I truly feel like a lot of this can be attributed to the disappointment of the way that franchise has been run the last few years. He experienced lots of team success immediately when he came to the Majors, and then the Rays have just sort of given up and shed payroll every year. Like some of the quotes from him in Marc Topkin's article above, he wants to win, and the Rays have made it clear the last few years that that is not their priority. Get him to a contending team with guys like Cain, Yelich etc on it, and I believe Archer will shine. You're right. Hitters will just stop crushing the ball on him because he's on a better team. More likely is he's starting to decline and the Rays missed their chance at getting peak value for him.