The Tampa Bay Rays have always been a franchise that has been forced to make its way with a Homer Simpson income in a Montgomery Burns world. The bedrock of the Rays' best teams has always been the talent identified by its scouting and analytical groups and developed according to organizational specifications. The finished products from this process help the Rays for a bit, then typically move on before they become cost prohibitive.
During the Rays' first run of contention, the period between 2008 and 2013, when Tampa Bay posted six straight winning seasons and won an American League pennant under now-Cubs manager Joe Maddon, they were built on homegrown prospects. The Rays (then the Devil Rays) were ranked as the top organization in the game by Baseball America in both 2007 and 2008, when they broke through with a trip to the World Series.
Eventually, that first group of players dissolved and helped populate rosters throughout the majors. Some of them, such as David Price, Ben Zobrist and Evan Longoria, are still occupying key roles for teams more than a decade later. Meanwhile, the Rays' pipeline gradually dried up, and by 2014, they slipped to No. 20 in the BA rankings. Not catastrophic by most teams' standards, but problematic for baseball's lowest-revenue franchise. The Rays simply do not have the resources to compete by relying on free agency or trades in which they cannot leverage coveted prospects.
Flash forward to this season. The Rays are 14-5, and beyond reigning AL Cy Young winner and failed furniture mover Blake Snell, casual fans would be hard-pressed to name anyone on the Tampa Bay roster. They've regained their prospect mojo, ranking fifth in the BA ratings last year and second this year. Snell was a supplemental first-round pick by the club in 2011, so obviously some of the old Rays formula is paying dividends.
But did you know that most of the players responsible for baseball's best start did not enter professional baseball under the Rays' banner? The Rays are scouting and drafting and developing and analyzing as they did back in the Maddon salad days. But on top of that, their front office, led by Chaim Bloom and Erik Neander, has become the kind of trading wizard that, once upon time, Trader Frank Lane thought himself to be. (Lane once tried to trade Stan Musial.)
According to Baseball-Reference.com, the Rays had accumulated 9.5 bWAR this season through Wednesday's games. Of that, 5.4 -- 57 percent -- was produced by players who began their hardball odysseys with other teams. That number is composed of contributions from 19 players, or 76 percent of a 25-man roster, who thus far have combined to produce more than half the value of a team on pace to win 126 games.
Let's take a little trip to this island of castaways, starting by naming those we're leaving out. These injured players, all acquired via trade, have yet to contribute any WAR to the Rays' cause: infielders Matt Duffy and Christian Arroyo, utility player Andrew Velazquez, and pitchers Jose De Leon, Andrew Moore and Aaron Slegers. Some of these players could and likely will contribute at some point this season.
Now for those who have helped propel Tampa Bay's fast start. For our purposes here, we'll include the couple of players who are thus far performing below replacement value. You can build most of an active roster out of the players the Rays have used this season who did not begin their careers with the organization. Here's one configuration:
1B: Ji-Man Choi
2B: Joey Wendle
SS: Willy Adames
3B: Yandy Diaz
C: Mike Zunino
LF: Austin Meadows
CF: Tommy Pham
RF: Avisail Garcia
DH: Daniel Robertson
Bench: Guillermo Heredia, Michael Perez (OK, it's a short bench)
Rotation: Charlie Morton, Tyler Glasnow (It would be a short rotation for most teams, but this is the Rays, so what's a rotation anyway?)
Bullpen: Chaz Roe, Adam Kolarek, Jalen Beeks, Emilio Pagan, Wilmer Font, Ryan Yarbrough
To varying degrees, all of these players were cast off by organizations -- 15 of them, in fact -- that surely thought they could do better. But here's the thing: They couldn't do better. Because if there is one thing we've learned from the opening weeks of the 2019 season, it's that you just shouldn't trade with the Rays. Just don't do it. If you reach an agreement on a deal with the Rays, renege on it, because they are seeing something in the player you're letting go that you need.
Choi: The Rays are Choi's sixth organization. He was acquired last season for infielder Brad Miller, who is currently a free agent after being DFA'd by the Indians. Choi has always produced in bit roles but has leaped to a 137 OPS+ since moving to the Rays, 22 points above his career mark. All Tampa Bay really did with Choi was leave him be and, like his other organizations, keep him away from left-handed pitchers. This one is about opportunity.
Wendle: He came to Tampa Bay from Oakland for a player to be named later, who turned out to be Jonah Heim, a catcher currently at Double-A in the Athletics system. Wendle had all of 36 big league games under his belt before joining the Rays at age 28. Last season, he hit .300/.354/.435 and finished fourth in AL Rookie of the Year voting. He has struggled so far this season with a hamstring problem.
Adames: He soared up prospect lists while in the Rays system, but he was acquired in a three-team trade with the Tigers and Mariners back in 2014. That was the deal that sent Price to the Tigers. Sure, the Rays would have liked to keep Price, but they couldn't afford him. Identifying Adames, who was just 18 when Tampa Bay acquired him, was a nifty bit of scouting.
Diaz: The Rays shipped Jake Bauers to the Indians for Diaz as part of a bigger deal that also included the Mariners. Bauers was a Rays prospect originally acquired from the Padres organization in a massive three-team deal in 2014. Bauers looked like a possible regular for the Rays, while the Indians had long tried to unlock Diaz's raw power potential. Well, the Rays may have done just that. Diaz, 27, has hit four of his five career homers this season and is slugging .542 for Tampa Bay.
Zunino: The former Mariners catcher was a known commodity when Tampa Bay dealt for him, Guillermo Heredia and a minor leaguer over the winter for Mallex Smith and another minor leaguer. We don't want to write off Smith by any stretch, but he is off to a rough start all around for the Mariners. Zunino hasn't hit a lick for the Rays, but he has been the primary catcher for baseball's stingiest pitching staff, and his defense is the main reason Tampa Bay wanted him.
Meadows: Pirates fans waited on Meadows' arrival for years as he floated about prospect lists. They saw him for 49 games last season before the Rays got him, prospect Shane Baz and Glasnow in exchange for veteran starter Chris Archer. Archer has been better than average for the Buccos, but Meadows has been a revelation for the Rays this season, with a 203 OPS+ as Kevin Cash's primary leadoff hitter.
Pham: He lingered for a long time in a deep Cardinals system before breaking through with a terrific 2017 season. After a slow start in 2018, Pham was moved for a trio of prospects, two of whom BA ranked in St. Louis' top 14 before this season. So this could be one that comes back to bite the Rays. On the other hand, Pham has a .425 on-base percentage since moving to the Rays and set a franchise record by reaching base in 48 straight games, a streak that was snapped on Wednesday.
Garcia: He was arguably the best player on a pretty bad White Sox team in 2017, when he made his first All-Star Game. He struggled with injuries last season, but it was still a surprise last fall when Chicago decided to non-tender him. Well, Chicago has outfielders coming up through its system and welcomed Eloy Jimenez into its lineup on Opening Day, so clearly the Sox felt like whatever they would have had to pay Garcia via the arbitration process wasn't worth it. Lucky break for the Rays. Garcia is hitting .310/.365/.466 in his Tampa Bay career.
Robertson: Robertson was part of the deal that sent Zobrist and Yunel Escobar to the A's back in 2015. Escobar is out of baseball, while Zobrist remains one of the game's best utility players. Zobrist didn't even last a full season in Oakland, as he was sent to Kansas City at the 2015 deadline and won a World Series with the Royals. The A's got Sean Manaea and Aaron Brooks in that deal. As for Robertson, he quietly became about as valuable as Zobrist in a utility role for the Rays last season before going down with a thumb injury. Zobrist produced 3.3 bWAR for the Cubs in 2018; Robertson was at 2.6 in 87 games before he was injured.
Heredia: He has a 1.017 OPS in a small role for the Rays so far in 2019 and has served as Cash's top pinch-hitting and pinch-running option.
Perez: The Rays' backup catcher was part of the haul last season from Arizona for pitcher Matt Andriese, who has a 7.53 ERA since going to the Diamondbacks. Perez has a 120 OPS+ in a bit role thus far in 2019 in relief of Zunino.
Morton: Well, he doesn't fit any of this narrative. Morton is the rarest of Rays: an established, fairly high-profile player from another contender who was acquired at market value off the free-agent market. It's not as if Tampa Bay knew something the Astros didn't. Still, Morton is earning his keep with a 2.18 ERA over his first four starts for the Rays. So far, it's money well spent.
Glasnow: Like Meadows, Glasnow was a familiar name for Pirates prospect wonks. He just couldn't quite stick at the big league level, primarily because of incessant command issues. Entering this season, Glasnow had walked five batters per nine innings in 197 career big league innings. This season, his 1.1 walks per nine is the best figure in the American League. Glasnow is 4-0 with a 1.13 ERA and is an easy early choice for the most improved player in baseball.
Roe, Kolarek, Beeks, Pagan, Font, Yarbrough: We're not going to run through all the relievers, but this sextet has combined for a 4.14 ERA and 41 strikeouts in 41⅓ innings. The ERA is dragged down by the travails of Font, who has a 7.27 mark.
These names don't light up the marquee as you'd expect for a team that might well end up in the World Series. But this is what the Rays do. It reminds me of the old quote attributed to folksy football coach Bum Phillips, who when praising rival coach Don Shula said, "He can take his'n and beat your'n and take your'n and beat his'n."
What the heck does that mean? It means don't deal with the Rays. If you do, don't say we didn't warn you.
Extra innings
1. Bullpens are struggling this year, and we don't exactly know why. I'm going to be digging into the topic over the next few days. For now, I just want to share this table, which compares the WOBA allowed by pitchers through the end of April for each season this decade. The table is broken down by relievers and starters. Obviously this year's first-month numbers are incomplete, but they still rate somewhere between interesting and startling.
2. We're not supposed to pay such close attention to first-month hitting percentages because they will change. That is the only certain thing about them. Still, I want to point out the current leaderboard for on-base percentage:
1. Mike Trout, .571
2. Carlos Santana, .515
3. Cody Bellinger, .512
Santana and Bellinger are off to good starts, especially Bellinger, who has taken his game to a new level and is likely to eventually figure into NL MVP balloting. Neither player is going to finish with an OBP over .500. But what about Trout? He certainly could. For one thing, his composite OBP over the past three seasons is .447. Adding 53 points to that is realistic, especially if pitchers have reached the point where they just don't want to deal with him. That's the phase Barry Bonds entered into in 2001 and remained in through 2004.
A .500 on-base percentage is rarefied territory. During the modern era, only five qualifiers have gotten there: Babe Ruth (five times), Bonds (four times), Ted Williams (twice), Rogers Hornsby and Mickey Mantle. All-time greats do all-time great things, and if Trout joins this exclusive club, it will make complete sense.
Can he? We'll see, but one thing that jumps out about his early numbers is his .366 batting average, bloated even for him. His career mark is .307. So that would seem ripe for regression except that Trout's average on balls in play (.313) is 40 points below his career mark. In other words, if Trout were getting his usual amount of fortune when he hit the ball into play, his OBP would actually be well over .600. That's a place only Bonds has gone to.
Trout has struck out in just 7.9 percent of his plate appearances thus far, down from 20.4 percent a season ago. His walk rate is 27 percent, up from 20.1 percent last year. OK, maybe those numbers won't continue at those extremes. But then again, this is Mike Trout we're talking about. It may simply be the case that, at age 27, Trout has finally broken the game.
3. Writing for The Athletic, our former ESPN Stats & Info colleague Mark Simon had some interesting observations about early shift trends around baseball. The big thing is that despite some debate about whether the overall effect of shifting is worthwhile, teams continue to buy in. The early pace is for nearly 40,000 shifts this season, up from the roughly 36,000 in 2018.
The other thing: Teams aren't half-assing it as often. Whereas teams deployed partial shifts about as often as they did full shifts in recent years, this season the ratio is about 2-1 in favor of all-in configurations. But the message for hitters remains the same: It's your move, fellas.
4. You might have picked up on this, but through their first 36 plate appearances this season, the pitchers for the Milwaukee Brewers are slashing at a .375/.429/.594 clip. That translates to 8.5 runs created, more than many other teams' non-pitching position groups. Examples of those with lower totals: White Sox left fielders (8.3), Red Sox right fielders (8.3), Cubs third basemen (8.2) and Mets second basemen (7.0). It doesn't take much investigation to realize that there are some pretty famous names associated with those positions.
Brewers pitchers have more than doubled up second-place Arizona (4.2 runs created). In fact, MLB pitchers have collectively created 24.2 runs. Milwaukee's hurlers are responsible for more than a third of that total. This is a nuance to the DH/no-DH debate that we don't hear enough about. The ability of a team's pitchers to rake can be a competitive advantage. Last season, St. Louis pitchers led the majors with 12.6 runs created, while the Giants were worst among National League teams at 4.0. That's nearly a full win gained from pitcher hitting from the best team to the worst.
5. Fodder for another day's rant: I've thought a lot about this fine piece from Ginny Searle at Deadspin regarding the rising cost of games for the common fan. I've especially thought of it when I pass through the door up to the press box at Wrigley Field because starting with this season, we pass by the new Catalina Club to get there. For some reason, the name "Marie Antoinette" starts to echo in my head.