How The Rays 'Moneyball' Strategy Finally Ruined Them

Thanks for watching! The Tampa Bay Rays have been doing a Modern Day Moneyball Strategy in MLB in 2024, and previous seasons.

#astros #mlb #documentary
Title: How The Rays 'Moneyball' Strategy Finally Ruined Them
By: Purely Baseball

[noxck]

They got ruined because Wander Franco cant keep his meat in check and Shane and the rest of their pitching staff has fallen to Tommy John and its in no way their fault they are just extremely unlucky

[thegreatcharcoal]

Typical guy who doesn’t actually know much about the rays thinks their franchise is over because of a bad 75 game stretch with their best three players being injured, a convict, or playing terrible. Not to mention a plethora of other injuries to key rotation pieces as well

[seankathman]

lol? Half of there rotation has been hurt all year and their best prospect hasn’t played all year. So I wouldn’t say it’s ruined them

[AC-wotg]

“I eat crayons”

- purely baseball, probably

[ChairmanMeow]

What do you mean "ruined them"? Its one bad season. They've shown they can rebound year-to-year so, so so, SO MANY times. Its silly to use the term ruined.

[burningphoneix]

Moneyball=On base+ cheap is such a simplification of past and present analytics its insulting.

[Bskerzero]

Billy Beane's version of Moneyball wasn't only about On base percentage and cheap players. The Moneyball philosophy is fluid not static.

[dynamicsparx]

Rays go to the playoffs 5 years in a row...'dID mOnEYbAlL rUiN tHeM?'. Rays are 4 games behind the WC and have hovered around .500 for most of the season. Moneyball doesn't protect you from injuries or 'pedophiles'. They'll be getting Baz and Springs back. They have Caminero, Aranda, Mead and Basabe coming up to help them. Rays operations have ran well despite the circumstance.

[RonFromToronto]

I don't sympathize w/ this video. The Rays had been one of the best teams in baseball for over a decade coming into this season despite being a low budget team. now they're having ONE bad season - a bad season without mcclanahan, others with injuries, and with a low-performing Randy - and we're saying their Moneyball strategy "ruined them"? No. Not at all. It's ONE season, and it's in no way their team management approaches that caused Franco to become a convict, McClanahan to need TJS, and Randy Arozarana to be umperforming.

This has been one of the most consistently good teams in baseball. We shouldn't go acting like their approach is a failure so prematurely.

[ParamoreFAV]

To say it’s ruined is a bit much. 4 of our SPs from last season are all out. It was a domino effect starting with Springs; literally 2 starts into his 2023 season, goes down. Then Rasmussen, and then McClanahan, etc. I don’t think it’s ruined; a team is trying to perform and carry a very depleted pitching staff (with Fairbanks - our best closer - going down last week or so); injuries are something you can’t just bat an eye at. McClanahan was on his way to a Cy Young, at least finishing top 3 in the race, he was that dominant. Sure hitters can perform better but in this sport; I don’t hold that much weight against hitters because these are the best arms on the planet. We are very much used to our pitching being so great and the offense being streaky. Right now, we’re just streaky. The pitching isn’t there. Had they been healthy, 95+ wins like we usually do. The title/tagline is a lot if you ask me.

The franchise isn’t ruined; if the pitchers were healthy, we’d be just fine. Yes, Franco’s situation is terrible; but the organization will be fine. This is just one bad season.

[SamOliver]

The thing is, Moneyball pretty much objectively works. Moneyball is the reason that even your average fan knows what "sabermetrics" is. The problem for the Rays is not that it's broken and doesn't work, but that the comparative advantage of being a small-market analytics-focused Moneyball team vanishes when everyone else in the league is doing it.

The Braves, Dodgers, and Astros are teams that have all employed Moneyball tactics in recent seasons to great success, and all three of them are currently or recently dynastic (and tbh, I'm not sold on the idea that the Astros dynasty is dead. 2024 might be a lost season for them at this point, but they still have mostly the same roster as last year, injuries have just ruined them). But also, all three of them are willing to spend in sometimes risky ways to get their success. They aren't necessarily as big on spending as the New York teams or the Padres and Phillies (although the Dodgers are most definitely big spenders), but they're all a lot closer to the top of the spending leaderboard than they are to the A's, Marlins, and Rays.

[walterrosado]

Last time the rays were bad they shipped out certain players and replenished their team with Glasnow, meadows, and baz. They also acquired Tommy Pham. They will do the same thing this year

[IDunno-yopq]

Rays after he makes this video: yknow what I’ve changed my mind we’re gonna be good now

[samriley]

Damn bruh one bad year and the ravens come. The entire starting rotation is injured.

[MIKELIN]

Talk about Snell being pulled too early, but the reason why the Rays won their 2nd game in that series was because Dave Roberts still believed in Kenley Jansen, when qanybody watching knew he was washed. He handed game 5 to the Rays, robbed Kershaw from being the winning pitcher in a series-clinching game 5.

[gabe]

1:27 lol how can the league wide winning % be anything other than .500?

[Neckrollios]

I think this video does a pretty good job of understanding how the Rays build a team, but I don't understand how this strategy has "ruined them". Not being able to compete with larger markets puts the team at a consistent disadvantage, especially in the postseason. That is something we can argue fairly easily. But as was mentioned in this video, this team was consistently considered one of the best in the AL the last 5-6 seasons, and won a pennant. This year, the Rays aren't doing anything different than they have... If anything, they have MORE money on the books than usual. But in this down year - which, by the way, every team has them - there are a lot of factors the team didn't anticipate. Nobody saw Wander getting in trouble with the law. Had it not happened, it's likely he is consistently a 6+ WAR player each year of his deal and is a perennial All-Star candidate. Because that did happen, the Rays had to fill the SS position by trading a player who should have been on the team this year, Luke Raley. They already had a shortage of lefty power bats, and they move on to fill the gap - not a money ball situation. They didn't account for a slow start from the 2021 ROTY and the 2023 batting champion, but that happened. Perhaps the most significant thing they couldn't account for were the injuries, that were mentioned. The Rays likely would have moved on from Glasnow anyway (which in theory wasn't a bad idea given how injury prone he was), but they wouldn't have needed to lean on Pepiot or one of their top prospects in Taj Bradley had they not had an entire rotation on the IL... And finally, this team usually has one of the best bullpens in baseball. This year, they have been off and on injured, inconsistent, and at times downright unlucky. The starters have been unusually prone to giving up home runs as well. Those are the reasons for one down year, but they do not explain how the "money call strategy has failed".

[Shemy]

This shows you just don’t understand the rays. They got unlucky, they’re not ruined forever 💀

[elijahGraham-yt]

Man the rays are going to get 90+ wins and be right in that 6th spot

[andrewgelsinger]

the rays don't do "moneyball", looking for undervalued, cheaper talent is just basic talent acquisition strategy in baseball at this point. Analytics just means information and data analysis. The stuff smart teams are doing now relates more to adjustments to swing path, release points and biomechanical shit. It's more than just "this guy has good OBP and other teams don't value that".

If you want to actually talk about why they're bad this year, maybe talk about how their generational shortstop prospect turned out to be a pedo and their entire rotation got TJ. Some of their players are underperforming but when you lose an MVP and like 2-3 top starters, you're going to struggle, especially in a mega talented division like the AL East.