Rays going with four-man rotation in 2018

The Tampa Bay Rays have torn their roster down and are now going with a four-man rotation in 2018.

The Tampa Bay Rays are an organization that is known to be unorthodox. Furthermore, they have purged their 2017 roster, including former face of the franchise Evan Longoria. Now, their only good players left are closer Alex Colome, center fielder Kevin Kiermaier and ace Chris Archer. Tha means fans are likely going to see a rough 2018. The club does have a good farm system with prospects on the cusp of the majors, althought the Rays won 80 games in 2017, so they weren’t that far off from the playoffs. They also happen to be one of the best organizations when it comes to developing pitching.

Unfortunately, there is more bad news for Rays fans. As if Brent Honeywell’s UCL tear wasn’t enough, MLB-ready starter Jose De Leon is out for the same injury. He will undergo Tommy John surgery as well. Those are two of Tampa’s starters of the future, and now we will have to wait even longer to see them in the MLB. Hopefully, both pitchers will pitch better after their recoveries, for the fans’ sake. They just want to see a competitive on-field product, like every other team.

To add insult to injury, the team is going with a four-man rotation. Why? Probably to tank and gain as many losses as possible. It’s sad, but that’s what teams are doing these days. The club is only going to have four pitchers in the rotation? That’s going to put way more strain on Archer than needed, especially if they’re trading him this summer. Yes, the Rays can say whatever they want and say the team wants to win, but that’s not happening.

Here is what Marc Topkin wrote on Tampa’s mindset for the fifth day:

"Under the plans the four regular starters still will work on a standard five-day routine, but the Rays will use several of the relievers to cover the fifth day, what they will call “a bullpen day.”"

Yikes, a bullpen day. That’ll be rough. The fifth day is going to be a long, long game. So it’s still a regular workload for the starters, but there’s only four guys and bullpen on the fifth day. It’s definitely not something you see everyday, but that isn’t surprising for the Tampa Bay Rays. Maybe it’ll help bring more revenue in, who knows?

This is what manager Kevin Cash said in the article on the benefit of the four-man rotation:

"It’s a reflection of who we have available. We feel like we have a lot of good pitchers and we want to get them all their reps and not limit somebody, not get use out of that guy that gets kind of odd man out by not being in the rotation."

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That last part is weird. The club does have some talented pitchers, no question. It makes sense that they want as many opportunities for top guys like Archer. But “not get use out of that guy that gets kind of odd man out by not being in rotation” doesn’t make sense. Don’t you want that player to be in the rotation, then? Oh well, let’s see how this dumpster fire of a team does down the stretch. Cash said what we were all thinking at the end of the article about the experiment:

"Only if it works. If it doesn’t, it’s dumb."

Even the manager seems like he’s against this. It honestly feels like the Rays are trying to outdo the Miami Marlins in who can run their team into the ground first. What are you doing Tampa?