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Batters
Whatever else you want to say about the Tampa Bay Rays, you can’t deny that there’s a consistent underlying structure to their rosters. They rarely have hitters ticketed for outright superstar seasons, but they always boast a stupendous amount of depth, with a horde of players every year projected to be worth between one and four wins. From 2014-2020 (the original, pre-pandemic version), ZiPS projected 185 player-seasons at four wins or greater, 69 of which started at five wins. Just five of those player-seasons belonged to Rays, and only one of those five was projected for more than 5 WAR (Evan Longoria’s 5.2 in 2014). A few teams did worse, but with the exception of the Minnesota Twins, they were all near the bottom of baseball in WAR over those seasons, while the Rays were a solid 11th.