In other words, if we rerun this after the first round, there is no guarantee that we will still be picking the Rays—even if Tampa Bay, Boston, Chicago, and Philadelphia are the teams remaining.
After that, as has been alluded to, home field matters. Say what you will about Tropicana, but the Rays are 33 games above .500 at home this year. That being said, this is a great young team that, as the roster stands now, lacks an obvious, quantifiable weakness.
The Rays cover ground and play defense where it counts. They can hit for power, get on-base, and steal bases, while holding opponents to just 1.29 base runners per inning pitched. Besides being generally overrated and ignored by the sim (explicitly at least, experience appears implicitly through the numbers), I would not cite experience as much of a concern for the Rays.
In some cases, they are almost too young for their own good (and their manager embraces that fact); and in other ways, like in the bullpen, they have several veterans. Either way, young or old, this team is hungry and clearly out to prove that it can do what so many doubted (and still do).
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