2008 Tampa Bay Rays
Written February 14, 2008 by Jack Jones
The team didn’t show much improvement last year winning just 66 games, but the future looks bright in Tampa Bay. While you might of thought it was a miss print when you read the Tampa Bay Rays, but the team decided to drop the “Devil” from their name and now are just known as the “Rays.” The Rays are coming off their 10th straight season of more than 90 plus losses. The team is moving in the right direction by keeping and developing their young talent. General Manager Andrew Friedman probably wishes he wasn’t in the top-heavy east, where it’s almost going to be impossible to get past the payrolls of the Yankees and Red Sox. We look for the win total to keep increasing over the years, as long as they don’t trade away all of their talent. While the offense is turning into a solid unit the pitching has some improvement to do.
Pitching:
This unit was the worst in the majors last year with a 5.53 ERA. While the numbers aren’t great they have a lot of promise here. Lefty Scott Kazmir is the team’s ace going 13 –9 last season with a 3.48 ERA. Behind James Shield went 12 -8, so the top two weren’t the problem. The bottom of the rotation is where it got ugly. What we see in this rotation is very similar to the struggles of the Detroit Tigers before they turned things around a few years back. Many of the starters on that team struggled and lost a lot of games before finally figuring it out and started winning. The team added a young arm from the Twins in Matt Garza who should move into the 3 spot in the rotation. The team didn’t stop there as they added proven closer Troy Percival to help solidify the bullpen. Which was more of a weakness than the starters. They were unable to hold onto leads late and
Offense:
The offense was much better last year as it increased its run total by almost a 100 runs from a year before. They are led by Come Back Player of the Year, Carlos Pena. Pena was second in the league with 46 HR and fourth in RBIs with 121. Left fielder Carl Crawford is coming off a great season hitting over .300 and stealing 50 bases. They also have young talent in CF with B.J. Upton and 2B/3B Akinori Iwamura. The team is hoping often injured Rocco Baldelli can play the full season at full strength. When healthy Baldelli can hit around .300 25HR and 80 RBIs, but he hasn’t been healthy for over 3 years now. The team did add a new shortstop from Minnesota in Jason Bartlett and a solid DH from free agency in veteran Cliff Floyd.
Defense:
The defense wasn’t that pretty last year as they had the second most errors in the American League. This causes long innings and gets the opposing team into the bullpen a lot sooner than wanted. One positive was their outfield led the league in assists. They did a pretty solid job throwing out over 40% of runners trying to steal. If the team is going to improve they will have to sure up on this side of the ball or it might be another ugly season.
2008 Tampa Bay Devil Rays Odds to win World Series 100 - 1
Prediction:
While this team could be a force in years to come, we don’t see 2008 as the year they contend for the East Division title. We are expecting the team to finish 4th just behind the Toronto Blue Jays. We expect the team to win more than 70 games for the first time in team history. Hey it’s a start.
For every team’s odds head over to Sportsbook.com and check them out. You can also go to Sportsbook.com to look at the odds for teams to win their division or league pennant. Feel free to leave any comments in the comment section.
