The Rays’ Emerging Core
I was just 15-20 minutes into writing this when the Rays placed Richie Palacios back on the injured list and selected the contract of prospect Chandler Simpson, widely regarded as the fastest player in the sport. Simpson swiped 104 bags in 110 minor league games last year. He was caught only 13 times. He's 8-for-11 in steals to begin the current season. He's struck out in fewer than 10% of his professional plate appearances. Simpson has virtually no power, but he's an oddity in today's game and a throwback to the leadoff hitters of yesteryear. If he can carry those wheels and that preternatural contact ability over to the majors, he's going to garner a lot of national attention, simply because he's a departure from the MLB archetype in an era of baseball that's increasingly focused on power, elevating the ball, exit velocity, etc.
Maybe Simpson will be a star for the Rays. Maybe he'll follow the Billy Hamilton career path. We can't know yet. He hasn't played a single big league game. But even without the promotion of a notable prospect, the Rays' future was already starting to look quite bright.
We're early in the 2025 season, of course, so lots of things can be chalked up to small sample sizes. And the Rays do have plenty of early small-sample success stories. It hasn't yet translated into winning ball, evidenced by their 8-11 record, but Tampa Bay has a +11 run differential and has spent a good portion (in some cases all) of the season playing without some key stars. Shane McClanahan is wrapping up his rehab from Tommy John surgery. Josh Lowe has been out almost all year with a strained oblique. Ha-Seong Kim was signed knowing that he'd be out into at least May following shoulder surgery. The version of the Rays that president of baseball operations Erik Neander and manager Kevin Cash trot out in June and July should be expected to look quite a bit different than the April version.
There are still some intriguing names on the roster right now, however, many of whom are flying too far under the radar. It's easy to get too caught up in early-season data, as it tends to balance out over a larger sample. But with many of the Rays' young and/or returning contributors, the breakout campaigns they're teasing date back to the second half of the 2024 season. Tampa Bay operated as a seller last summer, trading away veterans Zach Eflin, Jason Adam, Isaac Paredes, Randy Arozarena, Aaron Civale and Phil Maton, among others.
That opened the door for a wave of younger players to begin receiving more playing time, and if you trace things back to that point, some of these eye-opening March/April stats start to look a little more legitimate. It's still only about 40% of a season -- less than that in some cases -- but as is always the case with a Rays team that ebbs and flows through periods of contending and rebuilding on the fly, there are some very intriguing components of a core taking shape.
Let's run through a few particular standouts.
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Fantasy Baseball: All the Streams Fit to Print
Hello, friends.
We're three (ish) weeks in, but more importantly, the Masters are over, so I no longer have to hear that hack, Jim Nantz, continue to rip off my signature catchphrase.
Streaming pitchers in April can be dicey, and not just because of the actual pitchers available. It's also the fact that our roster spaces are likely very limited, unless you've been beset by a bevy of injuries (he said, staring at a roster that includes Shane McClanahan, Reynaldo Lopez, Ranger Suarez, and Nestor Cortes).
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Luis Robert’s Slow Start
April tends to be relatively quiet on the transaction front. The early part of the month saw a handful of extensions as talks that had begun in Spring Training carried into the regular season. There probably won't be much more significant hot stove activity for the next couple months. That's largely because all but three teams -- the White Sox, Marlins and Rockies -- went into the season with some measure of hope about competing. The trio of clearly noncompetitive clubs had already moved most of their realistic trade candidates who'd bring back prospect talent.
Luis Robert Jr. is an exception. The White Sox held onto their former All-Star center fielder over the offseason. Robert was coming off the worst season of his career. He lost nearly two months early in the season with a hip flexor strain and was unproductive when healthy. He hit .224/.278/.379 with 14 homers in 100 games. Robert looked nothing like the player who'd finished 12th in AL MVP balloting one year earlier.
It made for a difficult evaluation. Robert has shown star upside -- not only in the aforementioned 2023 campaign but in an injury-shortened '21 season when he hit .338/.378/.567 over 68 games. Last year's White Sox were en route to the worst season in the modern era. Maybe Robert's .216/.253/.302 showing in the second half reflected some amount of mental fatigue. At 27 years old, he should remain in his prime.
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A Tough Call In Next Winter’s Rotation Class
MLBTR will release our first Power Rankings of the upcoming free agent class in the next few days. Ordering starting pitchers is often the most challenging part of that process. Next winter's class has a few of those tricky calls -- perhaps none closer than Zac Gallen versus Michael King.
Gallen certainly has the longer track record as an above-average starting pitcher. The righty has started all 146 of his major league appearances. He has been consistently effective, working to a 4.30 ERA or better in all six years (not including this year's 5.28 mark over three starts). Gallen has only once allowed four earned runs per nine in a season. He has punched out at least a quarter of opposing hitters in each year. The result is a 3.33 earned run average with a near-27% strikeout rate in more than 800 career innings.
King has spent the majority of his big league career working out of the bullpen. The Yankees kept him in long relief for most of his first four seasons. It wasn't until the waning weeks of the 2023 season that they gave him a rotation spot, largely because of injuries elsewhere on the pitching staff. King shined in nine starts, was the centerpiece of San Diego's return for Juan Soto, and had a fantastic first full season as a starter.
Over 173 2/3 frames, he turned in a 2.95 ERA while striking out 27.7% of opposing hitters. He showed no signs of slowing down as he pushed well beyond his previous career-high workload. King managed a 2.15 ERA across 62 2/3 innings after the All-Star Break. He finished seventh in NL Cy Young balloting.
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Fantasy Baseball: New Gods?
Hello, friends.
In a sport with as much variance as baseball, there are few highs like those of catching some small-sample lightning early. Whether it's a favorite late-round draft pick currently cashing sleeper checks, or someone you pounced on after they came out of the ether to explode in a way Yoan Moncada only dreams about -- finding early gems is always fun.
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