Rays have plans to improve from disappointment of 2024 season

ST. PETERSBURG — Erik Neander understood the assignment.

In his opening remarks for Friday’s media session wrapping up the Rays’ disappointing 80-82 season, the team’s president of baseball operations said he would be happy to answer any and all questions to “see how many different ways I can say we need to score more runs, we have great prospects, we have great pitching.”

Those, indeed, were three of the main topics discussed over much of the next hour at Tropicana Field.

Neander detailed what went wrong, starting with some signs that “things felt a little off” in spring training, to early injuries to...