Amid a Slew of Injuries, the Rays Have Surged Into a Playoff Spot

You could be forgiven for having given up on the Rays. Four weeks ago, they lost to the Orioles at Tropicana Field, knocking their record to 58–53 and sending them down to fourth place in the AL East, half a game behind the O’s, two games behind the Blue Jays, and 12 games behind the Yankees. Injuries had gutted their lineup. Yet since that point, they’ve been as hot as any team in baseball, even the Braves. What’s more, Wander Franco is slated to return from a two-month absence on Friday, just in time for the surging squad to face the Yankees — now leading the division by just 4.5 games — in the Bronx.

The 21-year-old Franco topped our Top 100 Prospects lists in both 2020 and ‘21 before putting together a stellar rookie season last year but has played just 58 games this season, hitting a modest .260/.308/.396 for a 104 wRC+. He landed on the injured list on May 31 due to a right quad strain and missed most of June, then played just 13 games before returning to the IL on July 10 due to a fractured hamate in his right hand, which required surgery.

Franco began a rehab stint with Triple-A Durham on August 16 but made just two plate appearances before discomfort in his right wrist forced him from the game; later that week, the Rays pulled him from the assignment due to lingering soreness. He finally returned to action on September 4 and went 6-for-11 with a double over a three-game span. Tampa planned for him to stay with Durham through Saturday, but his 3-for-5 performance while playing nine innings at shortstop on Wednesday led the team to accelerate his timetable.

While Franco’s slash stats don’t measure up to last year’s numbers, his Statcast data in several key categories is practically the same:

Franco’s average exit velo and hard-hit and barrel rates are almost identical from year to year, but this year he’s hitting more grounders and fewer fly balls (note the lower average launch angle and the increase in his groundball/fly ball ratio from 1.32 to 1.66). What’s more, he’s hit just .188 and slugged .229 on grounders this year, compared to .252 and .306 last year. Where hitting the ball in the air helped him to outperform his expected stats last time, that hasn’t been the case this year, though he’s still produced a wRC+ nine points above that of the major league mark for shortstops (95). It’s also 39 points above that of fill-in Taylor Walls, who has “hit” an anemic .176/.267/.282 (65 wRC+) in 408 PA accompanied by a wide divergence in his defensive metrics at shortstop (-0.3 UZR, -4 RAA, and 12 DRS). By our measure, he’s been 0.4 wins below replacement, but via Baseball Reference, he’s been worth 2.3 WAR. Go figure.

While the truth of Walls’ value probably lies somewhere in between, the larger truth is that the Rays are a better team with Franco, and they’re getting him back at a critical time. The team entered Friday having gone 19–5 (.792) since August 12, tied with the Braves for the majors’ best record, and with the best Pythagorean record (.793) in that span as well. In that time, they’ve overtaken the Orioles (which took just a day) and the Blue Jays, cut the slumping Yankees’ AL East advantage to 4.5 games, and taken over the top spot in the AL Wild Card race. Here’s a snapshot of their odds change:

The Rays began that 19–5 run by taking the next two games form the Orioles and then two of three from the Yankees, though they have benefited by playing a fairly soft schedule thereafter: four games apiece against the Royals and Angels, six against the Red Sox, two against the Marlins, and three more against the second-half edition of the Yankees, who have gone just 19–27 as everybody not named Aaron Judge has either stopped hitting, gotten hurt, or both.

While the Rays have made the playoffs in each of the past three seasons, winning the AL East in 2020 and ’21, our projection system did not like their chances at the outset of the season, forecasting them for 85 wins and a fourth-place finish, with odds of just 8.7% to win the AL East and 44.1% to claim a Wild Card spot. A slew of injuries knocked those odds down, with as many as five regulars out at one time and six regulars missing at least a month. Here’s a screenshot from Baseball Prospectus’ Injury Timeline Tool, illustrating how all of these overlapped:

The injuries began mounting in mid-May, with the 1–2 punch of Manuel Margot‘s right hamstring strain and a stress reaction in Brandon Lowe’s lower back; the former returned after a 10-day absence, but the latter missed two months. Margot had barely returned when Franco landed on the IL for the first time on May 31. Mike Zunino was first diagnosed with left shoulder inflammation in early June but his problem was soon identified as thoracic outlet syndrome, and he underwent season-ending surgery on July 28. Kevin Kiermaier went down with left hip inflammation on June 21, the same day Margot returned to the IL with a strained patellar tendon in his right knee. Kiermaier was back in 10 days, but nine days later went down for the season, in need of surgery to repair a tear in his hip labrum; meanwhile, Margot missed two months.

On July 10, the same day that Kiermaier went back to the IL, so did Franco, and eight days later, they were joined by Harold Ramírez, who suffered a fractured right thumb when he was hit by a pitch and missed nearly a full month. As if that weren’t enough, on July 26, Francisco Mejía, who had moved up the depth chart when Zunino was sidelined, went on the IL for 10 days due to a shoulder impingement. More recently, Lowe missed 10 days due to a right triceps contusion.

These weren’t exactly slouches the Rays lost for long periods, either. Lowe hit 39 homers with a 137 wRC+ last year, and while this year’s 112 wRC+ doesn’t measure up, it’s still more than respectable. Likewise for Mejía and his 99 wRC+, 10 points above the mark for the average catcher (Zunino, with a 43 wRC+, is another matter). Kiermaier hit for a 91 wRC+, and though his defense was merely solid this year, he was still on pace to produce 2.8 WAR over a full season (not that he’s played anything close to one since 2015). Margot and Ramírez have both set career bests in wRC+, with a 124 mark for the former (.298/.352/.408) and 133 (.298/.352/.408) for the latter.

As Ben Clemens wrote following the Kiermaier-Margot double whammy, the Rays were built for depth. The aforementioned players’ contributions when healthy, the full-season performances of Yandy Díaz (145 wRC+), Randy Arozarena (133 wRC+), and Ji-Man Choi (110 wRC+, albeit with a prolonged second-half slump), and the fill-in work of utilityman Isaac Paredes (120 wRC+ in 16 starts at first, 29 at second, and 26 at third) have kept the offense afloat. The play of June trade acquisition Christian Bethancourt (88 wRC+, accompanied by strong defense at catcher), July waiver pickup Yu Chang (120 wRC+ in 16 starts at second, eight at short, and two at third), and deadline pieces David Peralta and Jose Siri (both 110 wRC+) has helped as well. The team ranks sixth in the AL overall with a 105 wRC+ and is tied for third since the All-Star break with a 108 mark — and that’s with a patchwork lineup.

The offense hasn’t done it alone. The Rays are third in the AL in run prevention (3.70 runs per game), and even with Tyler Glasnow out due to Tommy John surgery, their rotation owns the league’s lowest FIP (3.42) and second-lowest ERA (3.25) thanks to breakout seasons by Shane McClanahan (2.20 ERA, 2.64 FIP, and a spot in Cy Young discussions), Drew Rasmussen (2.70 ERA, 3.32 FIP, and AL Pitcher of the Month honors for August), and Jeffrey Springs (2.54 ERA, 3.10 FIP). Meanwhile, Corey Kluber has served as the staff workhorse, throwing 141.2 innings, which ranks second on the team and is his highest total since 2018.

Each of those four pitchers has started between 20 and 24 games, with the Rays using 11 other starters (sometimes as openers) to help reduce their innings totals. McClanahan was the only one who threw more than 89 innings between the majors and minors last year, and he maxed out at 129 including the postseason; he’s at 147.1 thus far but is currently on the IL due to a shoulder impingement, though he could return soon. The team has additionally worked to protect its pitchers by virtually eliminating the number of back-to-back starts they’ve made on four days of rest, with only four of them (Shawn Armstrong, JT Chargois, Matt Wisler and Jalen Beeks) doing so at all. They’ve done so a total of 15 times, all while pitching more like openers than regular starters, averaging less than two innings under such circumstances and never going more than three in that context. As a result, the Rays lead the majors in the number of times in which their starters have worked three or fewer innings with 33 (the Pirates are second with 22), and the 634 innings they’ve gotten from their starters is the majors’ lowest total.

The injury bug has bitten the pitching staff as well, with nine Rays spending at least 98 days on the IL thus far. Rookie Shane Baz, who placed 11th on our Top 100 Prospects list entering the season, has been limited to 27 innings by elbow problems — first a surgery to remove loose bodies, and then a sprain. Luis Patiño missed three months due to an oblique strain. Brendan McKay managed just 15.1 innings of rehab work between November 2021 thoracic outlet syndrome surgery and a season-ending UCL sprain.

There is good news, in the form of reinforcements. Nick Anderson is currently rehabbing toward his first major league appearance since last September following UCL brace surgery. On Wednesday, Yonny Chirinos made his first major league appearance in more than two years following Tommy John surgery and an elbow fracture. That same day, Glasnow made his first rehab appearance since undergoing August 2021 Tommy John surgery, throwing a scoreless 19-pitch inning, with his fastball sitting 96–98 mph. His rehab is more aimed at 2023 (and ’24, since he signed a two-year, $30.35 million extension last month) than this year, though it’s not out of the question that he gives the team some innings.

Add it all up, and it’s another sneaky-impressive season from the Rays, whose depth and smart maneuvering has helped them withstand more injuries (a total of 1,711 games missed via the IL) and more lost value than any other contender, according to Baseball Prospectus’ accounting. They may not catch the Yankees, but it certainly looks as though they’ll be around in October to make another postseason run.