10 Things To Know About The Rays Before They Play For Their First World Series Title

For the first time in four and a half decades, the 2016 World Series is guaranteed to result in the first champion. He could very well be the champion of the American League of Tampa Bay Radio.

After a six-game ALCS win over Cleveland, the Rays were set to face the NL champion Milwaukee Brewers in the Fall Classic. For the first time since the 1980 World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and the Kansas City Royals, two teams have played each other without titles.

Game 1 is scheduled for 8 pm ET Friday in Milwaukee.

The World Series features two undoubtedly small teams, but both have been punching above their weight class for years. We’ve already talked about how the Brewers did this, so let’s focus on how the Rays are doing.

They are the classic small-paying, big-brained team

No team in the MLB is an example of the kind of club that overcomes a lack of payroll with smart decisions like the Rays. There are signs of that archetype, and 2026 is a strong example of why it happened.

The Rays are 28th in MLB payroll this season, at $90 million, according to RosterResources. They are the third cheapest team in MLB, ahead of only the ALCS foes ($87 million) and the Miami Marlins ($76 million). The Brewers also ranked well ahead of the 19th ($142 million).

Whichever team wins will be the cheapest World Series contender since at least the 2017 Houston Astros (cue snickering), but the Rays would introduce a whole other level of rarity. Going by data from Cook’s Contracts, the last World Series winner with a sub-$100 million year to end the 40-man salary was the 2006 St. Louis Cardinals with $91 million, which was 10th in the MLB season.

This whole decade has worked as a rule that you need a big salary to win the title. The rays cut completely.

This is their third chance at their first World Series

Unlike the Brewers, who are returning to the World Series for the first time since 1982, the Rays aren’t decades removed from the World Series.

Tampa Bay has reached the Fall Classic twice in 2008 and 2020. He lost that one to the Philadelphia Phillies, this one to the Los Angeles Dodgers.

This current Radius roster does not bring much experience from those series. On the Rays’ ALCS roster, only designated hitter Yandy Díaz was a member of that 2020 team. The rest of the team is completely turned around (except for the injured ace Shane McClanahan).

It’s been a long time

MLB fans over 30 probably remember the season when the expansion team was playing in Tampa Bay, in a division featuring the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox. The Rays began their streak with nine last-place finishes over 10 years, including their only fourth-place finish in 2004. Their first World Series appearance in 2008 also became their first winning season.

The moment everything changed can be traced back to 2003, when team owner Stuart Sternberg met a college baseball player named Andrew Friedman. By 2005, Friedman was general manager and leading the primary office of New Frontier Analytics. Friedman left Tampa Bay in 2014 to do something similar with more resources for the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the Rays have kept the lineup going without him under current president of baseball operations Eric Neander.

Like the NFL coaching tree, so many successful GMs in today’s game can trace their stock back to the Rays under Friedman and Neander. That includes Brewers president of baseball operations Matt Arnold, who worked under Friedman in Tampa from 2007 until his departure in 2015.

There’s no denying Tampa Bay’s fortunes have ebbed and flowed in this direction — the team won just 77 games last year — but few teams have been better at staying one step ahead of the competition in terms of perspective. For the rays are alive.

On the manager’s side, Kevin Cash is MLB’s longest-tenured manager, taking over in the dugout in 2015 in the wake of Friedman’s departure (which triggered manager Joe Maddon’s departure). Clearly, the front office recognizes the ability to implement their ideas.

They were the AL’s best team of all time

In a dark AL season with a championship split of 85 wins and 81 wins, the Rays stood out as the truly elite team in the league at just 98-64. Yes, that’s the trigger.

A fun quirk of the structure of the MLB playoffs meant the Rays squared off against the AL’s second-best team, the 93-win New York Yankees. The Alds seized upon them. Then came the Guardians, who at least made the series 2-2 before being swept by the Rays in Games 5 and 6.

As with the Brewers, it’s really no surprise that Tampa Bay is here. This is the true No. 1 vs. No. 1 matchup.

They do not strike

It’s a common criticism of modern baseball that it shakes hitters too much, though much of that can be blamed on the unreasonable challenge of modern pitching.

Consider the radiation cast in this matter. No team in the MLB struck out at a lower clip than Tampa Bay at 18.8%, which helped the club have the best batting average in the AL at .258.

Not one member of this team has hit more than 25% in the regular season (min. 200 plate appearances). By comparison, the Brewers have four such players. The Rays prioritize making contact, even if it’s not always good contact, as they rank third-lowest in strike rate and line threat in the regular season, per FanGraphs.

That makes for an interesting comparison with the Brewers, who struck out less than some teams in the MLB and led the league in walks. The Rays are actually in the middle of the pack when it comes to pitching, but no team in the MLB makes contact more often when they make it strong.

Neither approach leads to a ton of home runs — the Rays have 22nd in MLB this season, tied for the Brewers’ 28th — but it speaks to how diligently these two teams have been crafted. Both are excellent in the game when it comes to the two most important components of hitting: making contact and patience at the plate.

Their 3 big hitters came up huge

Not many people would describe Díaz, Jonathan Aranda and Junior Caminero as the faces of the MLB, but those three formed Tampa Bay’s offensive backbone this season. And all three had big moments in the ALCS.

Díaz has been a long-time ultra, and led the AL in hits this season. He flexed his muscle in the post with six extra-base hits, one of them a Game 6 game-sealing homer against the Guardians.

Aranda emerged as an All-Star last year but went hitless in his first 11 ALCS at-bats. However, in the three most important games of Game 4, he was either hit or scored on, which turned the series in the Rays’ favor.

Caminero was one short of leading the AL in hits this season, with 42 to Pete Alonso’s 43. The former elite prospect swings the bat harder than any player in baseball, but still keeps the bat under control, a rarity among today’s power hitters. He was a homer for the entire season until Game 6, when he set the longest home run in MLB history.

The sin of radiation is really quite simple. Their first baseman, third baseman and designated hitter provide the lumber. All others can be counted as the value of at least two free paths.

His defense elite among the elite

The effectiveness of a team’s defense is often measured by the number of errors or Gold Gloves, but in the end, it comes down to how well the team performs in the away game. That’s because the efficiency of the defensive plans, and the rays are the best in the league.

The Rays outfield — led by Jonny DeLuca, Chandler Simpson and Victor Mesa Jr. – Led the MLB in strikeouts above average this season. Taylor Wall is a shortstop Gold Glove finalist and the favorite to win consideration. Ben Williamson can play any position in the infield well.

Between that group and the three big hitters, the odds are that every Rays position player is going to be a very good pick in at least one big thing. It’s also a dirty eros.

Chandler Simpson has to say

Since he made his MLB debut last season, no player has more stolen bases than 90 Simpson. To be fair, no player has stolen more than 26 times, but he’s 3-for-3 this season, and speed on base is definitely a factor in games.

Simpson also led the AL in hits, with teammates Cedric Mullins and Walls behind him. They want to make contact with the beam again, and are happy to use their speed to fill in some power damage.

Ironically enough, it’s the Rays and the Brewers that have embraced it more than any other team in the MLB. The Rays lead MLB in both bunt hits (49) and sacrifice bunts (45) this season, while the Brewers are second (32) and fifth (37) in those spots.

For everything that has been done around bunting is anathematized in the analytical mind, these are two analytical-heavy teams that zig where the rest of the industry zagged.

Freddy Peralta was a huge pick-up

Former All-Star starter Shane McClanahan was sidelined earlier this month due to forearm sprains. It’s a huge loss for the Rays, but the team has made up for it with the rotation of Drew Rasmussen, Freddy Peralta, Nick Martinez and Griffin Jax.

Rasmussen is a bacillus, but Peralta has been so important this season. The former Brewers pitcher was traded from Milwaukee to the New York Mets last offseason and has been an outright failure for the Royals, posting a 4.99 ERA in 22 starts. He was sent to the rays in a fatal exchange and has since morphed into a stone pitcher.

Peralta won AL Pitcher of the Month honors in September and has pitched in four straight starts since starting the season, posting a 1.08 ERA. In the space of three months he saved the time of the contract.

How to make rays? You can read more here, but the game plan includes windy ditches and stretching out of space, moving the foot placement in the rubber, throwing his change more and accelerating his delivery. That’s a lot of change, but it’s the result of a pitcher who once again dominates with his fastball.

Their bullpen is looking a bit shallow

Unlike the Brewers, the Rays want to ride their pitcher into innings if possible. Part of that is a reflection of their strong rotation, but it could also be a sign of a bullpen that can only rely on so many arms.

Bryan Baker is the closer to the pain. Cam Booser was brilliant from left field this season. Tyler Wells and Ian Seymour have been effective guys in the regular season, but both have suffered multiple losses in the ALCS.

Outside of that group, no reliever has pitched more than three innings in Tampa Bay’s nine postseason games. The Rays went as far as using Peralta with two outs in relief in Game 4 of the ALCS.

That would be as close to a weakness as the Brewers are going to find with this Tampa Bay roster. The Rays can only afford so many short starts from their rotation, and they look like a Milwaukee team that is the best in baseball in the main offensive game, as we saw them do against the Los Angeles Dodgers in the NLCS.

10 things to know about the Rays before they play for their first World Series title