The Best Players in Tampa Bay Rays History, Position by Position
An all-time Tampa Bay Rays team built from franchise career leaders, award winners and postseason runs, with the criteria stated and the thin spots at catcher and shortstop admitted.
The Rays began in 1998 as the Devil Rays, lost 99 games, and did not post a winning record until 2008. Since then they have been one of the most efficient franchises in baseball, with four division titles, five wild-card berths and two American League pennants through the 2025 season. What they have not had is a long list of players who stayed for fifteen years. A club that trades or loses its stars to free agency before the second contract makes for an unusual all-time team: lots of excellent players, very few big career totals.
That shape is the central problem of this article. The all-time Rays team is built from stretches of six or eight seasons, not from careers, and the franchise leaderboards show it. The best home run total in club history is 261, by Evan Longoria. The best hit total is 1,480, by Carl Crawford. No Ray has 1,500 hits for the club, and the franchise has no 300-homer player at all.
Every figure below comes from the historical record and counts only what a player did while a member of the club, through the 2025 season. The story of the franchise itself is in the history of the Tampa Bay Rays; this is the roster.
How a short history changes the rules
The method is the same one used for any all-time team: pick the best player at each position by production for the franchise, by honors won in its uniform and by length of service. But a 28-season franchise forces three adjustments.
- Peaks count for more. When the leader at a position has only 1,000 hits, the choice between a long, fine career and a shorter, brilliant one is closer than it would be on a team with a century of history. The all-time Rays lean toward the brilliant.
- Positions are loose. Several of the most useful Rays were asked to play more than one position. Ben Zobrist is the extreme case. Where a player's best-known role does not match his slot on the team, the text says so.
- Some positions have no clear winner. Catcher and shortstop do not appear in any top-eight leaderboard in the sheet. Rather than inventing a statistical case, this article names the player most associated with the club's best seasons and says that the pick is weaker than the others.
What the historical record cannot do is measure defense or put hitters from different positions on one scale; there is no wins above replacement here, no Statcast and no sprint speed. Kevin Kiermaier's value, which was mostly defensive, is therefore the hardest thing to place.
Third base: Evan Longoria
The best Ray is not close. Longoria played for the club from 2008 to 2017 and leads the club in home runs (261), runs batted in (892), runs (780) and walks (569), and his 1,471 hits are nine short of Crawford's club record. He was the 2008 American League Rookie of the Year, and he arrived in the season that the franchise won its first pennant.
The numbers also say something about the kind of player he was. A .270 batting average is fourth among Rays with 3,000 at-bats, so he was not a pure contact hitter, but he produced power and walks for a decade. His 261 home runs are 98 more than the second-best total in club history, held by Carlos Peña with 163, and his 892 runs batted in are 300 more than Crawford's second-best 592.
Left field: Carl Crawford
Crawford played from 2002 to 2010, was the franchise's first true star, and holds three club records: 1,480 hits, 409 stolen bases and a .296 batting average among those with 3,000 at-bats. The runner-up in steals, B. J. Upton, has 232, which is 177 fewer. His 765 runs are second to Longoria's, and his 592 runs batted in are second as well.
He played through the leanest seasons in the franchise's history, was still there for the 2008 pennant and the 2010 division title, and then left. On a club with longer stays he would be a franchise cornerstone; on this one, he is simply the best left fielder the club has had and the best base stealer by a very wide margin.
Center field: B. J. Upton
Upton, who played from 2004 to 2012, offers a combination that the Rays have valued ever since: power and speed from an up-the-middle position. He hit 118 home runs, collected 910 hits, drew 430 walks and stole 232 bases, all of which are top-five club numbers. Kevin Kiermaier, a defensive specialist who played from 2013 to 2022, is the alternative; he totaled 756 hits and 112 steals and won Gold Gloves, but his bat was not near Upton's.
If you built this team around fielding, Kiermaier would be the pick and nobody could argue. The bat decides it here, and the honest caveat is that glove value is the one piece of the picture that this data set cannot show.
Right field: Ben Zobrist
Zobrist played for the club from 2006 to 2014 and collected 1,016 hits, 114 home runs, 511 runs batted in and 542 walks. That is third in club hits and second in walks, behind only Longoria. He spent his Tampa years moving between second base and the outfield, and was a hybrid long before roster flexibility became a selling point. The all-time team puts him in right field because that is where his production is most useful and because the second base spot has a strong specialist, Brandon Lowe.
Zobrist is a good example of what a position-by-position list misses. A player who is competent at several positions gives a manager something that does not fit in one box, and the career totals understate it.
The rest of the lineup
| Position | Player | Years with the club | Headline numbers |
|---|---|---|---|
| C | Dioner Navarro | 2008 pennant team | no top-eight entry; named as the regular on the first pennant winner |
| 1B | Carlos Peña | 2007 to 2012 | 163 HR, 468 RBI, 460 BB |
| 2B | Brandon Lowe | 2018 to 2025 | 157 HR, 446 RBI, 415 R |
| SS | Jason Bartlett | 2008 pennant team | no top-eight entry; named as the regular on the first pennant winner |
| 3B | Evan Longoria | 2008 to 2017 | 261 HR, 892 RBI, 1,471 H, 2008 Rookie of the Year |
| LF | Carl Crawford | 2002 to 2010 | 1,480 H, 409 SB, .296 |
| CF | B. J. Upton | 2004 to 2012 | 118 HR, 910 H, 232 SB |
| RF | Ben Zobrist | 2006 to 2014 | 1,016 H, 114 HR, 542 BB |
| DH | Yandy Diaz | 2019 to 2025 | 882 H, 99 HR, .291 |
First base goes to Peña, who hit 163 home runs, drew 460 walks and had his best years for a team that was suddenly winning. The Hall of Famer in the list is Fred McGriff, who spent five seasons with the club from 1998 to 2004 and drew 305 walks, but the totals he accumulated for the Rays are not in the top eight for home runs or hits, a reminder that a plaque and a franchise record are different measures. Aubrey Huff (128 home runs, .287 average, 2000 to 2006) was one of the best hitters on the early teams.
Second base goes to Lowe, third in club home runs with 157, and his 446 runs batted in and 415 runs are both inside the top eight. Designated hitter goes to Diaz, whose .291 average is second only to Crawford's, and whose 882 hits are fifth. He played his Rays seasons from 2019 to 2025 and spent time at first and third base.
Catcher and shortstop are the two honest weak spots. The club has had catchers who were useful for a season or two, but none who piled up numbers, and the same is true at shortstop. Navarro and Bartlett are named because they were regulars on the club's first pennant winner. Willy Adames, the shortstop of the 2020 team, is also worth a mention. Treat these two choices as placeholders until someone with a longer record arrives.
The rotation: the Rays' real strength
If a franchise had to pick one thing it has done better than any other, for the Rays it is starting pitching. Five names stand clear of the rest.
| Starter | Years with the club | Franchise numbers |
|---|---|---|
| David Price | 2008 to 2014 | 82 W, 3.18 ERA (best of any Ray with 1,000 innings), 1,065 SO, 2012 Cy Young Award |
| James Shields | 2006 to 2012 | 87 W (club record), 1,250 SO (club record), 3.89 ERA, 8 shutouts |
| Blake Snell | 2016 to 2020 | 42 W, 648 SO, 2018 Cy Young Award |
| Chris Archer | 2012 to 2021 | 55 W, 1,167 SO, 3.71 ERA |
| Scott Kazmir | 2004 to 2009 | 55 W, 874 SO |
Price is the ace. His 3.18 earned run average is the best of anyone who threw 1,000 innings for the club, and his 2012 season produced the first of two Cy Young Awards won by Rays. Shields is the workhorse: 87 wins, 1,250 strikeouts and eight shutouts, more than twice as many shutouts as any other Ray. Doing that over seven seasons meant taking the ball every fifth day for most of them.
Snell won the 2018 Cy Young Award in the middle of a five-year stay, and Archer's 1,167 strikeouts are second in club history behind Shields. Kazmir is the starter of the transition, with 55 wins and 874 strikeouts for the club between 2004 and 2009, when it changed from a perennial last-place team to a pennant winner. The next names are Alex Cobb (48 wins), Jeremy Hellickson (40 wins and the 2011 Rookie of the Year Award), Jeff Niemann (40 wins) and Tyler Glasnow (526 strikeouts).
Closer and manager
The saves leaderboard is the most scattered in the sheet. Roberto Hernandez has 101 saves, the most in club history, all in three seasons from 1998 to 2000. Alex Colome has 95 from 2013 to 2018, Pete Fairbanks 90 from 2019 to 2025, and Fernando Rodney 85 in only two seasons (2012 and 2013). On a saves-per-season basis, Rodney is the clear winner, and he gets the closer's role; Colome and Fairbanks would work the ninth and eighth innings behind him.
For manager the choice is between Joe Maddon (754 wins and 705 losses over 1,459 games from 2006 to 2014) and Kevin Cash (896 and 783 over 1,679 games from 2015 to 2025). Cash has more wins, a higher winning percentage (.534 to .517) and led the club to the 2020 pennant. Maddon was in the dugout for the first winning season, the first division title and the first pennant, which came in 2008 after ten years of losing. The all-time team gives the job to Maddon for the job he did at the start, and anyone who prefers the record can argue for Cash without being wrong.
The October record
A team's best players are tested in October, and the Rays' record in the playoffs is one of reaching often and winning the biggest series only twice. They reached the postseason in 2008, 2010, 2011, 2013, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023, and the results are below.
- 2008: beat the White Sox 3 games to 1 in the Division Series, then the Red Sox 4 to 3 in the Championship Series, then lost the World Series to the Phillies, winning one game of five.
- 2010 and 2011: lost the Division Series both times, 3 to 2 to Texas and then 3 to 1 to Texas.
- 2013: won the wild-card game over Cleveland, lost the Division Series to Boston 3 to 1.
- 2019: won the wild-card game over Oakland, lost to Houston 3 to 2 in the Division Series.
- 2020: beat Toronto 2 to 0, the Yankees 3 to 2 and Houston 4 to 3, then lost the World Series to the Dodgers, winning two games of six.
- 2021, 2022 and 2023: lost in the Division Series to Boston 3 to 1, then in the wild-card round to Cleveland and to Texas, both 2 to 0.
Longoria, Crawford, Upton and Zobrist were all in the 2008 core, while Snell, Glasnow, Lowe and Diaz played in the 2020 run. For a closer look at each season, see the best Rays seasons and every October run. The Rays did not win a championship, which is the one box this all-time team cannot fill.
Where the park and the division come in
The Rays played at Tropicana Field from 1998 through 2024, a domed park with a fixed roof and an artificial surface. The sheet lists a center field of 404 feet and alleys of 370 feet in left-center and right-center, and the site's reference data records a seating capacity of 25,025. After the roof was damaged in a hurricane in October 2024, the club played the 2025 season at Steinbrenner Field in Tampa, where its home attendance was 786,750 for the year. The park's history is covered in the Tropicana Field guide.
Context also comes from the division. The Rays compete in the AL East against the Yankees, the Red Sox and the Orioles, and they are the smaller-market club in a division that also holds two of the sport's biggest brands. The comparison is easiest to see in the franchise histories: the New York Yankees, the Boston Red Sox and the Baltimore Orioles each have several generations of players with long careers in one place, which the Rays do not.
Close calls and the people who left
Because stars rarely stayed, the honorable mentions are numerous. Randy Arozarena, the 2021 Rookie of the Year, stole 94 bases for the club between 2020 and 2024 and made the leaderboard in a short stay. Desmond Jennings stole 95 in seven seasons. Wil Myers won the 2013 Rookie of the Year Award, and the Rays have had four rookie winners in all, along with two Cy Young winners. Julio Lugo (88 steals), Randy Winn (80 steals) and Rolando Arrojo, an early starter, belong on any list of the best of the lean seasons.
The most important thing the data shows is how often a name appears on the list for a few seasons and then disappears from it. Price, Shields, Crawford, Upton and Snell all put up numbers that rank first or second in a category, and each of them left the club while still in his prime. That is the shape of the Rays' business, and it is why their best players are remembered more as a collective than as individuals.
Common questions
Who is the best player in Rays history? Evan Longoria. He leads the club in home runs, runs batted in, runs and walks, is second in hits, and was the 2008 Rookie of the Year.
Does the franchise have any Hall of Famers? Fred McGriff spent five seasons with the club and is in the Hall of Fame, but he was elected for his whole career, not for his Tampa Bay years.
Why are catcher and shortstop so weak? Neither position produced a player who stayed long enough to build a record. A few seasons of solid play are not enough to reach the top eight of any leaderboard.
Why does the franchise list include Devil Rays? The club was called the Tampa Bay Devil Rays from 1998 to 2007 and the Rays from 2008, but it is one franchise, so the records run together.
How many World Series has the club won? None through the 2025 season, though it won pennants in 2008 and 2020. Both ended in defeats in the final round, as described in the history of the World Series.
Where to go next
For the live record, schedule and roster of the current club, see the Rays team page and the page for Tropicana Field. To read the story of each era, start with the Rays franchise history, and for the topic feed of news and stories, use the Rays topic page.