Nice night for the Mayor.
Attachments
-
Screenshot_20250822_213558_Gallery.jpg
Mangum, 4-5.
- Thread starter HotMop
- Start date
Jake has experienced a horrendous 2nd half of the season. He really needs to hit for the remainder of the year & finish .285 or higher to ensure he gets a roster spot in 2026
Found the true state fan. Can’t wait to **** on anything positive.
He doesn't have enough at bats to qualify but he'd currently be 25th in batting average at .283. Agreed though, he's been in the hole for alot of at bats lately. He's been in an 0-2 count way too many times lately.
Good to see him getting back in the groove. Was slumping for a little bit there.
The Rays as a whole have had a horrendous 2nd half of the season. He’s been no worse than anyone else, and is still the best all-around outfielder on the team this year.
He will be on somebody’s roster next year, whether its the Rays or somebody else. It’s unlikely that the Rays magically find 3 or 4 better outfielders in the offseason. Good chance that they let go of Josh Lowe, and build around Jake and Simpson in the OF.
And the .285 comment is straight idiotic. What if he only hits .283? OPS is what matters.
MLB dubmass here. He has a couple years pre arbitration right? Seems like a nice combo of production at a dirt cheap price. Why wouldn't he be on a roster next couple of years? Hopefully he maintains and can get a decent contract and enjoy making some money in his 30s...
It’s crazy to me that teams just outside that 6th / 7th spot have basically been counted out since end of July. Although the AL does have a few more within striking distance than the NL
Simpson has outhit him this year but Mangum better defender. Hope there’s room for both, but they’d keep Simpson. Lowe on the other hand hasn’t been good. Wild card is a long shot, but it’s doable if they have strong series against Seattle, Guardians (x2), and Red Sox. Hoping the Blue Jays have their fate sealed by the time they play the Rays, so they don’t have anything to play for.
Looks lIke he is making about $750K this season. I know minor league pay notoriously sucks so maybe he can stick around the big leagues a few more years to keep making the bigger money.
That was not my intent at all. Jake had struggled though in July & August. He hit .221 for the month of July and was hitting .222 for the month of August going into last night's game after hitting well over .315 maybe .320 April thru June. He has been incredible defensively.
Jake is a great story. He worked his butt off to get to the majors. I hope he is there for 10 years and gets a couple of big contracts.
Last edited:
When you look at offensive production, there’s not a damn bit of difference between Mangum, Lowe, and Simpson. See below. Almost identical OPS over the long haul, and overall they are generally all 3 better than all the other outfielders.
Looking more specifically at Simpson vs. Mangum, they are almost identical players offensively. Simpson is a bit faster, can stretch out a few more infield hits here and there and stretch a few more singles into doubles, but the tradeoff is that he has an even weaker power profile than Mangum. Simpson may be a 5 year starter without ever hitting a ball out of the yard.
Comparing both to Lowe, they are matching his production, but difference is they are both true rookies that are still getting their feet wet, while Lowe is a 4th year vet who should be giving them a hell of a lot more. And he’s about to get more expensive.
And if you want to know the real reason the Rays aren’t contending, look who is highlighted in red down there below. Kim is the highest paid player on the team….making $13 million this year, and he’s giving them absolutely nothing. Taylor Walls who is absolutely an elite defensive SS - that also sucks hard at hitting - has essentially matched his offensive production at like 10% of the price. And now Kim is on the IL again for probably another 10 days with back trouble. What’s worse is that the Rays agreed to pay Kim that money KNOWING that he was going to miss the first few months of the season at minimum, and it ended up being about twice that long. Just an atrocious organizational decision there. They apply that $30 million over 2 years to more help in the rotation or in the pen, and they might be leading the East or at least the wild card right now. Trading Jansen who was having a pretty damn good year at catcher was also kind of a WTF move.
Last edited:
Everything about this post is accurate except the first 3 words. You seem to get it.
I know Simpson’s stats and know the Rays’ situation with Kim. Have watched nearly every game this year. Simpson has slightly better batting stats than Mangum overall with worse power, substantially fewer strikeouts, and more steals. The WAR is the fact that he sucks defensively. He’ll get better there because he’s new to the position, but his arm strength is going to make him weaker than Mangum in the outfield long term regardless. Also only 24 and less experience batting in general, so I’d expect him to get better. All that said, I do think both are on the team next year. Agree on Lowe
Agreed. Simpson probably has the highest ceiling offensively. But in general I don’t see any reason to split hairs between him and Mangum regarding 2026 and beyond, because the Rays have no incentive to get rid of either one of them. They got 3 more years of each at dirt cheap prices. Lowe is the odd man out based on where he is in terms of years of service relative to the others….but he could also hang around for maybe 1 more year if they can’t get a deal done elsewhere in the offseason. Misner not performing up to his projection hasn’t helped them much, either. But he might be the Lowe replacement in 2026 since they already started his clock.
The bigger picture - folks should look at the lineups of the Pirates, White Sox, Rangers, and others if they think that Jake Mangum is in some sort of a fight for his life for a roster spot. He’ll be playing in MLB in 2026 without a doubt.
ETA: Just noticed that Chris Morel also hits arbitration in 2026. Chances of Morel and Josh Lowe both being on the roster next year is nearly zero. Good chance they are both gone.
ETA #2: Biggest issue that the Rays have currently is that they don’t have any outfielders that can consistently hit LHP. Simpson is the least terrible at around .670 OPS. Morel is at .580 OPS, which is oddly even worse than he’s done against RHP even though he’s right handed. Lowe is at .568. Mangum, in spite of being a switch hitter, has been the worst by a wide margin at .453 OPS against LHP.
This is the one area Jake really needs to improve. He seems to take the same approach from the right side as the left, which isn’t working. On the right side, he’s 3 steps behind his LH take-off point on these infield grounders that he can beat out for hits from the LH side. And even when he does get on against lefties, he’s neutralized by not being able to steal as easily against LHP. He needs to be trying to either walk or drive the ball when he’s hitting RH. May also want to work on drag bunting from that side from time to time as well.
Last edited: