It’s long been said that money doesn’t buy happiness, but if you spend it wisely, it can certainly come very, very close. The Cleveland Guardians and the Tampa Bay Rays don’t have a lot of money relative to their MLB peers, but some good spending decisions, a little bit of luck, and a lot of strong individual performances have put these two teams on the precipice of making it to the World Series.
Per Cot’s Contracts, the Guardians rank 30th in Year End 40-man Payroll and the Rays rank 28th. Typically, money does buy wins in the postseason, but the Rays beat the Yankees and the Guardians beat an up-and-coming White Sox team that will start to get expensive as their players reach arbitration eligibility and have free agent years bought up by contract extensions. With the Brewers alive in the NLCS, we have three historically low payroll squads battling it out for a chance to win baseball’s ultimate prize. Oh, and the Dodgers, who spend more than those three teams combined.
This will not be a series that gets Major League Baseball or the television executives excited, but it is a testament to innovation, creativity and few very well-placed superstars, ironically, including one who is now the best hitter for the Rays and was acquired via trade from Cleveland. Incredibly, when all the Division Series dust settled, here we are with the top two teams in each league vying for a spot in the Fall Classic, even if the two from the AL were not really the ones that we expected.
Guardians vs. Rays ALCS Odds
Rays -170 // Guardians +140
Total Games: 5.5 (-170/+140)
Guardians vs. Rays ALCS Schedule
Game 1 @ TB: Monday, October 12, 8 p.m. ET (TBS/truTV)
Game 2 @ TB: Tuesday, October 13, 8 p.m. ET (TBS/truTV)
Game 3 @ CLE: Thursday, October 15, 6 p.m. ET (TBS/truTV)
Game 4 @ CLE: Friday, October 16, 6 p.m. ET (TBS/truTV)
Game 5 @ CLE: Saturday, October 17, 8 p.m. ET (TBS/truTV) – if necessary
Game 6 @ TB: Monday, October 19, 5 p.m. ET (TBS/truTV) – if necessary
Game 7 @ TB: Tuesday, October 20, 8 p.m. ET (TBS/truTV) – if necessary
Guardians vs. Rays Offense
Slight Edge: Rays
This is about the best-case scenario for Cleveland in terms of an ALCS opponent because the Guardians are not at an extreme power disadvantage. The Rays, on the strength of former Cleveland farmhand Junior Caminero, did hit seven more homers during the regular season than the Guardians, but that’s not bad, considering Cleveland was 27th in the league with 162 long balls. In a lot of ways, these two offenses are pretty similar. The Guardians (9.4%) walked at a higher rate than the Rays (8.4%), but also struck out at a higher rate at 20.8% to Tampa Bay’s 18.8%.
However, the Guardians only posted a .281 batting average on balls in play, while the Rays hung a .296 BABIP. That was really a huge difference between the two teams and there really wasn’t much to it other than luck. Cleveland was 28th in Hard Hit% at 34.8% and Tampa was 29th at 34.4%. Both teams had a 5.7% Barrel%. Just like how the Rays had a home run edge because of Caminero, they stole 18 more bases than the Guardians, mostly because Chandler Simpson had 46 of them.
The biggest gap between the two teams came with runners in scoring position. The Rays were fifth in wOBA at .333 with a league-leading .284 BA, a .355 OBP, and a .419 SLG. The Guardians were 25th in wOBA at .308 with a .239/.321/.387 slash. Sequencing is what gave the Rays a better offense for one reason or another. The Rays scored 736 runs and finished 12th in that department, while the Guardians scored 678 runs and were 24th, but really the only glaring difference between the two teams was performance in those higher-leverage plate appearances.
Truth be told, I’m not really sure what to make of that here in this series. There is no year-over-year correlation to performance with RISP and it is a high-variance split in small sample sizes.
However, in this particular matchup, based on the styles of the pitchers, I do have to give the edge to the Rays. Cleveland had a platoon “advantage” in 76.9% of their plate appearances, which is what a lot of small-market teams will try to achieve. The Rays are usually higher up on the list than they were this season at 60.2%. The Rays had the highest changeup usage in the league at 21.3%, 4% higher than anybody else. Cleveland was 28th in batting runs on changeups per 100 pitches and -20.5 batting runs against that pitch overall.
Outside of the luck factors, these two offenses look pretty similar on paper, but Cleveland’s shortcomings could be exposed to a higher degree in this series than Tampa Bay’s.
Guardians vs. Rays Pitching
Slight Edge: Rays
I give the Rays the edge here mostly because Cleveland needed five games to dispose of the Pale Hose. Gavin Williams was needed in Game 5 and also threw an inning in relief in Game 4. Parker Messick started Game 4. Cleveland does not have a particularly deep rotation and clearly did not trust Tanner Bibee to get a start in the ALDS. The days off really helped the Guardians through that series because they were able to use Messick and Williams twice. That is not the case here and a best-of-seven series is where you see a starting rotation advantage really matter.
My best guess is that the Guardians go with a bullpen game in Game 1 that includes Daniel Espino and Joey Cantillo. We could also see Foster Griffin feature prominently early in the series and maybe even get the Game 1 start. By Tuesday, Parker Messick will be on regular rest for Game 2. Then Gavin Williams can go in Game 3. Cade Smith and Hunter Gaddis combined for 151 pitches over the final four games of the series. Erik Sabrowski was used pretty heavily. But, on the whole, outside of Smith and Gaddis, things weren’t that bad. But, certainly not as good as they were for the Rays, who swept the Yankees and barely had to use their relievers for length.
Their rotation is also set up with Drew Rasmussen, Freddy Peralta, and Nick Martinez. Ian Seymour is also the kind of guy who can give the Guardians fits. Just like the offenses, though, the pitching staffs are not all that different on paper. The Rays had a 3.72 ERA and Cleveland had a 3.77 ERA, but the Guardians had the lower xERA by 0.11 runs and the better FIP by 0.23 runs. Tampa Bay’s pitching staff struck out fewer batters, but also walked fewer batters and did a better job from a Hard Hit% standpoint.
But, again, it was performance with RISP that made all the difference. The Rays had a league-best .256 BABIP against with runners in scoring position, while the Guardians were 24th at .306. Defensively, Cleveland was actually the better team, accounting for 13 Outs Above Average and nine runs prevented. The Rays were +6 in OAA, but had 10 runs prevented. So, sequencing was a big deal again for the Rays. That does add a degree of variance to this series that I didn’t really think about while focusing on the Guardians getting past the White Sox.
Because the Rays do have their rotation set up and have a very clear Game 1 advantage, they do get the slight edge here. I also think their pitch usage as a staff is detrimental for Cleveland’s offensive philosophy.
Guardians vs. Rays Miscellaneous Notes
The Rays were 29th in pitches per plate appearance with 3.75, while the Guardians were sixth at 3.93. It doesn’t look like a huge difference, but the Rays faced the fewest pitches in the regular season with 22,987, while the Guardians saw 24,066 pitches. Because of the contact-oriented nature of both of these teams, defense is going to be a huge factor in this series. The Rays really like to put balls in play. Guardians pitchers had 75 strikeouts in the five-game series against the White Sox, including 21 in the deciding game. If they’re not getting as many swings and misses and punchies here, they need to be buttoned up defensively.
The Rays also had one of the lowest Pull% marks in baseball, so defensive positioning will be huge in this series. Cleveland is a good defensive team in most respects, though Travis Bazzana at second base has been a bit of a liability. He’ll have to play well on the carpet at the Trop in this series.
There were only five combined home runs in the Guardians/White Sox series. Tropicana Field is not viewed as a hitter’s haven and it will get progressively cooler in Cleveland as the postseason goes along. With two teams that don’t hit the long ball, this has the chance to be a lower-scoring series, but, also, the low strikeout rates for each teams create a degree of volatility in higher-leverage plate appearances. This is very, very different from your typical playoff series.
Guardians vs. Rays ALCS Prediction
Pick: Rays Game 1/Series Double +110
I felt like the Rays at -175 were a pretty good pick for the series before Cleveland eliminated the White Sox and now we see the price at -170. The Guardians definitely exhausted their pitching staff to get to this point and I do feel like that will ultimately help lead to their downfall. That said, this is a best-case scenario for Cleveland’s offense like I said, in that the Rays are a lot like them, just that they performed better with RISP during the regular season. From a K/BB perspective, in terms of contact authority, and in terms of how the teams need to score runs, this is as equal as Cleveland is going to get in a postseason series.
Because of the heavy Game 1 line and the fact that Tampa Bay is in a better situation by being able to send out Rasmussen against a lesser arm for the Guardians, my stance on the series price hasn’t really changed. The Rays are in the -175 range for Game 1 and that’s also where the series price is. If they win Game 1, you can come back in on the Guardians at a better price if you want.
Given the look of the series for both teams, especially on offense, it’s probably going to be a series of luck and execution, at which point Cleveland is probably the value side overall, but I do agree with the pricing that the Rays are the better team and should be the one moving on. As far as pre-series position goes, my favorite pick is Rays to win Game 1 and Rays to win the series at +110, which DraftKings has listed under Game/Series Winner under the Postseason section for MLB. I do think that they win the Rasmussen game and that would make them a heavy favorite for the series as a whole.
Other series previews: Dodgers/Brewers
