The Rays should be the Yankees’ preferred ALDS opponent

Who do you want more? The Yankees have two potential ALDS opponents: the Cleveland Guardians, who fattened up on a bad AL Central, or the Tampa Bay Rays, a perfectly solid baseball team that isn’t all that intimidating on paper. I’m going to make the case that the Rays would be the desired matchup — the Yankees went 11-8 against their AL East rivals this season, but this is a more vulnerable Rays team than we’re used to.

To start with, this is a very middling offense. The Rays ranked 15th in all of baseball by wRC+, the league median, and seem to be particularly good matchups for the expected Yankee starters in the ALDS. Gerrit Cole, Nestor Cortes, and Luis Severino combined to throw 56.1…