Many people dove on to the Tampa Bay Rays bandwagon last season, after having a breakout season. However, a lot of people think it was a fluke, was it? I don't think it was.
The Rays are a very young team with outstanding depth and talent, like rookie of the year, third baseman Evan Longoria.
He showed that rookies can have outstanding leadership, taking the Rays all the way to the World Series. With 27 home runs, and 85 RBI's, he was among a small list of rookies with numbers like that.
Aside from Longoria they have talent like Carlos Pena, Carl Crawford, and B.J. Upton.
They added talent from the Twins by getting pitcher Matt Garza, and shortstop Jason Bartlett, in return for left fielder Delmon Young.
Garza, along with James Shields and Scott Kazmir will try to pitch Tampa into the playoffs again this year.
They also acquired outfielder Pat Burrell from the World Series champion Phillies this offseason. The Rays just have too much talent to be considered under-par. I believe that they are a front-runner this year to get back to the World Series, and maybe win it.
Yeah, they do have maybe the toughest division in baseball but they are better than you think. Expect the Rays to take down the (rich) Yankees, and all of their free-agents to take the division once again.
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