Rays need to dramatically change approach to become World Series team

Tampa Bay Rays fans have seen this movie before, and the ending always ends up the same. A great regular season, a ton of praise for being able to build an outstanding team on a shoestring budget and then a disappointing flameout in the playoffs. 

This one came at the hands of the Texas Rangers in a wild-card series that saw them score just a single run over the two games.

The problem isn't that the Rays aren't clutch in big moments, and it's not that they are simply unlucky. 

It is that their formula for success, which is centered around a roster where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, is not good enough to actually beat the big-money teams that are loaded with superstar talent. 

The Rays pride themselves on building a deep roster that is designed to exploit individual matchups and emphasize platoons. Everything is analytics-based and designed to find the cheapest talent possible. 

They do not have a single superstar on the roster. There is no one player that keeps opposing managers and pitching coaches awake at night and there is no player that drives the offense the way Ronald Acuna Jr., Freddie Freeman, Mookie Betts or Bryce Harper can. 

The Rays' strategy works great over the aggregate in a 162-game season where things will average out, and when they will get to play a lot of teams that have less talent than them. 

When it comes down to a single playoff series against a big-budget team with superstars, the whole thing falls apart. 

The problem is every team in baseball has the same analytics the Rays have at their disposal. Everybody has the same data. Teams are so good at collecting information and drilling down to find ways to exploit it that there are almost no secrets in baseball anymore. That levels the playing field dramatically and robs teams like Rays of any advantage that information might have presented for them a decade ago. 

At that point, it comes down to talent. No matter how good your platoons are, no matter how good your depth is, professional sports still comes down to having elite players at the top of the roster to be difference-makers. The Rays are always the team that doesn't have them. At that point, platoon matchups and bullpen games do not have the same effect as they might for a random June game against Kansas City. 

They find themselves in this position largely because ownership refuses to invest significant money in the roster keeping them at the bottom of the payroll rankings. 

Until they change that, and until they find a way to land a superstar or two that can change a game, they are always going to be the team that wins a lot of regular-season games and then runs out of steam in the playoffs when the competition gets better.