[EXhoosier10]

Talk me out of taking this bet.

Fangraphs has them projected at 83 wins, Baseball Prospectus has them at 86. They won 77 last year. Factor out luck and sequencing and they should have won 86.5 (BP 2nd order wins).

Catcher
Last year their catcher position hit .191 for -0.6 WAR. This year they have Rene Riviera and John Jaso. Riviera is decent at framing and can hit lefty pitchers, Jaso can hit righties.

2014 to 2015 WAR change: +2 WAR

1st Base
Same this year as last. James Loney is a consistent contact hitter who gets on base and doesn't strike out. He doesn't hit for a ton of power, but he makes up for that by getting on base.

Change: 0 WAR

2nd Base
The lose 5 WAR contributor Ben Zobrist. This is going to hurt a bit. They replace him with Nick Franklin from Seattle. Franklin was once a top 100 prospect and while he hasn't hit in his short major league career, profiles as replacement / slightly above replacement player.

Change: -4 WAR

3rd Base
Evan Longoria is coming off his worst offensive season as a pro and earned 3.4 WAR last year. Nothing really stands out about his stats, so you have to assume he bounces back to a 5 WAR player this year. He's still only 29.

Change: +1.5 WAR

Shortstop
Asdrubal Cabrera is replacing Yunel Escobar's 0 WAR of 2014. Asdrubal has had a few down years, but he's still only 29 and projects to be above average offensively and shouldn't be much different than Yunel defensively.

Change: +1.5 WAR

Left Field
Matt Joyce and Brandon Guyer provided 3.5 WAR in LF in 2014. This year you'll have Steven Souza, Guyer, and David Dejesus playing. Should Souza falter, Guyer and Dejesus should platoon for a decent season. Maybe not the best position players, but TB is deep enough here where worst case scenario is ~ 1-2 WAR.

Change: -1 WAR

Center Field
Desmond Jennings was worth 3 WAR last year. He's 28 and remarkably consistent over the last 3 years. chalk up another 3 wins here in 2015.

Change: 0 WAR

Right Field
Kevin Kiermaier and Wil Myers combined for 4 WAR with all of it coming from Kiermaier. Kiermaier came out of nowhere and witha bit of regression should fall closer to 2 WAR as his defense should help him maintain value. RF will also have a bit of depth as mentioned in the LF portion.

Change: -1.5 WAR


Pitching
They lost price last year, but both Chris Archer and Alex Cobb solidified themselves as near ace level. Those two combined for 360 innings of 3.10 ERA ball. They picked up Drew Smyly in the Price deal and he put up a ridiculous 1.70 ERA over 50 IP last year in Tampa. Odorizzi, Bedard, and Hellickson all combined for roughly league average numbers.
In 2015, They return Archer, Cobb, Smyly, and Odorizzi. They'll also see the return of Matt Moore come June. You might not know it, but Smyly's career ERA in 328 innings is 3.26. Cobb has thrown 300 innings the lsat two years wiht a 2.80 ERA. Archer has 350 career IP with a 3.2 ERA. That's a surprisingly scary 1-3! Their bullpen is just okay after Grant Balfour imploaded on them. Jake McGee and Brad Boxberger did well enough as their closer/setup combo to end the year. The rest of their relief corp, Frieri, Jepsen, and Balfour should all be average to slightly above average.



OVERALL
Their offense lost their best player in Ben Zobrist and they are projected to be about 1 WAR worse in 2015. Their pitching should surprise, though, with an above average staff. If Matt Moore comes back healthy, they could be a top 5 overall rotation in MLB. As it stands now, they should be an above average staff pitching in the AL East.

Note that Tampa plays the NL East this year in interleague play. THe only team projected to be above average in that division is Washington. They get 4 games against the Braves, 6 against Miami, 3 against the mets, 3 against the Phillies, and 4 against Washington.

at +140 (equates to 42% breakeven), how can you lay off??

[mlb]

It's not that I can talk you out of it, I just hate it. I think a lot of that above average play came from Madden, or I should say "some" of that. He is known to get every ounce out of his guys, kind of like Buck Schowalter (when the team is on board with him)

I hate their line up, like their staff as I always have, I just think if a start were to occur like last year, without Madden, do they make a comeback... if not, we were looking at maybe the worst team in baseball before their run?

[detroitigerz]

Rays are going to suck this year. No way they get to 80 wins. Maddon's gone so are they. Would write up something long but just a complete stay away for me

[EXhoosier10]

Do you both really think Maddon was the reason they won? Not their players? Do you anticipate them no longer shifting as much? Not using platoons? Their new GM graduated from Harvard and worked at Goldman Sachs. Do you think the owner of the rays went out and hired people that would completely change the mentality of the team when what Friedman was doing worked so well for so long? I dont' forsee the new manager and GM making the team 2 games worse, let alone 5.

Someone talk me out of it. Also remember to factor in that they only need to win 80 2 out of 5 seasons for this to be a good bet. +140 is a ridiculous number to be putting out there when variability between number of wins in a 162 season based on true talent alone is ~ 8 games (example -- in a 162 game season, something like 70% of the time a true talent team that would win exactly half of its games over 10,000 games will win between 73 and 89 games.

My main beef is that you hvae to think they're going to win 73-75 games for this number to make sense

[Big Bear]

Talk me out of taking this bet.

Fangraphs has them projected at 83 wins, Baseball Prospectus has them at 86. They won 77 last year. Factor out luck and sequencing and they should have won 86.5 (BP 2nd order wins).

Catcher
Last year their catcher position hit .191 for -0.6 WAR. This year they have Rene Riviera and John Jaso. Riviera is decent at framing and can hit lefty pitchers, Jaso can hit righties.

2014 to 2015 WAR change: +2 WAR

1st Base
Same this year as last. James Loney is a consistent contact hitter who gets on base and doesn't strike out. He doesn't hit for a ton of power, but he makes up for that by getting on base.

Change: 0 WAR

2nd Base
The lose 5 WAR contributor Ben Zobrist. This is going to hurt a bit. They replace him with Nick Franklin from Seattle. Franklin was once a top 100 prospect and while he hasn't hit in his short major league career, profiles as replacement / slightly above replacement player.

Change: -4 WAR

3rd Base
Evan Longoria is coming off his worst offensive season as a pro and earned 3.4 WAR last year. Nothing really stands out about his stats, so you have to assume he bounces back to a 5 WAR player this year. He's still only 29.

Change: +1.5 WAR

Shortstop
Asdrubal Cabrera is replacing Yunel Escobar's 0 WAR of 2014. Asdrubal has had a few down years, but he's still only 29 and projects to be above average offensively and shouldn't be much different than Yunel defensively.

Change: +1.5 WAR

Left Field
Matt Joyce and Brandon Guyer provided 3.5 WAR in LF in 2014. This year you'll have Steven Souza, Guyer, and David Dejesus playing. Should Souza falter, Guyer and Dejesus should platoon for a decent season. Maybe not the best position players, but TB is deep enough here where worst case scenario is ~ 1-2 WAR.

Change: -1 WAR

Center Field
Desmond Jennings was worth 3 WAR last year. He's 28 and remarkably consistent over the last 3 years. chalk up another 3 wins here in 2015.

Change: 0 WAR

Right Field
Kevin Kiermaier and Wil Myers combined for 4 WAR with all of it coming from Kiermaier. Kiermaier came out of nowhere and witha bit of regression should fall closer to 2 WAR as his defense should help him maintain value. RF will also have a bit of depth as mentioned in the LF portion.

Change: -1.5 WAR


Pitching
They lost price last year, but both Chris Archer and Alex Cobb solidified themselves as near ace level. Those two combined for 360 innings of 3.10 ERA ball. They picked up Drew Smyly in the Price deal and he put up a ridiculous 1.70 ERA over 50 IP last year in Tampa. Odorizzi, Bedard, and Hellickson all combined for roughly league average numbers.
In 2015, They return Archer, Cobb, Smyly, and Odorizzi. They'll also see the return of Matt Moore come June. You might not know it, but Smyly's career ERA in 328 innings is 3.26. Cobb has thrown 300 innings the lsat two years wiht a 2.80 ERA. Archer has 350 career IP with a 3.2 ERA. That's a surprisingly scary 1-3! Their bullpen is just okay after Grant Balfour imploaded on them. Jake McGee and Brad Boxberger did well enough as their closer/setup combo to end the year. The rest of their relief corp, Frieri, Jepsen, and Balfour should all be average to slightly above average.



OVERALL
Their offense lost their best player in Ben Zobrist and they are projected to be about 1 WAR worse in 2015. Their pitching should surprise, though, with an above average staff. If Matt Moore comes back healthy, they could be a top 5 overall rotation in MLB. As it stands now, they should be an above average staff pitching in the AL East.

Note that Tampa plays the NL East this year in interleague play. THe only team projected to be above average in that division is Washington. They get 4 games against the Braves, 6 against Miami, 3 against the mets, 3 against the Phillies, and 4 against Washington.

at +140 (equates to 42% breakeven), how can you lay off??

They ain't going to let Jaso catch much. He is too valuable as an offensive player to risk another concussion.

The bullpen will miss Peralta fo'sho. But McGhee is a top notch closer.

I've seen worse bets.

I personally like Redsox Under a lot better.

That division is really tough and regardless of the talent the Rays do have i think its fair to say they are the least talented team in the AL East.