Reusse: On display this weekend, the Tampa Bay Rays, masters of baseball innovation and evaluation

Spring training was underway in 2018 and there were reports emanating from Port Charlotte, Fla., that the Tampa Bay Rays were going to have a four-starter rotation and then mix and match relievers to fill the opening when necessary.

This was such an interesting change to the past several decades of major league baseball that the short drive was made from Fort Myers to listen to manager Kevin Cash and others explain the thinking.

There was even a call put in to Jim Perry, the greatest spot starter in Twins history — before he became a workhorse starter and won the team’s first Cy Young Award in 1970.

As it turned out, this was much more innovative than considering a variety of spot starters. On May 19, Cash said to career reliever Sergio Romo, “Serge, you’re going to pitch today, so why don’t you start?”

Twins manager Rocco Baldelli was a bench coach for the Rays then. He recalled that Romo’s reaction quickly went from puzzlement to enthusiasm. And he not only started for the first time after 588 relief appearances, he started again the next day.

By regular season’s end, the Rays had used an opener in 50 games. Ryan Stanek had 29 of those in 2018, 27 more in 2019.

The “opener” is back in the news for the Rays this season for a reason 180 degrees removed from 2018: They haven’t used one.

Tampa Bay came to Target Field on Friday for a July 4 late matinee that was Game 88 of the season — with Ryan Pepiot, Drew Rasmussen, Shane Baz, Zack Littell and Taj Bradley having made all but one start.

Littell, a former Twins reliever, was Friday’s starter. He is the highest paid of the fivesome at $5.72 million.

Pepiot was in on the trade that sent the terrific Tyler Glasnow to the Dodgers in 2023. Los Angeles gave him a five-year, $136 million contract.

Glasnow had been injured with the Rays. He was injured again in L.A. He’s now on a rehab assignment. He’s also averaging $25.2 million in salary per season through 2028.

The Rays are paying the five starters a combined $10.72 million in 2025. Rasmussen is due to go from $2 million to $5 million in 2026.

There’s a chance he will get paid that in Tampa Bay next season. There is also a chance he will get moved for a couple of young arms that the Rays’ massive brain trust detects as being on the cusp of being solid big-league starters.

They had the audacity to trade David Price, Cy Young Award winner and a month from his 29th birthday, on July 31, 2014.

One certainty: The Rays aren’t going to pay the tab for a pitcher when they figure they already have received the best seasons of his life. And they aren’t going to let such a pitcher go without receiving some talent of promise in return.

Tampa Bay came into the league as the Devil Rays in 1998. Vince Naimoli was the owner and they were an abomination. Vince sold off part of the team after seven losing seasons. Stuart Sternberg was the head of the ownership group and started making decisions after the 2005 season.

His first was to fire Chuck LaMar as general manager and replace him with Andrew Friedman, one of those bright young baseball men of the Theo Epstein ilk.

“Stuart decided to hire Friedman and put the Rays’ money into building the best possible department for information on players — to identify them and improve them," Baldelli said Friday.

“The Rays were never going to outspend the Yankees, the Red Sox, the teams in that division. They had to do it another way.”

Which was: By detecting and acquiring talent that might be underappreciated elsewhere.

On Friday, the Rays lost 4-3 to the Twins and fell to 48-40, the same record as the Yankees and a game and a half behind Toronto in the AL East. The Yankees’ payroll is $288 million. The Rays’ payroll is $88 million, which is actually rather generous for them.

They had to give up on Wander Franco, a great shortstop talent signed very young to a long-term contract. He was accused (and now convicted) of sexual relations with underage girls in the Dominican Republic.

Franco was an All-Star at age 22 in 2023, hasn’t played the past two seasons and presumably is done as far as MLB is concerned.

The Rays also are playing this season at the Yankees’ spring training park — Steinbrenner Field — in Tampa, since the hurricane damaged their home park … that dump of a dome in St. Petersburg.

I told Baldelli about a trip to that dome a few Januarys ago, to attend a Rays winter workout for pitchers. There were also hitters around. And there was a flea market set up across the outfield, with civilians exploring scores of cheap goods on old tables.

“None of the Rays were complaining; they just went about their business … with the pitching coach, Kyle Snyder, and others offering their sage advice," I said.

Baldelli shook his head in slight wonder and said: “That’s the thing about the Rays, from being there and now watching them. They don’t worry about any disadvantages.

“They just play.”