Great Infield: The 2009 Tampa Bay Rays

Given the recent return of Carlos Pena to Tampa Bay, I thought it would be a good idea to take a look back at one of the best infields in recent years, the 2009 Rays. That season, the team went 84-78, good for 3rd place in the AL East. The infield consisted of Pena at first, Ben Zobrist at second base, Jason Bartlett at short, and Evan Longoria at third. Here are their numbers (stats from baseball-reference.com):

Carlos Pena - 39 HR / 100 RBI / 87 Walks / 91 Runs
Ben Zobrist - 27 HR/ 91 RBI /.297 Average / 91 Walks / 17 SB / 91 Runs
Jason Bartlett - 14 HR/ 66 RBI / .320 Average / 30 SB / 90 Runs
Evan Longoria - 33 HR/ 113 RBI / .281 Average / 44 Doubles / 100 Runs

All four players were named all-stars, and Longoria also received a Gold Glove and Silver Slugger. This is all quite good, but when we use some sabermetrics, the infield becomes historically great. (Continue reading after the jump.)

Using some advanced statistics, we can compare this infield to any in MLB history. Here are the players' saber stats:

Pena - 133 OPS+ / 2.9 oWAR / 1.8 BatWAR / 17 Rbat
Zobrist - 149 OPS+ / 5.8 oWAR / 7.1 BatWAR / 34 Rbat
Bartlett - 132 OPS+ / 5.3 oWAR / 5.0 BatWAR / 21 Rbat
Longoria - 133 OPS+ / 4.5 oWAR / 6.6 BatWAR / 22 Rbat

Historically speaking, these four players represent:

• The only infield ever with 4 players of at least a 130 OPS+
• One of just 4 infields with 4 players of at least 17 Rbat (WAR Runs Batting)
• One of just 5 infields with 4 players of at least 90 runs scored
• One of just 13 infields with 3 players of at least 5 BatWAR

I'll be featuring more great infields in future posts.