Tampa Bay Rays: In With the Old, Out With the Old
On back-to-back days last week, the Tampa Bay Rays acquired the third-oldest active player in baseball, Nelson Cruz, and traded away the second-oldest, Rich Hill. The oldest active player in baseball is Albert Pujols, who was also traded this year. All three were born in 1980, which technically makes them the last active MLB players in the Generation X demographic (1965-1980).
It’s a shame the Rays couldn’t keep Hill and Cruz on the team together so they could bust out the dad jokes around Rays rookie Wander Franco, who was born on March 1, 2001 (Generation Z), back when Hill was pitching for the University of Michigan, Cruz was starting his pro career in the Arizona Rookie League, and the TV show Gilmore Girls was in its first season, sparking the commencement of a seven-season back-and-forth romance between Luke and Lorelai. Luke, of course, was played by former minor league baseball player Scott Patterson, who began his career in the South Atlantic League the year Cruz and Hill were born).
The Cruz trade was a two-for-two deal with the Twins that sent away minor league pitchers Joe Ryan and Drew Strotman and brought back Cruz and minor league reliever Calvin Faucher. Hill was traded to the Mets for reliever Tommy Hunter and minor league catcher Matt Dyer.
As written about here in April, Cruz is still going strong despite his advanced age. Through July 23, he had played 86 games and hit .293/.371/.543, good for a 143 wRC+ (meaning he was 43% better than average on offense after league and ballpark effects are taken into account). In addition to his bat, Cruz is well respected in the clubhouse and seems like a jolly good fellow, all in all. He’s a terrific addition for the contending Rays.
The trade ends the two-plus years Cruz spent with the Minnesota Twins, who I would nominate as the most disappointing team in baseball this year. In the pre-season, the Twins were expected to battle for the AL Central title with the Chicago White Sox and Cleveland Guardians. According to the FanGraphs pre-season playoff odds, the Twins were projected to win their division 48.6 percent of the time and make the playoffs 63.3 percent of the time. Now that they’re 16.5 games behind the White Sox in late July, those expectations have plummeted to 0 percent and 0 percent. Cruz was expendable on a team that’s so far out of the playoff picture, but he’ll be a free agent once again at the end of the year and could re-sign with the Twins, where he’s had great success the last three years.
Making a good impression right off the bat, Cruz homered in his first game with the Rays on Friday, prompting a pair of tweets from Sarah Langs (@SlangsOnSports) pointing out that Cruz is now the second-oldest player to homer in Rays history (31 days younger than Wade Boggs) and the third-oldest to homer in his debut with a team (behind Dave Winfield of the Twins in 1993, and Henry Blanco of the Mariners in 2013). Keep the beer on ice for a late-August celebration when Cruz likely displaces Boggs on the “oldest player to homer in Rays history” list.
Despite recently turning 41, Cruz is in his age-40 season based on the way MLB figures things. His 143 wRC+ is the third-highest wRC+ for a 40-year-old hitter with 300 or more plate appearances in a season. David Ortiz tops the list, with a 163 wRC+ in 2016. Willie Mays is second, with a 157 wRC+ in 1971. That’s it. That’s the list of 40-year-old hitters who were better than Cruz has been this season.
A big part of Cruz’ game is power. With about 40 percent of the season left, his 20 homers is tied with Hank Aaron (1974) for 10th-most by a 40-year-old hitter in a season. He’s projected by the FanGraphs Depth Charts to hit 14 more, which would shoot him into the top three behind 2016 David Ortiz (38) and tied with 1987 Darrell Evans (34).
While he continues his assault on the record books as a 40-plus player, the main priority for Cruz will be helping the Rays get back to the playoffs for a third straight season. The Rays lost in the ALDS in 2019, then lost last year’s World Series to the Dodgers in six games. Cruz’ steady and powerful bat should be a forceful stalwart in the Rays lineup of interchangeable parts.
Cruz made the playoffs in both of his recent seasons with the Twins, but couldn’t help them win a single game either time. The franchise famously has a 20-game losing streak in the post-season that began in 2004, back when Gilmore Girls was embarking on Season 5. That year, Luke and Lorelai finally get together after four years of dancing around a possible relationship, Richard and Emily separate, Michel wins a camper van on The Price is Right, and Rory flirts with Dean, who is married, and Logan, who is a rich a-hole. Meanwhile, 23-year-old Nelson Cruz was destroying minor league baseball (.326/.390/.562 across three levels). Despite his success, he was still about five years from becoming the Nelson Cruz we all know and love.
As for Rich Hill, he goes from the 2nd-place Tampa Bay Rays to the 1st-place New York Mets, which seems like it would be an upgrade on his playoff chances, but FanGraphs begs to differ. The Rays currently sport a 31.8 percent chance to win their division and an 84.4 percent chance to make the playoffs. The Mets lead the NL East by four games and have a 75.8 percent chance to win the division, but only a 77.1 percent chance to make the playoffs, about seven percent lower than the Rays. The reason is the wild card, where the Rays have a much greater chance to slip into the AL playoffs through a side door, while the Mets are very unlikely to move past two teams from the Giants/Dodgers/Padres Trifecta of Awesome in the NL West. The Mets are essentially “win the NL East or bust.” They’re hoping Hill will help get them there.
According to ESPN, the Mets projected starting pitchers heading into their game on Saturday the 24th were: Taijuan Walker, blank space, Marcus Stroman, blank space, blank space, Tylor Megill. Rich Hill will give them a fourth healthy starter while they wait for Jacob deGrom and Carlos Carrasco to come off the IL.
Hill has had an up-and-down season. He allowed 16 earned runs in 16 1/3 innings in his first four starts, for an ERA of 8.82. Despite his struggles, the Rays stuck with him and he turned his season around. Starting with a 10-strikeout game against the A’s in late April, Hill crafted a 0.99 ERA in 45 2/3 innings over his next eight starts. This included a career-high 13 strikeouts against the Royals on May 25.
June and July haven’t been as kind to Hill. He has a 5.40 ERA over his last seven starts and went from posting a 25.8 percent strikeout rate and 8.2 percent walk rate through his first 12 starts to 19.3 percent and 11 percent over his last seven. He’s also seen a drop in the spin rate on his curveball, which he throws 38 percent of the time. During April and May, Hill’s curveball had a spin rate around 2800 RPM. In June and July, it’s been more in the 2600 range. His four-seam fastball, which he throws nearly 50 percent of the times, has also experienced a drop in spin rate from an average of around 2380 RPM through his first 11 starts to 2250 over his last eight starts.
Despite his recent struggles, Hill’s overall numbers are good, but with a caveat. He has a 3.87 ERA and 1.16 WHIP, but that ERA is much lower than his 4.55 FIP, 4.54 xFIP, and 4.39 SIERA. He’s projected to have an ERA from here on out in the 4.00 to 4.60 range, depending on your preferred projection system. He’s also projected to pitch another 45-ish innings, which would give him around 140 for the season. That would be the second-highest single-season total of his career, should he get there. His career-high was a 32-start, 195-inning season with the Chicago Cubs in 2007, the same year Gilmore Girls ended its seven-year run with a tumultuous and controversial final season that was not written by the creators of the show, Amy Sherman-Palladino and her husband Daniel. Don’t get me started on that situation.
-Bobby Mueller
