2021 MLB Showdown Set -- Tampa Bay Rays

z Winning the AL East and crossing the 100 win threshold for the first time in franchise history, safe to say it was a memorable season for the Tampa Bay Rays! Following up on their AL Pennant win in 2020, most did not expect the Rays to make the postseason again after losing Blake Snell in the offseason... how wrong those pundits were, as this team comfortably secured the title of the toughest, deepest division in baseball! However, the 2021 season may be most remembered for a very specific reason -- the debut of phenom SS Wander Franco (who gets a pretty amazing card below). 

Wander is the most heralded player debuting for the Rays since David Price, who put together this sick (small sample size) card almost immediately after being drafted, helping push the Rays to their first World Series appearance in 2008.

Lineup: Much deserving AL Rookie of the Year Randy Arozarena starts his career with back-to-back foils, and he kept his OBP much higher than I thought he would over a full season -- definitely another good piece for the cheapest franchise around to add to Franco. Meanwhile, the absolute legend WANDER FRANCO has a fantastic debut card.... I would expect that 340 pt card may be his worst one in the next 5-6 years! Nelson Cruz brings a fun DH card to the squad, with Lowe providing even more pop from the cleanup spot. Yandy Diaz has the build for supreme power, but Choi is the better power hitter at 1B. Mike Zunino had a super fun card too, and it'll be interesting to see if someone takes a chance on his all-or-nothing card (which has more pop on it than Salvi Perez). 

Bench:    It should not surprise anyone that the Rays bench is fairly deep! Margot definitely is almost interchangable with Meadows and Kiermaier, while Wendle provides nice versatility for drafting. I may take Phillips as a third OF because I liked him in Milwaukee (Brewer fan alert) and his picture looks awesome. I hope Meija continues to develop his hit tool for an even stronger card in 2022, he was such an exciting prospect for Cleveland and San Diego.

Rotation:    Of course, the strength of this team, the pitching.... but oddly enough, not really the rotation. Sure, Tyler Glasnow did his small sample size thing once again, putting up a Tier 1 card (as a PR card). After him, there's a trio of Tier 3 arms and a pretty weak Tier 4. They can obviously be useful in drafts, but none are "going in, I'm targeting X" kind of guys. If you play with PR, then Glasnow is the obvious exception and an early round, foundational rock of your team kind of pick.

Bullpen: Ah yes, here we go -- the real guys that are discussed when people say pitching is the strength of this team! The bullpen is, as usual in TB, absolutely loaded with Tier 2 and better arms... and they traded away their (at the time) Tier 1 closer Diego Castillo to Seattle!! McHugh and Rasmussen are fascinating as 2 IP pitchers. I recommend having a further understanding of your league's reliever usage rules before spending the 400+ points on them, but if you can go crazy with them, there's a very viable strategy there. Meanwhile, everyone else is definitely draftable, even Fairbanks with his no doubles card for only 160 pts (classic #4 arm in the bullpen to save pts on other positions)

Overall: I'll say it, I'm not really impressed with the Showdown versions of this team. The hitting is better than anticipated but starters are worse. I would definitely put them beyond the White Sox and Astros in the AL from the teams we've seen, and I may lean Yankees cards over their squad too! This just goes to show how much credit is due to their coaching and organizational staff for using this team to get 100 wins last year. Points wise, they come in at 6810 points.