Five moves the Rays should make.
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.
