I used to be simply 15-20 minutes into penning this when the Rays positioned Richie Palacios again on the injured checklist and chosen the contract of prospect Chandler Simpson, broadly thought to be the quickest participant within the sport. Simpson swiped 104 baggage in 110 minor league video games final yr. He was caught solely 13 instances. He is 8-for-11 in steals to start the present season. He is struck out in fewer than 10% of his skilled plate appearances. Simpson has just about no energy, however he is an oddity in right this moment’s recreation and a throwback to the leadoff hitters of yesteryear. If he can carry these wheels and that preternatural contact capability over to the majors, he will garner a lot of nationwide consideration, just because he is a departure from the MLB archetype in an period of baseball that is more and more targeted on energy, elevating the ball, exit velocity, and so forth.
Perhaps Simpson will probably be a star for the Rays. Perhaps he’ll observe the Billy Hamilton profession path. We will not know but. He hasn’t performed a single large league recreation. However even with out the promotion of a notable prospect, the Rays’ future was already beginning to look fairly shiny.
We’re early within the 2025 season, in fact, so numerous issues might be chalked as much as small pattern sizes. And the Rays do have loads of early small-sample success tales. It hasn’t but translated into successful ball, evidenced by their 8-11 report, however Tampa Bay has a +11 run differential and has spent an excellent portion (in some circumstances all) of the season taking part in with out some key stars. Shane McClanahan is wrapping up his rehab from Tommy John surgical procedure. Josh Lowe has been out virtually all yr with a strained indirect. Ha-Seong Kim was signed understanding that he’d be out into a minimum of Could following shoulder surgical procedure. The model of the Rays that president of baseball operations Erik Neander and supervisor Kevin Money trot out in June and July needs to be anticipated to look fairly a bit totally different than the April model.
There are nonetheless some intriguing names on the roster proper now, nevertheless, lots of whom are flying too far below the radar. It is simple to get too caught up in early-season knowledge, because it tends to steadiness out over a bigger pattern. However with lots of the Rays’ younger and/or returning contributors, the breakout campaigns they’re teasing date again to the second half of the 2024 season. Tampa Bay operated as a vendor final summer time, buying and selling away veterans Zach Eflin, Jason Adam, Isaac Paredes, Randy Arozarena, Aaron Civale and Phil Maton, amongst others.
That opened the door for a wave of youthful gamers to start receiving extra taking part in time, and should you hint issues again to that time, a few of these eye-opening March/April stats begin to look a little bit extra reputable. It is nonetheless solely about 40% of a season — lower than that in some circumstances — however as is all the time the case with a Rays group that ebbs and flows via intervals of contending and rebuilding on the fly, there are some very intriguing elements of a core taking form.
Let’s run via a number of explicit standouts.
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