The Tampa Bay Rays made another acquisition on Saturday for outfield depth, as they agreed to a trade with the San Diego Padres, acquiring outfielder Manuel Margot and minor leaguer Logan Driscoll in exchange for relief pitcher Emilio Pagan. In our opinion, this trade is not receiving enough attention from the standpoint of Tampa Bay. With the departures of Avisail Garcia and Tommy Pham, the organization had to find viable replacements in their outfield unit to pair with Kevin Kiermaier. Adding the power hitting Hunter Renfroe was a great start (ironically in a trade with San Diego back in December), who hit 33 home runs in 2019. With Margot, offense was not the focal point.
In 2019, the Rays were a fringe top-10 defensive outfield in baseball, ranking 12th in DRS and 10th in ARM (the amount of runs above average an outfielder saves with their arm). While Margot's offensive output was not substantial, as he posted in OPS of 0.691 and 12 home runs in 151 games, his defense is outstanding. In 250 fielding attempts in 2019, he ranked 6th in Outs Above Average (OAA), meaning that he has made 12 more defensive range plays than the average outfielder. From a distance perspective, Margot covered the 2nd most feet amongst outfielders in 2019 (36.5 feet). The first was Kevin Kiermaier (38.7 feet). Margot's ability to cover ground efficiently, coupled with his ability to consistently make defensive plays, makes the projected the outfield of Tampa Bay the best defensive unit in Major League Baseball.
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