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This is a lot of selling for a team that outscored its opponents by 31 runs last year, the seventh-best run differential in the majors, and had an 86-76 third-order record. They went 14-20 in one-run games through the end of July, though, losing six of seven such games in the first two weeks of that month, including three in a row while being swept at Fenway Park just before the All-Star break. That series flipped two teams’ seasons and led the Rays to sell lightly at last year’s deadline.
What’s left is considerably worse. The team’s big winter moves were to add Cedric Mullins -- who has looked done for two years -- and Nick Martinez, both to one-year deals that have a “please don’t get mad at us, MLBPA” patina to them. They added a glove in Ben Williamson by inserting themselves into the Brandon Donovan swap. That was one of three three-team trades the Rays have been involved in this winter, a tactic that may be crossing the line into fetish.
Their winter was simply incoherent to me. I liked the Baz and Brandon Lowe trades. Both are rebuilding moves, so in that context I have no idea what the Rays are doing with 31-year-old Mullins and Gavin Lux, another three-team trade addition. There are the bones of a wild-card team here; however, there is a steep drop-off to the next level of talent, populated by Jake Fraley and Justyn-Henry Malloy and $70 million of revenue-sharing money not spent on payroll. The Rays may be about to hit pause for three years until the new park opens.
