Eight Florida Grapefruit League teams advance to 2020 MLB Postseason

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. – When the Major League Baseball restart was being talked about  in late-July, the Tampa Bay Rays were lauded as a “Team to Watch.”  With their strong pitching, pundits said the team was made to succeed in the “60-game sprint,” to the postseason.

In early August, the pundits were scratching their heads as the Rays were in the midst of a five-game losing streak after a series sweeps by the Baltimore Orioles at Tropicana Field.  They were in fourth place with a 4-6 record.

On August 3, the Rays had a day off to regroup and from August 4-31 compiled a 21-5 record.  Tampa Bay took over first place in the American League East on August 26 and never looked back.

The Rays, who began their 2020 campaign in Port Charlotte at the Charlotte Sports Park, hold the top spot in the American League Playoffs as the number one seed of the eight-team bracket.  Five American League teams, the Rays, Minnesota Twins, New York Yankees, Toronto Blue Jays and Houston Astros advanced to the postseason after beginning their seasons in Florida.

In the National League, the Atlanta Braves, St. Louis Cardinals and Miami Marlins will represent the Florida Grapefruit League in the National League playoffs.

For the first time since 1998 when both Florida teams were in existence, the Rays and Marlins will be playing in the postseason.  It’s also the first time, the Cardinals and Marlins, who call Jupiter’s Roger Dean Chevrolet Stadium their spring training home, will appear in the playoffs together.

It’s the second consecutive year one of Florida’s two-team spring training complexes had both teams advance to the postseason.  The 2019 Champion Washington Nationals and Houston Astros began their seasons at the Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, in West Palm Beach, and concluded their seasons in the World Series.

Three Florida Grapefruit League teams, the Rays, Twins and Braves claimed division crowns.  While the Twins repeated as the American League Central champs, the Braves won the National League East for the second consecutive year, it was the first American League East crown for the Rays since 2010.

The Miami Marlins ended a 16-year playoff drought, the longest in the National League, and they are in the postseason for the first time since winning the World Series in 2003.

The Marlins were coming off a 51-111 finish in 2019 and had lost more than 200 games in the previous two years.  Entering the 2020 spring training season, they were given an 0.2 percent chance of making the playoffs.