As the Rays hopes for postseason baseball seemed dead in the water in the 2011 season on its final day, the Baltimore Orioles hit Jonathan Papelbon hard on a rainy day in Boston, as former Rays icon Carl Crawford laid out for a dive on a flare off the bat of Robert Andino, the ball dropped, and Papelbon blew just his third save of the season, giving the Rays a chance to make magic in St. Pete. The Rays were down 7-0 through seven innings, but a six-run eighth highlighting by a three-run homerun from superstar third baseman Evan Longoria set up a remarkably improbable homerun down the left line by pinch-hitter Dan Johnson in the ninth inning, aptly earning the nickname ‘Homer-on-demand Dan’ as 2008 flashbacks of the exact same scenario ran through the minds of everybody in St. Pete, despite Johnson’s paltry 72 OPS+ in his three seasons as a Tampa Bay Ray.
With the rain delay in Boston over and the Rays being tossed a lifeline, Scott Proctor took over in the 12th inning of a tied ballgame. The Yankees still hadn’t used the greatest reliever in the history of baseball sitting in their bullpen, perhaps hoping to save him just in case they had taken the lead at any point. Proctor, the 34-year-old in his second stint in the Bronx, was unknowingly throwing in his final regular season game at the Major League level, having been a below-average Major League arm across his seven seasons. The crowd erupts as Rays centerfielder BJ Upton swings through the 1-1 pitch for strike two. The reaction wasn’t for BJ’s off balance swing as much as it was for the news that the Orioles had defeated the Red Sox, and suddenly, a game that was in its twelfth inning, had stakes. As #2 strikes out, the violins signaled an opportunity for #3.
As Tantric’s Down and Out blasted through Tropicana Field, Longo stepped to the plate looking to send Tampa Bay to the postseason for the third time in the history of the franchise. Evan Longoria, who had struggled with sliders away, saw a fastball down and away for ball one before watching the slider away to even up the count. You can see Longoria slowing breathing in the box while chewing his gum, slowing down his heart rate to juxtapose the anxiety of the moment. Fast forward to a 2-2 count, Longoria fights off the put away slider that he had been out in front on. This set up a fastball count with the game on-the-line, a pitch that, as Rays announcer DeWayne Staats exclaims, causes the Rays to storm the field. Longoria pulled the fastball down the foul line, with just enough height to sneak it over the 315 short-porch, throwing his arms in the air as he rounds first base with the biggest hit in the history of the Tampa Bay Rays.
Unfortunately, the Rays weren’t that much of a wildcard in 2011. Hall of Fame third baseman Adrian Beltre launched three homers off of Rays pitching in Game 4 to eliminate the Rays as the Rangers were well on their way to their second consecutive American League pennant. But for the Rays, a signature moment provided Longoria and the ballclub something to build off of, as the three-time All Star would soon sign a massive extension that would keep him in the Tampa Bay metropolitan area until 2022. The extension made players such as Ben Zobrist unaffordable and therefore expendable, and while Ben Zobrist would win two World Championships after leaving the Rays, Tampa Bay would not be as successful following the split with star second baseman.
While Longoria was never the main issue with an ownership group that wouldn’t spend, a front office that was so hands on that it controlled almost all managerial decisions following the departure of future Hall of Fame manager Joe Maddon, and a roster that included players such as Richie Schaffer and Mikie Mahtook in the ensuing years, Longoria didn’t necessarily help matters after inking his extension. From the time Longoria burst on the scene from his 2008 Rookie of the Year campaign that took the Rays to the World Series through Game 162 of the 2011 season, Longoria slashed an impressive .274/.360/.515 to the tune of an .874 OPS, grading 34% better than the average hitter in the American League over that stretch. Longoria launched 113 homeruns in 563 games, won two of his three Gold Gloves as a premiere defender at a premium position, and averaged out as a near 8-WAR player over a 162 game average, marking Longoria as a perennial MVP candidate through the age of 25. With his prime years ahead of him, Longoria seemed as an early Hall of Fame lock.
By age 28, Evan had already gone down to just a 107 OPS+, or 7% better than the average player in the American League. By age 31, Evan Longoria had graded out as a below-average baseball player and found himself traded to a different Bay area, the San Francisco Giants, following the first season of the extension that had hoped to keep him as a Rays lifer.
Evan Longoria was still a solid ballplayer after the 2011 season for the Rays. His overall output from 2011 to 2017 included 148 homeruns, a reliable .267/.328/.463 slash good enough for a .791 OPS. However, as players are supposed to get better in the prime, the Rays paid Longoria the richest deal in club history to regress by an average of nearly 100 points on his slash line, see his defense fall closer to league-average, and his run production crater. From 2014 onward, Longoria never graded out as the Rays most valuable player despite making more guaranteed money than most players in the lineup combined, ultimately prompting the trade for a team that continued to publicly state they couldn’t afford a certain echelon of player. Following his trade to the Bay Area, Longoria struggled for the remainder of his career. From 2018-2023, Longoria posted just 7.3 total WAR in the NL West, batting to a .247/.310/.436 slash good for an essentially average 102 OPS+, collecting just 81 homeruns over six seasons as a player whose commodity was his power.
With the regression of Longoria following an extension that pushed arguably better players out of Tampa Bay to retain him, the contract that Longoria signed for the Rays isn’t going to be remembered as fondly as one would have hoped when he’d sign it. Yet, for a team that had never finished a season at-or-above .500 over the course of a season when he made his Major League debut, the Rays finished above .500 in six of his ten years on the ballclub. Since the trade to make room for the youth movement, the Rays have won at least 90 games four times, lead MLB in wins in the COVID shortened season, and has finished below .500 only once. Since 2008, the Rays have established themselves as an organization that wins games, something they had never done before Longoria arrived. While Longoria leaves behind a legacy of a player that should have been a Hall of Famer but wasn’t, he also leaves behind a legacy that changed the cultural in St. Pete.
Evan Longoria’s overall career was an excellent Major League career in its totality. Longoria posted an OPS in the Majors over .800, won three Gold Gloves, was tabbed an All-Star on three different occasions, hit 342 homeruns, and collected over 1100 RBI while getting to play in a World Series as a rookie. That’s a career that a vast majority of Major League Baseball players would strive for, even if it falls just short of legendary.
60 WAR seems to be the standard benchmark for a Hall of Famer, with the average Hall of Famer posting between 50 and 70 WAR. The larger issue for Longoria is the same as contemporaries such as David Wright and Ryan Zimmerman, whose bodies just broke down in their prime leaving the expectation of what they delivered a tad underwhelming for their potential: they played third base. There are only 19 third baseman in the Hall of Fame, the only position without at least 20 players enshrined. Beltre, Chipper Jones, and Scott Rolen are the only third baseman in the baseball Hall of Fame born in the past 60 years. The active crop, players that Longoria played with, of Manny Machado, Nolan Arenado, and Jose Ramirez, seems to be changing the perception of how good third basemen can be, but they’re also at a higher caliber than Longoria. The seven-year-peak of a Hall of Fame third baseman averages out to 43.4 WAR, in line with Longoria’s 42.3, but the 68.9 average career WAR is 10 WAR higher than the value Longoria provided on the field. Perhaps Longoria is a committee selection down the road, seeing as his career falls in line among players selected on the veteran’s committee ballots who have a specific intangible. In this case, the intangible applied would be that Evan is the undisputed best player in the history of a franchise, something that can’t be said for Wright, and was no longer true with the emergence of Bryce Harper and dominance of Max Scherzer for Zimmerman by the time he retired.
Evan Longoria had a Hall of Fame stretch for the Rays, ended up being paid as such, and tanked his value the moment the contract kicked in. That doesn’t change the fact that the Rays were dead in the water before he came to the show, is the only player to accrue at least 50 WAR with the club, and is the franchise leader in homeruns, doubles, time on base, and runs created. His retirement announcement this morning comes with a caveat: a ceremony in June at George M. Steinbrenner Field to retire a Tampa Bay Ray. Before Longoria’s rookie season, the Rays had a lifetime 645-1,617 record. Since Longoria’s rookie season, the Rays have a cumulative 1,464-1,229 record. Longoria’s arrival coincides with the Rays turn around from doormat to legitimate contender, and for that, Longoria should be remembered. His 2011 162 game winner had been played on repeat in the trophy room for fans to watch at Tropicana Field every year since, with the exception of this year while the ballpark is out of commission due to the damage caused by Hurricane Milton.
An absolute fan favorite to this day in Tampa, Longoria seems poised to come home to enormous fanfare as the Rays play the Marlins on the 7th of June. While the Rays haven’t addressed a potential number retirement, and it’s unlikely to do so this year since they aren’t even in their home park and have nowhere to put it, #3 seems like a lock to eventually become the third retired number in the history of the Tampa Bay Rays.
