Who would’ve thought that as late as Memorial Day, your Tampa Bay Rays have the best record in baseball? Not just the A.L. East or even the A.L., but in all of Major League Baseball. This is crazy! I would’ve never thought it but its’ here. This has prompted me to start looking at certain scenarios for the Rays continuous contention throughout.

  •    It might be time for the Rays to start targeting positions to improve on. First place to start for me would be RF. I think that the trio of Hinske, Gomes and Gross have done an adequate enough job but if the Rays want to compete for a playoff spot they are going to need to improve here. Depending on the asking prices of course, I would like them to start looking at guys like Jason Bay and Andre Ethier. The Rays looked at Ethier in the off season and seem to have a good working relationship with the Dodgers so maybe start there.
  •    They are also going to need a couple more pitchers. If you wanna get crazy, let’s go ahead and do it, I would keep an eye on the Brewers situation, namely Ben Sheets. If the crew fall out of contention and Sheets could stay healthy it could be a beautiful thing. It would take a nice ransom to grab Sheets, even though he is in a walk year, so maybe look elsewhere. Joe Blanton will probably be available and, if you wanna really push it, a Matt Cain may be had as well. They will also need another arm in the pen. Gary Glover is soon going to be replaced by Juan Salas I would think so hopefully the Glover experiment is over. The rest of the pen has been pretty solid so any target here will have to be an upgrade and could prove costly. This will have to wait and see for sure, especially since most relievers that will be available are going to be either injury prone, old or overpaid. Tough call here. Hopefully Salas can pitch well when he returns and if Howell, Wheeler, Percival and Reyes can hold up they may be ok here.

   Any way you cut it, it’s looking like it’s going to be a fun summer here. Make sure you keep up with the regulars in the hot stove net to see what the Rays may do. MLB Trade Rumors, Rays Index, DRays Bay.

   Hat tip to DRays Bay by the way for the Jason Bay link.

Scott Brannelly