Why The New Look Tampa Bay Rays Wont Be Playing In October

The Tampa Bay Rays shocked the world last year, by going from the worst team in the league to the American league champions in merely one season, but will they repeat in 2009?

They had many players that contributed and numerous players that had career years in 2008. Many people have already branded the Rays as division champions, which is absurd and completely premature and here is why.

The Rays schedule will be significantly tougher this season because of their enormous improvement in record, not to mention they play in the toughest division in baseball, where both the Red Sox and Yankees made much more sufficient and appropriate upgrades to their rosters.

The Rays have one lone significant free agent signing with a 2-year,  $16 million contract, they gave former Phillies outfielder Pat Burrell, to provide them with some much needed power in the middle of their lineup, as well as a veteran presence in the clubhouse. 

But it will take more than that. They also cannot expect players such as Carlos Pena to keep having career years. Pena is an overrated product of one great season. Before he hit 46 HR’s in 2007 at the age of 28, Pena had hit more than 20 HR’s only once in his career.

He had never hit more than 82 RBIs in a season before 2007. In 2008 his stats dropped of big time, while playing in only nine less games. His average dropped .35 points; he hit 15 less HR’s and 19 less RBI’s.

The Rays already have a lack of offense and their players declining offensive numbers will not help. The Rays pitching rotation was their main reason for success last year, something that worries me because there is no way that those pitchers put up those types of performances again in 2009.

Aside from Kazmir none of the other four starters had better years in their careers than they did in 2009. Matt Garza had never been above .500 and had never won more than five games before last season.

Andy Sonnanstine went 6-10 in 2007 with an ERA approaching 6. Even last season when he went only 13-9 he has an ERA of 4.38 which means he was probably getting about 5 runs a game in run support from the surprising Rays offense.

The Rays are also looking for a solid 5th starter, a spot believed to be reserved for top prospect David Price, but those plans were moved when Tampa Bay sent the rookie sensation down to the minors.

The fact remains the Rays came out of nowhere last year to win the American League and the chances of doing that again probably aren’t very good. Yes the Rays have some great young players with a lot of upside, but they also have some veterans who performed way over expectations last season.

With this in mind there is no way that Tampa Bay can be hoping for every player on their team to have a career year again, so as they attempted to rid their clubhouse of bad spirits with the name change last year, I’m afraid to say this season the Devil will most likely be put right back in front of the Rays as they fail to make the post season in 2009.