's share in the end-zone strikes increased by 4.7 percentage points this season, the 24th most significant improvement in major tournaments, just behind teammate and AL Cy Young winner , Blake Snell. Although it was early, Glasnow also recorded the sixth largest drop in the sport rate (5.9 percentage points).

Glasnow said the team also wanted him to focus on keeping his fastball and low curve, while launching the latter more frequently.

While he and the pirates had agreed in 2018 to change his approach to a Ray-like approach, Glasnow said it was difficult to change the way it had been screened since it was drafted in 2011. " [Pirates] were very low in the area, angle of descent, "he told FiveThirtyEight last September.

The Rays has reinforced how his high fast ball and brittle 12-6 bend could play together by sharing the same path, or tunnel, before the curve ball breaks down. Making the land similar to the approach of the plate would create confusion for the batters.

"The creation of tunnels is important," Glasnow said. "It's definitely more of an emphasis here."

Think of the lands that go with the White Sox in April when Glasnow eliminated 11 goals in six sets. His fast high ball:

And its odor-producing curveball, which currently ranks fifth in the vertical movement and fifteenth in terms of coming and going among pitchers who have launched at least 50 curves, falling below the zone:

Glasnow ranks first in the US League in ERA (1.53) so far this year after posting an average of 5.79 points in its two or more seasons in Pittsburgh.

Glasnow and Diaz realized what appears to be real progress since their arrival in Tampa. Of course, the size of the sample remains low early in the season and they will have to prove that their departures are sustainable. But if Rays are actually turning to the gold of development, the team could be committed to the path of long-term success.

Discover our latest MLB forecasts.

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