Rays look ready for ‘09.
Tuesday, 10. February 2009
The Rays have had a fairly busy offseason and now look pretty well set for the upcoming 2009 season. They have signed a few minor league free agents over the last few weeks to fill things out, including Morgan Ensberg. Ensberg wil most likely end up playing 3B in Durham but is a very nice low risk acquisition. He looked like an up and coming power hitter 6 years ago and hit 94 homeruns from ‘03 to ‘06. He fell off after that and has hit 13 homeruns since with Houston, San Diego and the Yankees. He could win a bench job and could be needed if injuries hit either Evan Longoria or Carlos Pena. I like the move with Ensberg.
All in all, it was a pretty good offseason for the Rays. I love the Matt Joyce/Edwin Jackson swap and I really think the Rays stole one there. Joyce will most likely start the season in the minors also as the Gabe platoon (Kapler/Gross) will hold down RF until the Rays feel he’s ready. When you look at how the Rays handle their organization they have seemingly set themselves up pretty nice. Joyce can stay in Durham and develop until either he’s ready or Gross/Kapler can’t handle the job. King David can also start in the minors and develop a little more while Jeff Niemann and Jason Hammel fight it out for the fifth starter/long reliever role. Make no mistake here as Price will take over for whoever wins this starter job, but it could work out to be a nice showcase for these guys. If someone goes down in the rotation these guys could be valuable, if not they could maybe bring a couple decent prospects back in a deal and stack up the farm system a little more. A nice situation here on the surface.
All the moves the Rays have made this offseason make sense and have seemingly improved an already good team. I also like the Brian Shouse move and think he’ll be an improvement over Trever Miller. There’s a lot of ex-Brewers on the roster, aren’t there? The Rays couldn’t be more lucky with the Bradford injury coming now either could they? Not that injuries are lucky, but it narrows down the bullpen battles in the short term and gives them another arm coming back in May or June that could step right in and be productive as we have already seen from him. I may pick on the Rays here and there for some moves, as any fan will, but it’s hard to argue with what they’ve done here and I have never gone into any prior season with more confidence and so little to bitch about as this one. It should be another great season and I am looking forward to seeing how the Sox and Yanks match up to our AL Champs.
