12-0. 12-0. TWELVE AND NOTHING. What more can you say besides spectacular, out of this world mind boggling. Sports are about massive ups and terrible downs, it’s hard to predict a team’s success just by the outlook of the first 10+ games in their season. But the teams that do show up early and prove to be a dangerous contender down the line are teams you must look out for immediately, and this is exactly what the 2023 Tampa Bay Rays are. 

The Tampa Bay Rays have completely flipped the script on their franchise ever since they started to become a dangerous contender of the AL East.  Let’s rewind back towards 2018, where the abysmal Rays had their first winning season of 92-70 since their playoff push in 2013. This was all at the hands of AL CY Young winner Blake Snell, who snagged the award with an ERA under 2.00. For most teams having a CY Young winner would mean leading their rotation for years to come with a stable and proven arm leading the pack. Well two years later Blake Snell was ended up traded to the San Diego Padres, and it looked like all hell broke loose in Tampa. This is the small market Rays who have valued the fundamentals of sell high, buy low method for years, and it has paid off dividends for a payroll just shy of $56,000. 

The Rays ranked 28th in payroll this year, they have a lower payroll than the worst team in baseball; The Oakland Athletics. Year in year out all people doubt the success the Rays will have because their team is filled with cheap no name waiver wire pickups, trade acquisitions, and prospects that have filled massive holes who have made a huge name for themselves under the spotlight of Tampa. People value big name players and large payrolls when they consider what it takes to be a winning ball club, but really its about having a good analytics department and coaching staff who can take struggling players and  turn them around by having them re-adjust their swing patterns or focus on throwing the pitches that work well for them. This is what makes the Rays so special. With years of following through with these principals of selling high/ buying low, waivers and trades a good data analytics department, and a weak schedule  is all the advantages the Rays needed to have a taste at history. 

There hasn’t been a team to go 12-0 since the Milwaukee Brewers who  began the  1987 campaign with a winning streak of 13-0. The Rays seriously have a chance at putting themselves in the history books, and its all thanks to their outstanding lights out pitching and power heavy offense guiding their way through. 

Let’s start with their pitching which have carried them through many wins in close-knit games. The Rays only have 2 saves as of now in 12 games played, it seems so little knowing they haven’t lost a single game yet but it’s due in fact the offense has beaten their opponents over 4 runs for 10 of their first 12 games, failing to need a save required to finish the game. Granted, the opponents the Rays are facing were the bottom feeders of the league last year; The Detroit Tigers, Oakland Athletics, Washington Nationals, and Boston Red Sox, all teams that finished last in their divisions. You can poke fun and say the Rays had it easy, yes they very well did, but consider that other teams also had a very easy first 15 games stretch and failed to reach the history books like the Rays have done for themselves. So don’t be too hard to critic when if this was the Yankees going 12-0 everyone would be freaking out.

Alas, the Rays pitching staff has a combined 2.19 ERA, almost 1/2 less than the Twins who clocked in with a 2.50 combined ERA. The Rays pitching staff is led by the three-headed monster; Shane McClanahan, Jeffrey Springs and Drew Rasmussen. McClanahan was drafted by the Rays with the 31st overall pick in 2018, while Rasmussen was traded from Brewers and Springs was a trade from the Red Sox. Both struggled to find themselves with their respective teams, the Rays adjusted their mechanics and it’s been lights out ever since. Its been pretty lights out from these guys as they’ve averaged 0.71 ERA from each of them. Definitely taking some of the pressure off of the bullpen as each of them go around 5-6 innings per game. Then there is Zach Eflin who is the only Ray on the 40 man roster to be acquired from free agency. Zach signed the largest free agent contract in franchise history- a 3 year $40,000,000 deal. For the Rays this is a pretty massive deal, 13 million a year for a player who doesn’t have that successful of a past career. Eflin spent his career with the Phillies, struggling at times but ending his time as a relief pitcher because of how badly he pitched in the end.  A career ERA of 4.50 sure won’t get you the largest deal in a franchise history? Well those Rays are a different breed. A little change in mechanics and Eflin is looking at a career year for him. An ERA just under 3.30 and an above league average ERA+ looks like Eflin will fit just right in these 3 years.

That pitching staff has been a dream for all Rays fans but it would mean nothing if the offense can’t turn together some runs, luckily the 12-0 Rays have not had a problem with that. Lead by their star shortstop; Wander Franco, the best 2018 international signing who rose through the Rays farm and has quickly made a name for himself since debuting in 2021. He leads the team with 17 hits and golden glove level defense. And an OPS+ over 100 points over league average! Brandon Lowe back from an injured 2022 season is in the running for AL CBPOTY. He has 9 hits, 10 runs and a slash line of .310/.459/.759/1.218. 5 of the regulars are slugging over .600 and 7 of the guys are batting over .310. It isn’t a total mindblower given they were playing bottom feeders and their stats will be a bit inflated from the short sample size, but still having your entire lineup well over league average is pure insanity.

None of these guys have made a big name for themselves outside of Tampa, 7 of the guys were trashed from other teams who didn’t see much value in them, all were not the headliner in their trades but after some time with the Rays the narrative has rapidly dissolved. How could we forget about Randy Arozarena who since setting the world on fire with his performance in the postseason clubbing a record 8hrs through the 2020 postseason to him being a crucial weapon for team Mexico in the WBC, Randy just has not slowed down since the season began. Slashing .319/.389/.574/.963 and no sign of stopping as he’s almost double the league average hitter.

This team is purely miraculous, no matter how you see it 12-0 is 12-0, does not matter the opponents its still zero losses in over 2 weeks of playing ball. These Rays look like they are here to stay and prove haters wrong. Baseball has become too glorified with spendings and big name players which can sometimes drift away from the significance of the game and that is to have fun. Teams like the Mets and Padres who have accumulated a combined payroll of 1.6 billion dollars don’t have nearly the same amount of wins as the Rays do, with a Payroll 6.5% higher than the Rays.

Teams don’t need to go through an entire rebuild and wait years to come to be contenders again, if they follow through the method set by the Rays standard of winning they would have a better chance at achieving higher goals and perhaps even reach and win the world series. As we’ve come to learn about these damm Rays is that payroll does not equivalent to hard earned success, that with a bunch of no named stars you can be fighting for a playoff spot and prove to these large payroll evil empires that even small market teams can fight till the end no matter how much money they have spent towards their club. Its about prioritizing players in the right moments to gain success at the right time, it’s about showing up everyday like its a do or die game and implementing these rules throughout the course of the season will provide endless success like the Rays have seen. No matter how much money these Rays may have, or the relevancy of some of these players, the Rays are the true modern day ‘Money Ball’ team of America, running the league and attacking the world one win at a time.