MLB Outsider Trade Deadline Preview: Tampa Bay Rays

As the July 31 MLB trade deadline approaches, MVN Outsider approaches baseball bloggers for insight on which players will be moved. Which contenders can buy a trip to the playoffs, and which sellers will turn their attention to next year?

Kevin Cruz, a contributor at DRaysBay and ColdFusion, offers analysis on the second half for the Tampa Bay Rays.

The start of the season held high hopes for the reigning AL champion Tampa Bay Rays. After amassing 96 regular season wins and their first ever playoff and World Series berth, the team set out to improve their offense in the offseason while finding more value for their money. The team signed power-hitting Pat Burrell and Gabe Kapler to help shore up the teams deficiencies against left-handed pitching. With the expected rebound of players like Scott Kazmir, BJ Upton, and Carl Carwford, the team appeared poised to take a run at back-to-back division titles in the tough-as-nails AL East, becoming the first team not named the Yankees to do so since since the 1992-1993 Blue Jays.

Fast forward to now, and the results thus far have not quite been Rays fans expected. The pitching entire staff struggled for the first two months of the season, putting the team in a rather precarious hole, and while the offense has been stronger then expected, they’ve scored runs in bunches, resulting in blowouts one night followed by being shut down the next. The pitching has since shown signs of rebound; but the sputtering and inconsistency the team has shown thus far has them in a no-mans land, a series against the Yankees away from the wild-card spot, but a few losses away from being buried seven teams deep and out of contention.

The truth is, not even the Rays know yet whether they are buyers or sellers. The teetering point will be the 10 game road trip headed out from the all-star break; as the team currently owns a sub .500 road record, but faces the likes of Kansas City, the White Sox, and the now also-ran Blue Jays, who were in this same position just before the all-star break, but ended up going only 2-8 and saw themselves railroaded out of contention. A 6-4 record likely keeps the Rays in the wild-card picture and makes them buyers, while anything worse will put them further behind the Yankees and the AL-West wild-card-contender-of-the-day, making them sellers.

As buyers, their payroll restrictions make their options limited. Their biggest need right now is a catcher. Coming off an all-star season, Dioner Navarro has an incredibly poor slash line of .219/.250/.327, and had displayed terrible plate discipline; garnering a pathetic seven walks in 266 plate appearances. Navarro has also seen a YTD decline in caught-stealing percentage of 14%, from a career best 38% last year to a career worst 24%, and none of the players behind him on the depth chart are proven. Someone like the Orioles Gregg Zaun or the Astros Ivan Rodriguez could be just what the Rays are looking for.

The team has a couple of young pieces to trade that most teams would covet, but trading away either one of them would likely require a prospect in addition to a catcher in return. Shortstop Reid Brignac, currently in AAA Durham, appears to be major-league ready but is stuck behind reigning team MVP and all-star Jason Bartlett. Jeff Niemann is also likely available; while he leads the team in wins, he also has below-average peripheral stats (52Ks and 38BB in 91.2IP), indicating he’s over-performing, has shown himself to be injury prone while working his way through the minors. With Wade Davis waiting in the wings, he becomes expendable.

If the team decides to sell, look for them to free up payroll while attempting to collect minor league depth in return at 1B, C, 2B or a corner outfielder. Players like Dan Wheeler, Kapler, Gabe Gross and Chad Bradford become available. Wheeler is a rather pricey commodity with a year left on his contract and is an average to above-average reliever; and Bradford and Kapler are both free agents at the end of this season. Gross is expendable through minor league depth by way of Matt Joyce, who was acquired in the Edwin Jackson trade this off-season, or Justin Ruggiano, who stopped by for a cup of coffee last year and was the PTBNL in the same trade with the Dodgers in 2007 that acquired Navarro.

The biggest surprise however may come from the availability of the all-star MVP Carl Crawford, who has a 10.125 million dollar team option at the end of the year. CC is in his prime, is the best total-package left fielder in baseball right now, without exception, and will likely have an asking price far out of the Rays range when he hits free agency next year. The team won’t hesitate to trade him if offered a deal like the Rangers received when they traded Mark Teixeira to the Braves.

Despite the Rays road woes, I’m confident that the team will come out strong after the break, have a successful road trip against inferior opponents, and stay in contention. But because of payroll restrictions and team management’s unwillingness to simply give away prospects to fill a need, they may simply elect to stand pat.

Ultimately, I also believe that this team is going to win 90 or more games, but will be unable to catch up to the Yankees or Red Sox and fall just short of a wild-card berth. So goes the luck of being a good team playing in the toughest division in baseball. One of the three best teams in the AL is going to miss the playoffs, and I just don’t think the Rays are going to reel in either the Yankees or the Red Sox in time.