There are few better examples of a nomad in Major League Baseball than Rays reliever Oliver Drake. He was just a 43rd-round pick of the Orioles in 2008, so odds were against Drake turning into a viable major leaguer from the start. Drake persevered, though, despite having been a member of a half-dozen other organizations already. But it took Drake until the age of 32 to truly come into his own as part of the the Rays’ bullpen last season.
Back when the Rays acquired Drake from the AL East-rival Blue Jays in January 2019, MLBTR’s Steve Adams wrote: “Drake, 32 next week, is baseball’s most well-traveled player over the past calendar year. The right-hander pitched for a record-setting five teams in 2018, spending time with the Brewers, Indians, Blue Jays, Angels and Twins. Though he struggled with four of those clubs, Drake actually pitched quite well in Minnesota, giving the Twins 20 1/3 innings of 2.21 ERA ball with 22 strikeouts against seven walks over the life of 19 relief appearances.”
As Steve went on to point out, even though Drake couldn’t stick anywhere in 2018, he showed substantial promise when it came to missing bats, limiting walks and keeping the ball on the ground. Indeed, despite an ugly 5.29 ERA in 47 2/3 innings that year, Drake logged a 3.24 FIP with 9.63 K/9, 3.21 BB/9 and a 44.9 percent groundball rate. With the exception of FIP, Drake improved on every single one of those categories last season and turned into a solid member of the Rays’ bullpen, even though they designated him for assignment before the campaign began.
Drake officially joined the big club in late May last year, at which point I wrote that “the 32-year-old has only managed a 4.94 ERA in 23 2/3 Triple-A innings, though he has paired eye-opening strikeout and walk rates (15.21 K/9, 2.66 BB/9) with a 50 percent groundball mark.”
Drake’s run prevention issues went out the window from there, as he went on to record a 3.21 ERA/3.87 FIP over 56 innings. He was oddly quite dominant against left-handers, who registered an abysmal .156 weighted on-base average against him. Same-sided batters had a much better time (.357), but still, Statcast pegged Drake as a great reliever in at least a couple important categories. Drake wound up in the top 10 percent of the league in wOBA (.261, compared to a .279 xwOBA that didn’t come in that much higher) and strikeout percentage. He also logged an expected ERA (3.36) that rivaled his actual bottom-line results, and put up 11.25 K/9 against 3.05 BB/9 with a strong grounder percentage of 52.3.
The Rays couldn’t have asked for much more in 2019 out of Drake, especially considering they got him for just about nothing. And he was one of at least a few low-key success stories who aided in the success of their bullpen (we previously covered Nick Anderson and Colin Poche). Having earned relatively minimal salaries last season, the likes of Drake, Anderson and Poche are the types of players the small-budget Rays need to keep digging up if they’re going to continue to hang with the game’s big spenders in the standings. As a team coming off back-to-back seasons of at least 90 wins, they’ve clearly done a pretty good job of it lately.
Photo courtesy of USA Today Sports Images.
I’m guessing that Chaz Roe is next.
He is from Worcester Mass, he has a weird accent
Not if your from Worcester.
Hate The Drake
Who donates a big screen tv to charity? Gotta hate the drake and his ex wife
I’m lukewarm about the Drakette.
But gotta love the Sein?
Did he invent the coffee cakes?
The Drake is a cry baby cuck
I thought drake was a raptors fan
Drakes splitter, Chirinos splitter, and Roe’s slider are some of the nastiest pitches in the entire league.
Alvarado’s fastball too
Alvarado’s 93mph slider is a pretty nice pitch too.
Colin Poche and Nick Anderson’s fastball are both elite
Need to pick up your title game.
Oliver and Company…. with a detailed examination of Drake Roe and other Ray’s pen guys or examination of Oliver Drake and his numbers compared to others in the league.
Would not be stunned in the least if he gets traded in the next year. Relievers are so up and down and the Rays are usually ahead of the curve on moving players.
They might be able to package him after a couple good months with an infielder, outfielder, for Amir Garret and Senzeil. Wendle, Drake, Margot/KK and Yarborough and Roe. Deepens Cin and makes Tb better immediately in bp and a future 3rd baseman possibly. The real question is do they stick with Addams or trade him plus for Lindor.
No way the Ray’s get anywhere near Senzel with that package.
The ole 5 turds for 2 nice pieces trick, Nice
The rays are the most overrated and underrated team in the league lol…
So which Ray’s reliever will be featured next?
given his career arc he’ll probably be garbage this year, but sill gotta respect his service to this country.
I think the chair is a lovely gift, but who is this Joe Mayo everyone keeps talking about? Frankly it sounds made up.
Another stellar contribution from you
likewise
Thank you!
Worthless, actually it is. And, if you werent a complete moron, you would see, even in the article of the title, the seinfeld reference.
Here is a fact: how about you change your name back, because as it sits right now, your commentary is “worthless”. I suspect it isnt limited to commmentary either.
Unbelievable…in a period of little to no baseball news, you choose to attack a little fun being injected into otherwise minimal news updates. Nice job, clown. Bet you are the life of the party.
Sun shines even on a dogs butt every once in a while. Sometimes I think you have to take these rebounds with a grain of salt. A goof portion of their innings were likely in pressure free situations. Then gradually built trust. Great year for the guy all things considering but sometimes I think it’s more the coaches putting him in a better position to succeed
the sun shined on that dog’s butt when he was drafted. Takes awhile for the minds of some of these athletes to catch up to their body. Drake isn’t the perfect example but there are plenty of late bloomers who got pushed out because they couldn’t put it together in their early 20s. Being a quality consistent ballplayer demands a ton mentally and physically. Especially the mental side. Rays up
Phenomenal reference Connor