Monday, 5. January 2009
According to Ken Rosenthal, via MLB Trade Rumors, the Rays are close to signing former Phillie outfielder Pat Burrell to a two year $16 million deal. This move makes way too much sense for all parties involved to not happen. Burrell is the right handed bat that the Rays are looking for to slot at DH on a regular basis and he comes fairly cheap. The contract that’s speculated on above is a perfect fit for the Rays and their budget. I really like this move for a few reasons.
Burrell can still hit and we won’t have to watch him stumble around in the outfield too often. He comes with no baggage and seems like he would fit right in to the clubhouse the Rays currently have.This move also allows the Rays to hopefully leave Fernando Perez in AAA Durham for at least another year of seasoning.
It also would allow the Rays to put the Abreu/Giambi fiasco to bed and focus on upgrading the bullpen. I was no fan of Abreu or Giambi so it makes me pretty happy there. With Burrell coming fairly cheap as well this may put Brandon Lyon and/or Joe Beimel into the picture as I’ve so desired. It would be a lovely thing to see if the Rays jumped on one of those guys.
This move doesn’t necessarily kill the idea of Rocco returning either, even though it most likely did. If Roc wants to come back for another year as a fourth outfielder it could easily make Ben Zobrist or Gabe Gross expendable and that would be no real tragedy either.
Even without all my speculation on what this could all lead to, this is about the most sensible and logical move the Rays could’ve made at this point. All in all, a good day for the Rays.
Technorati Tags: Ben Zobrist, Bobby Abreu, Brandon Lyon, Fernando Perez, Gabe Gross, Jason Giambi, Joe Beimel, Pat Burrell, Philadelphia Phillies, Rocco Baldelli, Tampa Bay Rays
Wednesday, 10. December 2008
MLB Trade Rumors has a post up that the Rays have traded Edwin Jackson to the Detroit Tigers for OF Matt Joyce. I’ve been duped by these rumors before so I’m not reporting it as being true, but if it is I really like this move. I obviously wanted a different Tigers OF but this one really makes sense for the Rays. Joyce is a young player, 24, with a lot of upside and is a decent outfielder from my understanding. I only saw him play a couple times so it’s hard to judge, but by numbers alone I would think the 12 homers he hit in 242 at bats in Detroit would translate to around 17-19 in our stadium. This fits extremely well into the Rays plan in every way as Joyce is cheap, under team control for a few years and has tremendous upside. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a Tampa native as well either. He’s left handed, which goes against what the Rays were shopping for, but he’s young and should be able to play every day. It solves the RF problem for us in theory and opens a spot in the rotation for David Price. It looks good from a management standpoint too as the Marlins were asking for a lot more from basically the same type of player in Jeremy Hermida, but better by numbers. This move would also free up the Rays to focus on the bullpen and DH for the rest of the offseason, and that’s good considering most free agents haven’t signed yet. I like this for Edwin Jackson personally too as I think he could put up better numbers in the giant stadium in Detroit than he did here. I would like to see the Rays focus on guys like Joe Beimel, Rocco Baldelli and Pat Burrell now. I really think this creates the perfect scenario for Rocco as he could be the right handed DH as much as he could play, not be counted on too much to play the outfield and, on the nights he can’t play, Willy Aybar could handle things. On the note of Willy Aybar I would love to see him drop some weight, learn some outfield and him become the super utility player Maddon covets. I’m very excited over this move if it’s true. If not we can all just pretend this never happened, OK?
Technorati Tags: David Price, Detroit Tigers, Edwin Jackson, Florida Marlins, Jeremy Hermida, Joe Beimel, Joe Maddon, Matt Joyce, Pat Burrell, Rocco Baldelli, Tampa Bay Rays, Willy Aybar
Friday, 14. November 2008
In the spirit of trying to keep up with the goings on of the hot stove league I’ve decided to look at the possibilities and suggest five moves the Rays should make to improve their team. I will try to be as realistic as I can be while trying to view things from both sides. Let’s roll with it and see how it goes.
- Sign Joe Beimel: Starting slow and sounding as simple as possible, I know, but the addition of Beimel as Trever Millers replacement would be a huge upgrade to an already good bullpen. Beimel has done very well in the last few years with the Dodgers and, as a type B free agent, there would be no draft picks lost. Beimel could legitimately be used in more situations than just the lefty on lefty matchups if needed, but would be the ideal guy to slot in with Howell, Balfour and Wheeler in shutting teams down from the seventh inning on. There is a lot of competition out there for Beimel but I think it could be done.
- Re-sign Rocco Baldelli: One of those sentimental moves I think both sides would go for. The only problem that may arise has already started to surface. It seems that everyone is forgetting that Rocco hasn’t been able to play a full season for quite some time and he’s already being linked to Philly and Boston. If healthy I could see him bolting for a starting gig in Philly to replace Pat Burrell, but I don’t see Roc playing in Boston. Maybe it’s the homer thing here and I do know Rocco is from the Northeast, but I can’t imagine he would want to play with those guys after being on this side of the fence during his career.
- Remove Jonny Gomes from the roster: My personal favorite as we all know by now. If there is any possible way that they could trade him for anything, they should say yes. I don’t see Friedman pulling anything off like he did with Elijah Dukes (although doesn’t look that good now) but if there is something out there to be had for this guy, GET IT!
- Sign Brandon Lyon: I would love the idea of signing a Brian Fuentes but the Rays do have to be more payroll conscious than most. I’m definitely not a fan of signing Francisco Rodriguez either as he’s been abused, is erratic and is WAY overpriced. Brandon Lyon is the next best thing to me. He’s apparently willing to work the eighth inning and it would be a nice competition to see who wins the closer role between Lyon, Wheeler and Balfour. I think he could be had for two or three years as well and it wouldn’t be a disastrous hit salary-wise if he were to flame out.
- Trade Edwin Jackson, Jeff Niemann, and Reid Brignac to the Tigers for Magglio Ordonez. From slow to crazy but I think this could work. It opens the rotation spot we need for David Price, capitalizes on a prospect in Brignac who is flaming out and provides some much needed offense to the middle of the lineup. This would also stabilize our RF situation and take some pressure off of Longoria. This trade makes sense to me from the Tigers stand point as well as it gives them some salary relief, starting pitching and possible future shortstop. Ordonez is getting older and the Tigers need to get younger. They have Miguel Cabrera, Gary Sheffield and Carlos Guillen who still provide enough offense and it gives them some desperately needed arms to fill out their pitching staff. Maybe I’m crazy but this really makes sense to me.
This of course is all speculation on my part and is something I think is all possible and wouldn’t deplete the farm system. The only question here is the payroll budget. I’m no expert on the salary stuff but this would put the payroll in the $70 million range, so I don’t know if it’s truly affordable for the franchise. This is the first year I’ve ever thought about some off-season moves like this where I think they’re possible due to the team’s success. This is going to become a more attractive place for free agents to come and we should have more money to spend in the aftermath of the playoffs. Before you scoff or laugh at these ideas, think of two things. This is my first trip to the dance as far as these things go, so go easy. Also think of this roster and lineup, it looks good to me.
Lineup:
2B Iwamura
CF Upton
RF Ordonez
1B Pena
3B Longoria
LF Crawford
DH Baldelli/Aybar
C Navarro
SS Bartlett
Bench:
IF/OF Zobrist
DH/IF Aybar
DH/OF Baldelli
OF Gross
C Riggans
Rotation:
Shields
Price
Garza
Kazmir
Sonnanstine
Bullpen:
Hammel or Talbot
Bradford
Howell
Balfour
Beimel
Wheeler
Lyon
If you have any ideas, think these are bad moves or anything to add, please leave comments.
Technorati Tags: Akinori Iwamura, Andrew Friedman, Andy Sonnanstine, Ben Zobrist, BJ Upton, Boston Red Sox, Brandon Lyon, Brian Fuentes, Carl Crawford, Carlos Guillen, Carlos Pena, Chad Bradford, Dan Wheeler, David Price, Dioner Navarro, Edwin Jackson, Elijah Dukes, Evan Longoria, Francisco Rodriguez, Gabe Gross, Gary Sheffield, Grant Balfour, J.P. Howell, James Shields, Jason Bartlett, Jason Hammel, Jeff Niemann, Joe Beimel, Joe Maddon, Jonny Gomes, Los Angeles Dodgers, Magglio Ordonez, Matt Garza, Miguel Cabrera, Mitch Talbot, Pat Burrell, Philadelphia Phillies, Reid Brignac, Rocco Baldelli, Scott Kazmir, Shawn Riggans, Tampa Bay Rays, Trever Miller, Willy Aybar
