Among the issues that led to the demise of Tampa Bay Rays last season was a serious lack of roster depth. The team battled injuries all season and never seemed to have quality replacements at Triple-A Durham. In addition, the players they obtained through waiver pickups and trades didn’t add real value to the team. The result was a team that looked and played like a second division club.
This year started out with the same devastating number of injuries but the team seemed to find quality players to step up and fill the gap. Sometimes it was a player up from Durham, sometimes it was a player back from an injury or sometimes it was a player obtained in a trade.