ST. PETERSBURG — Historically, this is the time of year when a Rays fan begins to sweat.
You stare at the roster, and wonder if there is enough depth on the pitching staff. You count arms in the rotation, and dig through the statistics in the bullpen looking for hidden answers. Finally, you start questioning the team’s direction and, eventually, you start losing faith.
This is normal. I might even say it is healthy.
It makes you appreciate it even more when John Curtiss or Ryan Thompson shows up out of nowhere to pitch quality innings late in games. Or Emilio Pagan inexplicably picks up 20 saves. Or Sergio Romo revives his career. Or Josh Fleming goes 5-0 in his first six big-league starts.
The Rays often lead the league in doubters in February, and in ERA by October. It doesn’t turn out that way every season, but it has happened often enough to schedule your anxieties around it.
All of which is a longwinded way of asking: Do they enjoy messing with our heads?
Seriously, a week ago the Rays looked like they were woefully short of starting pitchers. Now, they have a rotation that would be the envy of baseball. That is, if we were getting ready for the 2015 season.
In a matter of days, the Rays have locked up Chris Archer, Rich Hill and Collin McHugh. Throw in Michael Wacha, whom they signed in December, and those four pitchers went 50-28 with a combined 3.41 ERA and two All-Star Game appearances in 2015. If you’re more interested in recent performances, however, two of them were out with injuries and the other two went a combined 3-6 with a 4.71 ERA in 2020.
So the appropriate response to this pitching makeover would probably be: Um, woo hoo?
I mean, it’s intriguing. And I understand the appeal from Tampa Bay’s standpoint. They’ve signed four proven veterans for less money ($13.8 million) than they would have paid Charlie Morton ($15 million) if they had picked up his contract option.
Put them together with Tyler Glasnow, Ryan Yarbrough, Luis Patino and Fleming, and the Rays will have a deep and diverse group of starters to choose from.
But they also have little hope of a starter lasting beyond the fifth inning. On a lot of nights, it could be the fourth.
None of these pitchers is remotely considered a workhorse at this point in his career. Not a single one has topped 150 innings in the majors — let alone 200 innings — since 2017.
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Explore all your optionsThe Rays certainly know this. They understand they’ll need to take it easy with Archer, Hill and Wacha, and McHugh could end up pitching out of the bullpen. In this group, Glasnow and Yarbrough are the only pitchers with even a prayer of approaching 150 innings.
If it were a mathematical equation, it would sound something like this:
Lots of arms = lots of flexibility.
The Rays are not spooked by the idea that a lot of their starters might routinely leave in the fourth or fifth inning. They see value in a soft-tossing lefty throwing four or five innings with an abrupt transition to a right-handed power pitcher coming in for the next eight or nine hitters. Or maybe starting with a right-hander who challenges hitters with high fastballs, then switching to a left-hander who keeps the ball low in the zone.
Between 2019-20, the Rays pulled their starter or bulk guy nearly 32 percent of the time before he faced hitters a third time in an outing. No other team topped 29 percent. In fact, for the rest of the American League, that average was more like 24 percent.
Yet, Tampa Bay’s ERA in 2019-20 was the best in the American League.
So, yes, the Rays have some experience pulling this off. The difference is, in the past, they could count on Morton or Blake Snell to bail out the bullpen every so often. With both of them gone, that burden will now fall to Glasnow and Yarbrough. And Glasnow has been limited to 60 and 57 innings the past two seasons due to injuries and the shortened 2020 schedule.
It may turn out that the Rays limit their number of position players so they can carry a maximum number of pitchers. There will probably be a constant shuttle from Triple-A Durham and liberal use of the Injured List.
In the end, this is what the Rays do. And they do it better than anyone.
You don’t have to like it, but it helps if you understand it.
John Romano can be reached at jromano@tampabay.com. Follow @romano_tbtimes.